Besieged journalists in Ciudad Juarez are vowing to continue covering the drug violence along the border, even after gunmen executed a second reporter from the city's newspaper last week.

The murder of the young photojournalist from El Diario de Juarez, shot in the parking lot of a busy mall on Thursday, was front-page news across Mexico. President Felipe Calderon's national security adviser denounced this week the continued killings, kidnappings and threats suffered by journalists, but offered no new information about the latest case.

The slaying of Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco, 21, comes two years after the lead crime reporter at El Diario was shot in his driveway as he was getting ready to drive his daughter to school. That crime has not been solved, and little work on the case has been done. A prosecutor assigned to the case was also fatally shot.

On Sunday, El Diario published a remarkable and bold front-page editorial addressed directly to the warring drug lords who are fighting for control of the city and its lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

"We don't want to see more dead," the editors wrote. "We don't want to see more wounded nor do we want to be intimidated. It is impossible for us to do our job under these conditions. Tell us, then, what you expect from us, as a newspaper?"

They added, "This is not a surrender. This is about a truce with those who have imposed the force of their law in this city, so that you will respect the lives of those who dedicate themselves to the job of informing the public."

The editorial led some news organizations to report incorrectly that El Diario was cutting back on its coverage of the drug war. The reporters and editors at the newspaper said this week that it was just the opposite.

Many news organizations in drug hot spots in Mexico have all but stopped reporting about the cartel violence.