A woman posts photos of murdered journalists during a national protest in Mexico City on January 25, 2022. (AP)

On Saturday, a Mexican journalist was fatally shot in a store parking lot in Acapulco, a popular tourist town in the southern part of the country. This incident marks the second killing of a journalist in Mexico within a week.

Authorities have initiated a homicide investigation into the death of Nelson Matus, who served as the director of the news outlet Lo Real de Guerrero. Matus was attacked while entering his car in a thrift shop parking lot. The Guerrero State prosecutor's office has expressed its commitment to thoroughly investigate the case.

Having worked as a journalist for 15 years, Matus focused on reporting on violence. The country's press freedom organization, Reporters Without Borders, stated that over 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, often as a result of their coverage of the country's powerful drug cartels.

In another incident, the body of journalist Luis Martin Sanchez, a correspondent for La Jornada newspaper, was discovered with signs of violence after he had been reported missing. La Jornada, a left-leaning newspaper established in 1985 in Mexico City, has previously lost two prominent correspondents, Miroslava Breach in 2017 and Javier Valdez in the same year.

The prosecutor's office reported that Sanchez was one of three active or former journalists who had been abducted in the western state of Nayarit. His body was found in a village near the state capital with two cardboard messages attached to his chest, although the content of the messages was not disclosed.

Another former journalist, Osiris Maldonado de la Paz, was recently kidnapped from his home in the town of Xalisco, while a third abducted journalist was later found alive.

According to the government, there were 13 journalist killings reported in Mexico in 2022 alone, highlighting the prevailing issue of impunity for crimes against journalists in the country.