Ricardo Monlui was yesterday leaving a restaurant with his wife and a son in the town of Yanga, outside the larger city of Cordoba, when a man who appeared to have been waiting shot Monlui twice, and then fled, said local police chief Carlos Samuel Hernandez. The wife and son apparently were unhurt.
Monlui is at least the 11th journalist to be slain in just over six years in Veracruz state, but the first since former Gov Javier Duarte quit last year and vanished in the face of corruption charges. New Gov Miguel Angel Yunes, who took office in December, expressed indignation at the killing.
Hernandez said officials are trying to identify the killer and are not yet sure of a motive.
The Washington-based Committee to Protect Journalists has said Mexico is the most dangerous part of the hemisphere for journalists and Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico, has been the most deadly part of Mexico.
The committee says 86 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992, 37 of them for motives directly related to their work and 49 for reasons not yet clear.