Citizen Journalism Under Threat

CIVIL LIBERTIES

- Billy Binion

"THEY FIGURED THAT this would shut me down," says Priscilla Villarreal. "But what they did was create a monster."

Villarreal is a journalist in the Texas border town of Laredo. She is at the center of a legal battle with significant First Amendment implications. Villarreal doesn't work for a newspaper or magazine, nor does she have a perch at a TV station. Rather, she livestreams her reporting online, infused with her signature profanity-laced commentary.

Known in Laredo as "Lagordiloca" (which translates to "the fat, crazy lady"), she's a celebrity there, famous for her irreverent, muckraking approach, which often sees her broadcasting directly from crime scenes and traffic accidents. In 2024, she announced a write-in campaign for Laredo City Council.

Not everyone finds her endearing. In 2017, law enforcement—who had often been the target of Villarreal's critical reporting—arrested her after she broke two relatively benign stories: one concerning a Border Patrol agent who had committed suicide, the other relating to a family involved in a fatal traffic accident.

"They were just looking for something to arrest me," Villarreal says. "Because I was exposing the corruption, I was exposing them being cruel to detainees....They were doing things they weren't supposed to."