The violence against journalists continues in Mexico, where two reporters, Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocio Gonzalez Trapaga were found dead yesterday in a Mexico City park. Both were naked and bound, with strangulation marks on their necks. Viveros was the co-founder of the political magazine Contralinea, while Trapaga was a former Televisa reporter, according to Tracy Wilkinson of the LA Times. Viveros and Trapaga are the seventh and eighth journalists known to be murdered this year in Mexico.

More from Wilkinson:

Although dozens of journalists have been killed, kidnapped or threatened as part of Mexico’s spiraling violence, this appears to be the first time news media employees have been slain in the relative safe harbor of Mexico City.

It was not immediately known whether the attacks on the women were related to their work. The treatment of the victims followed the pattern of hits ordered by drug gangs.

The LA Times‘ Daniel Hernandez Tracy Wilkinson has the awful story of Mexican journalist Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, who was shot to death while he slept last night in his Veracruz home. His wife and son were murdered alongside him.

From Wilkinson:

Lopez Velasco, 55, wrote a regular column for the newspaper Notiver, one of the largest in Veracruz state, and served as a top editor. His columns frequently highlighted government corruption or detailed matters involving drug trafficking and other crimes and violence. He often skewered politicians, police and criminals, whoever he thought deserving of criticism, colleagues said.

“Everyone knew him or knew of him,” Gerardo Perdomo, head of the Veracruz Commission to Defend Journalists, said by telephone from the city. “He was very critical. He told the truth.”

Velasco was the second journalist killed this year in Veracruz and the 70th in Mexico since 2000. The family’s home was only two blocks away from a police station.

*Hernandez tweeted Wilkinson’s item and we read the piece without glancing at the byline, assuming it was his. We regret the error.

The Los Angeles Times continues its winning streak with a 2011 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for their coverage of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. From editor Russ Stanton‘s newsroom memo:

The Times’ winning entry in the international print category showcased the work of reporters Joe Mozingo, Scott Kraft, Tracy Wilkinson, Tina Susman, Ken Ellingwood and Mitchell Landsberg and photographer Liz Baylen.

All were themes of our reporting on the disaster in Haiti. Among the highlights were Joe’s heart-rending story about a mother’s quest to save her child from a cholera epidemic, Scott’s piece on an 11-year-old street urchin surviving on wits alone in the days after the quake, and Liz’s gallery of still and video images that showed how one survivor struggled to master an artificial leg and then rebuilt his ruined home with scraps of wood and sheet metal.

The RFK Journalism Award “honors those who report on issues that reflect Robert F. Kennedy‘s concerns including human rights, social justice and the power of individual action in the United States and around the world.”

Rut-Ro. LAT Creeps Us Out: The one word you don’t want to see next to a link for an obit? “Video.” But we swallowed hard and clicked the link about the death of Iwao Takamoto, the creator of Scooby-Doo. We were relieved to find it was just a poorly enunciated KTLA clip about Takamoto’s career.

King of the World Gets Off His Duff: James Cameron is set to film his first feature since 1997′s Titanic. It is unfortunately not Aquaman, but a sci-fi film called Avatar, which uses that kinda icky performance-capture animation technique used in Monster House and The Polar Express. Titanic turned Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet into stars. So learn these names now: Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana. You’ll probably be seeing a lot of them.

And Now For Something Important: Tracy Wilkinson has one of those pieces today that remind you why anyone is in this business. She explores the topic of honor killings in Turkey — in great and sometimes gruesome detail.