[2] Zeta, which was founded in 1980, is one of the few publications that frequently reports on organized crime, drug trafficking, and corruption in Mexico's border cities.

During her time there, Jesús Blancornelas, a well-known Tijuana investigative journalist, came to lecture in the college, and Navarro asked him for a job covering politics for his magazine Zeta.

[4] Blancornelas died of cancer in 2006, leaving control of the magazine to Navarro and his son, César René Blanco Villalón.

[6] As the magazine's new director, Navarro continued Blancornelas' tradition of high-risk reporting on organized crime, stating that "Every time a journalist self-censors, the whole society loses".

[4] She oversaw an investigation of former Tijuana mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, whose guards had murdered Zeta columnist and co-founder Héctor Félix Miranda.

[3][9] In January 2010, US law enforcement notified Navarro of death threats from the Tijuana Cartel, causing the Mexican government to assign her seven soldiers as bodyguards.