Breathe
By Claudia Pérez Atamoros
Today, at Opinión 51, we are celebrating, so we are celebrating. Yesterday, it was announced that the National Journalism Award for Lifetime Achievement will be presented to Soledad Durazo Barceló, our Soledad, our General Editor, teacher of generations of journalists (25 years), among whom I count myself, proud, very proud for more than a decade. Her professional quality is of excellence. Her dedication to her profession is total. Her gift of sorority and empathy is cooked separately.
Summarizing her long journalistic career is not easy. With a degree in Communication Sciences from the University of Sonora, a specialist in communication and management from the Complutense University of Madrid and a master's degree in public administration from the Sonora Institute of Public Administration, Soledad Durazo has more than 35 years of uninterrupted work in radio, television, press and internet. She currently hosts Soledad Durazo in Fórmula Sonora and is the general director of the portal with her name. She has hosted TV AZTECA's Sonora newscast, Larsavision's newscast and has written for several newspapers.
In the history of the National Journalism Award that began in 1976, when the State played judge and part of the designation and delivery, only two women were recognized for their years of work and dedication, they were: In 1983, Magdalena Mondragón, the first woman to sign the 8 columns in a newspaper and in 1999, Sara Moirón, the relentless and impeccable news chief of Channel 13 in the 80s.
The new stage, now without the black hand of the government, which began in 2001, has not done justice to the journalistic trajectory of women either. From 2001 to 2012, not a single woman won the award in this category. Already in 2013 Elena Poniatowska was recognized; in 2015 to Sara Lovera López who, by the way, recently became the first gender editor hired by a journalistic medium; in 2016 it was awarded to Blanche Petrich. And it took a blank year to award it again, in 2018, to two women with long and successful work, Elsa Medina and Cristina Pacheco. The following year, 2019, Alma Guillermoprieto received it and, until now, in correspondence the 2023 awards, just for her career and also doing justice to journalism practiced from other places distant from the capital, decentralizing and recognizing the exercise of informing and communicating of journalists who reside in other states of the country, to Soledad Durazo.
In the 48 years of existence of the National Journalism Award, there are about 500, more or less, who have been distinguished in any of its categories and only about 80 women have obtained it and of them, only 9 have had their trajectory recognized. Tell me if this is normal. What about parity?
The history of women in journalism is the history of our time, a permanent history. Of injustice and inequality. They were there from the beginning. They reported and recorded every moment of human endeavor in Mexico and the world.
They were relegated and used at convenience. Their notes were published but credited to a man, or without a byline, or under a pseudonym. As a woman, the journalist was "second fiddle". Many of them chose to dedicate themselves to the social, cultural or entertainment areas, even to cover the red note because that was where they fit. For years they were co-hosts alongside a man. Alone, no name!
They looked at them with disdain. For them, the quartering to which they were subjected was the way to sneak into the world of newsrooms full of well-groomed macho men. Some of them indolent, others rude and a few of them supportive.
They created newspapers and magazines and did not abandon those of their gender. They published voices that spoke of gender parity, life choices and the possibility of professional education. They meddled in men's affairs. They talked politics, editorialized, and even caricatured the moments.
One of the first and most diligent researchers on women's journalism, María del Carmen Ruíz Castañeda, asked herself as early as 1956 why all that women had contributed to journalism was not recognized, why they were ignored. She pointed out that there was an absolute gap in the recognition and naming of women journalists as reporters, pioneers, founders, editors, directors... and that this gap had existed since the origins of national journalism. This invisibility, she argued, made it seem as if women had never collaborated in Mexican journalism.
He pointed out that we, the journalists, should be the ones to publicize the work of each and every one of them. And so it has been. Ruíz Castañeda became an expert in women's journalism; and then came a group of young women reporters interested in the subject who would eventually become important researchers such as Elvira Hernández. And later, those of us who grew up listening to stories, legends and myths about this or that "fellow journalist", developed an interest that has touched the limits of fanaticism in order to clarify their lives.
I think of them and imagine them trying to make their way, making decisions, always questioned, renouncing privileges, harassed at work, misunderstood, living in solitude... to end up forgotten and ignored.
Why do we know so much about male journalists, even in detail, why do we know their exact dates of birth, publication, training and key moments in their careers, and about them we are content to put "his date of birth is unknown, it is not known if he had children, it is believed that he was born in, apparently he studied... or worse, we dedicate ourselves to reproduce the little that is known without making any additional effort to provide accurate data and moments in their lives and even to make visible many others who contributed so much?
Let us also say that, to the misfortune of some of them, others have been so lucky that over the years we not only visualize them, but we have become so enamored with their lives, forgetting a lot of workers of the press, of everyday journalism, who have worked as the greatest because being a woman and a journalist, in their times, was not a piece of cake.
As it has not been for Soledad Durazo, an enemy of complaint. But for whom the journey to achieve her goals has not been flat, but very meritorious.
Even today it is a constant contempt for the work of women and journalists: either because she is a housewife or because she is "a welfare whore", or "she needs a good fuck to learn or to get revenge...". Nothing frightens us anymore, neither the outbursts, nor the vulgarities, nor the horde of attacks for having our own opinions and asserting them. It is not for nothing that Opinion 51 was created.
By the way, today, there is a discount and what a discount! for those who celebrate with us the award of our dear Soledad and subscribe to Opinion 51.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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