Breathe
By Diana Juárez Torres, co-editor of the Journalistic Research Unit of UNAM. She was editor of the gender perspective portal La Cadera de Eva of La Silla Rota. She studied a master's degree and doctorate in Communication at the Universidad Iberoamericana. She now teaches journalism at Anáhuac and UAM Xochimilco.
I met Sofía Ramírez in a documentary project to which I was invited, she is in charge of the research and I am in charge of the script. Since I joined the team as co-editor of the Unidad de Investigaciones Periodísticas de la UNAM, "la UIP" as it is known, we connected without saying it, we knew that we were going to look at journalism in a particular way, looking to tell a story beyond the data. The UIP is a program that belongs to Cultura UNAM that seeks to train students who want to dedicate themselves to various fields of journalism, I will explain later what I mean.
I located Sofía because she published stories with a particular angle in the UIP portal, Corriente Alterna. One was about "Gato Haru", a kitten that was adopted by the feminist collective Q'CCHeros from the Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades (CCH) Vallejo campus. Two weeks after his arrival, the kitten was killed, he had signs of torture. His death occurred at a key moment, when the students denounced a professor for gender violence. La del Gato Haru tells us a story of impunity within the school camp, it was Sofia along with another of her classmates, Santiago Reyes, who narrate this story.
Sofía wanted to be a journalist, but she studied intercultural development and management at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at UNAM. Her dream was cut short in high school, when Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) was president and declared the war on drugs. The number of deaths against journalists tripled during his administration from 22 in the previous six-year term, increasing to 48, according to Article 19 records.
Sofia's dream of becoming a journalist was revisited when she was accepted into the Third Generation of IPU students. She had a conflict with academic language, wondering how she was going to reach other readers outside this circle.
-When I joined the PIU, a whole world opened up to me. I found that part of doing rigorous research in a friendly way, the adrenaline of investigating things, of listening to people.
What is your story?
The UIP is looking for students to become reporters and publish in Corriente Alterna, the UIP's portal. Although, as its name suggests, its proposal is an alternative to the practices of the established media, that is to say, to go beyond the daily news, if it is done, it seeks to give it depth. By addressing an issue that will become a long-form report, it encourages a critical look and tell a story, how is this achieved?
The continuous question of the head of the IPU, Emiliano Ruiz Parra, writer and journalist, is "what is the story?" As simple as it seems, what is the story we want to tell behind the data? What is the story with which we are going to connect with the people who read us? Of course, also contextualize it, strengthen it with data and diverse voices. Not only that, take care of its narrative, that the reader is hooked, retake a genre so forgotten in the media: the chronicle.
Not only that, Eduardo Cordero, another of UIP's reporters, of the current generation, delved into the stories that arise from the mismanagement of the Bicentenario Landfill, located in the town of Los Ailes in Cuautitlán Izcalli, State of Mexico. She tells us about the adversities that are experienced, packs of hungry dogs in the streets looking for food, children with eye and skin infections, mothers who help their children to cross the landfill to get to school, are some of the stories that she takes in her report to evidence this problem.
The IPU training program lasts 10 months, and reporters receive monthly support for their travel expenses. They are formed in groups of five people and are led by a mentor. The current mentoring group is made up of María Luisa López, Alejandro Castro, Carlos Acuña and Sergio Rodríguez Blanco, who guide their teams in the construction of their texts, like an editor. Afterwards, the students seek placement in the working world, if they wish to do so.
-When I left the IPU I felt helpless because I had no journalistic training. It makes me uncertain not knowing if I can make it in journalism with little experience, my only journalism training was the one I took at the UIP and a few workshops. I didn't want to give up journalism, but it wasn't going to be that easy either, I applied to several vacancies. I stayed in one to support the editorial area and due to the budget it was closed. On several occasions, Emiliano Ruiz Para, head of the UIP and author of Golondrinas, has said that other spaces have opened up for journalism, such as series or documentaries, which is what I meant by other fields at the beginning of the text. There we have that of the great Diego Enrique Osorno with the launching of the series El show: Crónica de un asesinato (The show: Chronicle of a murder). So I say to my dear Sofía, from the creation of a documentary, you are also doing journalism.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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