Adapting to the Shrinking World of Television News

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EL PASO, Texas — The entire crew stood in the studio, which is where we have our station-wide meetings. There had been rumors that the station was being sold, cutbacks were being made and people were getting fired. It turned out that the station was not being sold. However, there were cutbacks and people were fired as a result of the country’s current economic crisis. This was a good  example of the current trend in television news. With the way things are going, many jobs are being consolidated into single positions. It’s something that our station has been doing for years. The job I currently hold as a graphic artist, is essentially three jobs at other stations. And the way things are going, those stations will be following suit. All this time I thought our station was cheap, but we were really trendsetters. The consolidation of jobs is not only evident in production but in news as well. Our station has hired its first official video-journalist, which is essentially a “one-man band” reporter/photographer.

New Trend in Mexican Immigration Appears on the U.S. Border

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By Billie Greenwood

Seeking safety by immigrating to the United States, thousands of Mexicans are fleeing the violence of Juárez. They represent a new trend in Mexican immigration. Making the most of legal immigration visas available to middle and upper economic classes, some may push those visas beyond legal usage. Recent estimates of the increased numbers of new immigrants in El Paso range from 5,000 to 60,000. It is clear to see why they flee.

Tupac – the Man, the Music, the Legend

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EL PASO, Texas — I was getting ready for a 7th grade football game years ago when a newspaper was thrust in front of me. “Did you hear? Tupac got shot.”

“Again?” was my immediate reply. At this point in my life I was not as conscious of the hip-hop scene as I would be a short time later. Sure I had heard about Tupac, heard his music, and somewhat naively knew about his celebrity.

Media Report – March 1st 2010

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COVERAGE OF LATINOS
Although the Hispanic community is receiving news coverage in major media outlets, the information listeners and readers receive is often “event-driven,” with Hispanics just one of many elements. An analysis by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Hispanic Center covering Feb. 9-Aug. 9, 2009, found that 18% of the stories studied (645 out of 34,452) “contained substantial references to Hispanics. The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court gained the most news coverage, followed by the Mexican Drug War, H1N1 outbreak and Immigration.

Out of My El Paso Comfort Zone, Hitting the Big Apple Big-time

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EL PASO, Texas — Armed with my new suit, my resume and portfolio I stepped up to the plate to interview with Digitas, Team Detroit and Leo Burnett, three of the top general market advertising agencies in the country. When I received the news that I had been selected American Advertising Federation’s to be one of the 50 Most Promising Minority Students in 2010 I could not believe my luck. I thought wow free trip to New York, but it wasn’t until I got there that I really understood the magnitude of my luck. I was given an opportunity of a lifetime to join an exclusive circle of elite students. My hard work was starting to pay off, big time.

En la frontera

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EL PASO — Mucha gente me pregunta si me gusta vivir en El Paso. Lo hacen ya convencidos de que voy a decir que no. Piensan que me gustaría estar en otra ciudad, pero que bueh… caí acá. Después se sorprenden cuando digo que me encanta vivir en El Paso.

Media Report

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TOUGHER ACTION SOUGHT
The Society of Professional Journalists has issued a letter to several U.S. and Mexican officials demanding stronger measures to ensure the safety of journalists in Mexico. Since 2000, 59 have been killed in that country. The drug wars there claimed 2,600 lives in 2009, by official estimates. SPJ president Kevin Smith and its international committee chairwoman Ronnie Lovler wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States Arturo Casamitjana, and other officials, noting that as the violence increases, so does fear-motivated self-censorship. Editors and reporters from newspapers in Nuevo Laredo and Cuidad Juárez informed SPJ that they no longer publish articles “beyond what’s on the police reports.”

The complete letter and an accompanying news release can be found on SPJ’s website: www.spj.org.

Esther “La Güera” Chávez, in memoriam

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EL PASO — El 25 de diciembre por la mañana que llamé a casa de Esther a ver cómo estaba, me enteré de la triste noticia de su deceso. Su partida en este día tan significativo para el mundo cristiano y para muchas de nosotras despertó en mí una reflexión que no acabo de elaborar. Estoy segura de que no es casual su muerte, precisamente el día que festejamos el nacimiento de Cristo. Tal vez sea una nueva esperanza. Conocí a la Güera a mi regreso a Juárez a principios de los ‘90 cuando acababan de pasar las elecciones para la alcaldía en las cuales ella había perdido con el PRD. Recuerdo que me dijo que sabía que iba a perder, pero que como ciudadanas teníamos que empezar a hacer algo para cambiar al país. Al poco tiempo me invitó a formar parte del grupo 8 de Marzo y nos reuníamos en la sala de rectores de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ).  Éramos un puñado de mujeres dispuestas a reclamar igualdad entre los sexos y los géneros.

Sobre El corazón del escorpión — La primera novela de José Manuel Palacios

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EL PASO — Hay personas que se pasan la vida entera anhelando ser escritores. Para ellas, el prestigio de la palabra ‘escritor’ es enorme y ensombrece todo lo demás. Incluso la actividad de escribir. Porque se trata —esto no lo razonan: lo sienten— de aparecer ante sí mismos y ante los demás como escritor, cuanto antes, mejor, y sin que deba mediar ningún otro esfuerzo más que el necesario para lograr una buena apariencia. Son, pues, las encarnaciones de frases ingeniosas que pretenden hollar la imaginación de sus oyentes con la imagen de genio incomprendido.

What’s a Prof to Do When Students Text and Surf in Class?

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EL PASO — I do not want to be a technology police officer in the classroom yet I sometimes feel like one. I am troubled by the number of students using cell phones to text and laptops to surf the web during my lectures. This seems to be even more of an issue in larger and bigger classrooms. As UTEP’s student population grows (over 20,000 at the start of this academic year), each semester there seem to be more students enrolling in my lecture classes, and more instances of technology disrupting my classroom teaching. Early in the semester, actually on day one and week one of each class, students and I go over the course syllabi and we review the goals and objectives for each class. This is the time where I usually explain expectations in my courses, including the use of technology.

Jump Headlong Into the New World of Multimedia…

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… and gain knowledge of critical new media tools for professional advancement. Join the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Borderzine.com and the UTEP Department of Communication for a day of hand-on skills training in multimedia technology at the UTEP campus Feb. 20. Journalists, non journalists working in media and students will all benefit by learning Final Cut Pro video editing, how to create a blog on WordPress, Photoshop essentials, how to maximize social networking tools, and telling stories using audio.

I Graduated — I Finally Did It!

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EL PASO — The fall commencement at the University of Texas at El Paso in December was the first one I ever attend and it was my very own. I am a first generation college graduate, as well as a returning student.  Twenty years ago when I first attended college at the age of 18, I had no idea how high the odds were stacked up against me.  As it turns out, according to the Pell Institute only 11% of low-income, first generation students ever make it to graduation day. Being the first in my family to attend college means there was no one who had gone before me that could guide me through the tumultuous road.  It was a foreign culture I did not navigate well.  I didn’t even know what questions I to ask.   I didn’t even know that I could drop classes if I were doing poorly.  That mistake haunts me today since it still affects my G.P.A.

Only one adult in my life seriously spoke to me about going to college. It was my high school counselor who I still remember affectionately.  He is the one who had college brochures and applications sent to my house.  My grandmother, however, did not greet those brochures fondly.  She saw them as a threat to the cohesiveness of her family. Mr. Joe Jacquez from Thomas Jefferson High School, has passed away since then, but I would like him to know, even though it took a while, his efforts eventually paid off because, I finally did it!

Reporters’ Lives — and Deaths — on the Mexican Border

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EL PASO, Texas — With the constant violence in Mexico has come an increase in reporting about the ongoing drug war in Ciudad Juárez, the neighboring metropolis across the border. In 2009, more than 2,600 people were killed there. El Paso Times Editor, Chris López, has dedicated himself to following the turmoil ever since he joined the paper in 2009. “This is one of the most dynamic stories on the border — and in the country,” he insists. El Diario de El Paso, the sole Spanish-language newspaper here, also sees the importance of reporting on it because readers often have direct ties to Juárez and other parts of Mexico.

Algunas reflexiones a propósito del libro 2006: ¿Fraude electoral?

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EL PASO — 2006: ¿Fraude electoral? es, según creo, un libro necesario. Se diferencia de otros no sólo porque Jorge López Gallardo lo ha escrito socarronamente, sino también, y quizá sobre todo, porque lo ha escrito con buena sintaxis y, hablando en general, sustentándose en un criterio científico. De la primera cualidad cabe recordar que la ironía suele ser un buen utensilio contra la desesperación y la estupidez; de la segunda, que siempre hace falta el orden y la claridad expositiva en un medio en el que se publica demasiadas cosas ininteligibles. El libro es también un homenaje a los llamados ‘anomaleros’, es decir, al grupo de personas que, casi todas ellas sin conocerse entre sí y trabajando a distancia con sus propios computadores (algunas en México, otras en Estados Unidos, en Europa, en Sudamérica), quisieron verificar los datos que aparecieron el mismo día de la votación, ya que “el sistema mexicano de presentación de datos por Internet permite que prácticamente cualquier ciudadano pueda ver, capturar y estudiar los resultados parciales de la votación, mientras estos datos son generados en todo el país, o los finales, cuando el conteo haya terminado”.[1] Por lo visto, aquellos datos se expusieron al público sin imaginar que había ciudadanos que irían a estudiarlos minuciosamente.

Get an internship!

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EL PASO — I know I must sound like an overbearing parent every time I provide this career advice to students. Then I repeat the internship mantra and launch into my usual spiel: Don’t just get one —complete two or three before you graduate, ideally one where you live and another outside the area. Successful internships place you at the top of the prospect list when a job recruiter reviews your resume.  You learn to work in a professional setting in your career field.  You gain experience solving issues and conflicts that may arise in the workplace. You produce quality work, from writing a press release, to helping produce a news package or promoting a big event.

Poverty in Juarez: An Extinguished Light

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EL PASO — Juarez: a place of abundant people, a city that shares its border with El Paso, a mother of a diverse culture and tradition, and yet, a site of desperation and rampant poverty. Poverty is one of Juarez’s greatest problems, a reality that sweeps across the town like a sandstorm, seizing on its way the tender smiles and the vivid aspirations from many thousands of people. Poverty is in the fainting child who dreams of a mouthful of beans or in the search for warmth and shelter during cold winter nights. Poverty is like the subtle wind that blows outside your window; silent, constant. It is the indivisible shadow that penetrates life.

The Desert of Inspiration

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IMPERIAL VALLEY, Calif. — The U.S. Department of Education in 2003 called the Imperial Valley the most illiterate county in California. Despite that bad rap, however, this desert valley next to Mexico is home to an artistically literate community of young and old poets who say this area gives them uniquely positive and negative inspirations. “The negative is that the valley is boring, isolated and full of mean people,” said Mark Garcia, 42, a poet from Calexico, “while the positive is that it’s peaceful, slow-paced, and there are some nice people as well.  This is what I call my desert of inspiration.”

Poet Sandra Hernandez, 38, of Calexico writes, “I had precious moments, I had terrible heart breaks, I had arrogance thrown at me… In this deserted paradise I call my home”. The valley people, rather than the vast, lonely desert inspire local poets.

The Valley’s Confused Souls — A teen confronts cultural borderlines

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EDINBURG, Tex. — Has a stranger ever come up to you and asked you if you were a freak? As you can probably guess, it’s happened to me. As a naïve 8th grader, I didn’t know what to make of a question like that. Two months earlier I had relocated from Topeka, Kansas to Hidalgo, Texas; a really big change at a difficult time in a child’s life.

Life and Perils of an Aspiring Journalist on the Border

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EL PASO — As a journalism student, I don’t think I’ve ever been so humiliated as I was the other day as I was taking some video and a few photos of vehicles and people crossing over the International Bridge of the United States. In the end of October (2009), I was on the verge of completing a story for a news editing class as an assignment. In order to turn it in I needed about two minutes worth of footage mainly of the International Bridge, and to think about it, the article that I was writing had nothing to do with terrorism, Border Patrol, or even drug cartels. The story I was covering was simply about students who cross the bridge every morning to attend the University of Texas at El Paso. Anyhow, back to the morning as I like to call it “the attack accompanied with humiliation”, I walked up to where people in the US pay a few cents to walk over the bridge to Mexico.

From Uniformed Services to No Uniform?

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EL PASO — I constantly find myself going over and over the decision I made more than a year ago. After serving in the U.S. Navy for seven years, I decided to put away my flight deck boots and step into some new shoes. It’s these “new shoes” that throw me off my equilibrium and make me question myself. Up until three months ago, I started off my week knowing exactly what I was going to wear, how I’d do my hair and the extent to which my makeup would be done. I never painted my fingernails a funky shade, never highlighted my hair or had one too many drinks on a casual Sunday night.

Navidad, Navidad, Blanca Navidad…

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EL PASO — La época navideña prácticamente está a la vuelta de la esquina y como todos los años en todos los medios de comunicación empiezan a bombardearnos con comerciales y productos que debes obtener en estas fechas, haciéndonos víctimas y blancos de compañías que durante esta época decembrina se enriquecen de manera agigantada. Esto  porque  la gente al parecer tiene un gran apuro de salir y gastar hasta el último peso del aguinaldo que con el esfuerzo de todo el año lograron obtener. Recuerdo hace un mes y medio haber estado viendo la televisión cuando salió un comercial promocionando “la magia de la Navidad.” Esto me hizo pensar: ¿cuál es en realidad  la magia de la Navidad, o mejor dicho, ¿cuál es la magia de tu Navidad? Creo que este término es muy amplio y que cada persona según su situación lo interpreta de diferente manera. Para unos es un gran  regalo, para otros es un tiempo de reflexión, para otros un tiempo para estar con la familia, y para muchos otros es solo un día más.  ¿Y para ti?

Nos quedaron a deber

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CIUDAD JUÁREZ, México — Si hay alguien que admiro por su inteligencia es Yolanda. Una mujer interesada por la comunidad, la sociedad y todo lo que sucede a nuestro alrededor. A pesar de ser madre de tiempo completo y de que toda su vida ha trabajado, siempre tiene tiempo para ver los noticieros tanto de Ciudad Juárez como de otras ciudades. No hay día que no se siente cómodamente a leer el periódico enterito. Su parte favorita son las columnas de escritores, periodistas y políticos.

AL DIA Foundation Presents Awards for Excellence in Journalism Covering Latino Issues

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The AL DIA Foundation is calling for entries to its annual National Award for Excellence in American Journalism on Latino Issues. Two $10,000 awards will presented for the best examples of Spanish-Language Print Journalism and Spanish or English-Language Digital Journalism produced on American Latino issues during 2009 across the 50 states. According to the Félix Varela Award website, the purpose of the awards is to recognize any American journalist covering with excellence Latino issues in the nation today, either through Spanish-language Print, or any digital media outlet, in English or Spanish. The prizes are presented by the AL DIA Foundation, chaired by Hernán Guaracao, former president of the National Association of Hispanic Publications in the US, and founder, editor and publisher of AL DIA, a print and web-based news media organization with main offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There is no entry fee and the deadline is January 31st, 2010, for work done during the calendar year ending December 31st, 2009.

Borders Are What You Make Them to Be

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EL PASO — A year ago I was told I couldn’t get an internship because I was too young. I was a freshman at the University of Texas at El Paso, and interns should be junior or upcoming seniors. That day I made a decision that my age, or should I say lack of, was not going to limit me. I was not going to let my age become the border that would stop me from getting where I wanted to be. I’ve been a reporter since I was a freshman in high school, and the idea of not writing when I got to UTEP seemed crazy.

Life Lessons From my Mexican Mom

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EDINBURG, Tex. — My mom is very close minded. I don’t know where she got it from but I’m more than sure she passed it on to me. I can’t imagine same-sex marriages are happening. I know that’s something that might sound arrogant to some but to me, it’s who I am.

An Average Super-hero Who Knows Much About Borders

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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — I met Marvin Berry during my first week at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn. Like everyone who meets Marvin, I liked him from the start. We were roommates for two years. Watching him receive his bachelor’s degree was one of the most extraordinary days of my life.

From the ‘Other Australia’: An Austrian in El Paso

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After a month or so of experiencing severe cultural shock and asking myself whether I had really been sent to a place within the United States, I started to regard this city as the single most fascinating place I had ever been to —both from a personal perspective as well as from a professional perspective (I am a graduate student of geography).

Lessons From the Border for our Corner of the Nation

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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — When I went to college we rarely discussed immigration. Border politics didn’t enter my thoughts as I headed to Big Bend National Park on a student-run rafting trip, a last escape before graduation from Texas A&M in 1978. As we crawled into sleeping bags on the Texas side of the Rio Grande, I thought the water looked low for rafting. Later that night, Spanish voices broke the silence.

Money Management

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El Paso — It’s Monday night and as I check my bank account balance on my new smart phone ($299), complete with quick access to all the hottest social networking sites and protected by a cover embedded with a designer handbag label ($30), I wonder how I am going to stretch my dollars to make it through to my next payday —12 long days away.