Border reporters, Angela Kocherga and Hugo Perez, reporting from Boquillas, México. Kocherga was part of a panel of border journalists that shared their experiences covering immigration. (Courtesy of Angela Kocherga)

Experienced border journalists share tips for covering tough immigration stories

EL PASO – Radio journalist Mónica Ortiz Uribe related how she was deeply moved when she witnessed the detention of a an undocumented woman from Guatemala who had crossed the border into Brooks County in South Texas with her two small children. “I had never seen an apprehension… that really struck me immensely,” said Ortiz Uribe. “She looked at me and I was standing with my microphone and my headphones, and she’s pleading saying ‘please tell them not to send me back’ and all of a sudden all this imagery exploded in my head… what has this women had gone through?”

With a chuckle, she added that she would never make it as a border patrol agent because “I’d probably have said to the woman, ‘No, no, váyase señora, váyase. It’s O.K. I didn’t see you.’”

Ortiz Uribe, who reports for the public radio news outlet Fronteras Desk, was one of four local journalists who cover immigration on an ongoing basis and discussed their experiences during a training workshop Immigration from the Border to the Heartland last week at UTEP for 20 radio, broadcast, online and print journalists. The workshop was sponsored by the McCormick Foundation and hosted by Borderzine.com.

The McCormick Specialized Reporting Institute will be heald in El Paso on September 26-29.

U.S. journalists selected for September immigration reporting workshop at UTEP

EL PASO – Borderzine.com has selected a diverse group of 17 online, print, broadcast and Spanish-media journalists to attend the McCormick Specialized Reporting Institute on Immigration on the UTEP campus September 26-29. Chosen from a diverse pool of 76 applicants from throughout the United States, those selected include freelance journalists and represent a good mix of geographic and ethnic diversity. Three UTEP student journalists will also receive scholarships to attend the workshop. During the three-day training the journalists will learn how to mine data and access other research to develop compelling and in-depth stories about immigration in their local communities. They will also learn about immigration policy and legislation from national experts, tour the border fence, learn how border journalists cover the issue and participate in a town hall meeting with local immigrant community leaders at Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe in the predominately immigrant Segundo Barrio community of El Paso.

Angela Kocherga and her partner, photographer Hugo Perez, won two Emmys at the 9th Annual Lone Star Emmy Awards. (Mariel Torres/borderzine.com)

Belo TV journalists Kocherga and Perez win awards for border coverage

EL PASO – TV reporters covering the U.S.-Mexico border require passion, strong investigative skills and survival skills on a beat that has claimed thousands of lives in a ruthless drug war. Angela Kocherga and her cameraman Hugo Perez, who have covered the violent border for the Belo Border Bureau for the past six years, won the 9th Annual Lone Star Emmy Awards Crime-News Single Story category for their story on Juárez paramedics. Working for the Belo Corporation, one of the largest television companies in the nation, which operates 20 television stations, the Kocherga-Perez team covers stories on drug war violence, immigration and cross border health issues and how all this affects people on both sides of the border. Their featured stories are aired in various stations throughout Texas. The award-winning story revealed the everyday risks the paramedics of Ciudad Juárez face while trying to save lives.