We’re off to a great start in 2020 with our first-ever environmental investigative journalism workshop on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
On February 16, more than 20 science and environment journalists from the Amazon and Andean regions of South America and from cities throughout Mexico will arrive in Yucatan’s capital city of Merida for our four-day workshop.
We’d like to thank our sponsors — the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and National Geographic Society – for their support of our regional environmental workshop.
During this special edition of our science, health and environment program, InquireFirst will provide Latin American environmental journalists with intensive training on issues related to climate change, biodiversity, clean water and air, environmental policies and the impact of deforestation in the Western Hemisphere.
Journalists will participate in interactive sessions on new techniques for conducting environmental investigative journalism, as well as data journalism and fact-finding protocols. A strong emphasis will be placed on climate change and its impact on Latin America, as well as making global problems understandable and relevant at a local level.
A key session during the workshop will be a visit to a biological reserve on the Yucatan Peninsula to meet with farmers trying to end centuries of deforestation and rely on ecotourism as a means to generate income. Our discussion will focus on the economic and environmental viability of this effort to rescue critical areas of forest from destruction.
Join us via Facebook and Twitter @inquirefirst as we travel to Merida for this unprecedented science journalism program!
Sponsors
Medellín & Cali, Colombia
Lausanne, Switzerland
Mexico City
Fullerton, Calif.
Guayaquil, Ecuador
Palo Alto, Calif.
San José, Costa Rica
México City
La Paz, Bolivia
Gabriela Minjares, an investigative journalist who is co-founder of La Verdad de Juárez in Ciudad Juárez, México, reports that her news organization received a grant in June 2019 from the International Center for Journalists which is providing seed funding and technical assistance to develop new business models to ensure the economic sustainability of La Verdad de Juárez. Gabriela credits InquireFirst’s February 2019 Transparency and Investigative Reporting Workshop with providing her with new ideas which she and her colleagues included in their successful grant proposal.
Aldo Benítez, deputy editor of the in-depth Sunday section of La Nación in Asunción, Paraguay, conducted a 4-day workshop at the Escuela D Periodistas in May-June 2019 during which he taught Paraguayan journalists the tools and techniques he learned during InquireFirst’s February 2019 Transparency and Investigative Reporting Workshop. The subjects he covered included interview techniques and ethical treatment of sources; steps for reporting and writing an investigative report; and cybersecurity protocols.
Lucía Mimiaga, editor of the Investigative Unit of El Debate in Culiacán, Sinaloa, produced a documentary about femicides and the disappearance of women in Mexico which generated a high number of views on the newspaper’s FaceBook page. Lucía says the interview techniques she learned during our Transparency and Investigative Reporting Workshop helped her with the delicate and sensitive interviews needed for this project.
