By Dean Graber
Judith Torrea, a Spanish-born reporter, has covered U.S.–Mexico border issues such as the drug trade, immigration, and border policy for nine years. She was attracted to Ciudad Juárez since her first visit 12 years ago, despite its naming by a Mexican watchdog group as the world’s most violent city.
Last September, Torrea created a blog, Ciudad Juárez, en la Sombra del Narcotráfico (Ciudad Juárez, in the Shadow of Drug Trafficking), as an outlet for stories that she can’t always get published in traditional media.
In an interview published this week by Peruvian journalist Esther Vargas (whose own blog, clasesdeperiodistas.com has a rich mix of information for Spanish speakers), Torrea says her blog has already had several positive results. It’s attracted attention from editors who have wanted to publish her posts. It’s given her the chance to experiment with her writing. And it makes her feel closer to her readers.
Read this interview with Torrea and visit her blog here. Google translate can make both accessible in English.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
