Journalists in Central America aren't prepared to deal with covering the violence, organized crime and drug trafficking that is moving south from Mexico, said Carlos Dada, editor and founder of El Salvador's digital newspaper El Faro and winner of the 2010 Latin American Studies Association Media Award.
Dada spoke about the "culture of violence" in El Salvador and the challenges of reporting in such an environment during a lecture at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010. His talk was part of the "Central America: Broken Democracies?" speakers series sponsored by UT's Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and the Harte Lectureship on Latin America and the Media.
"At El Faro we don't like to count dead bodies," Dada said. "We've found the only way to respond to violence is with long-format journalism -- narrative and investigative journalism."
As such, he said, El Faro is looking for resources to set up a special newsroom just to cover violence in Central America because "our first mission is to understand what's going on, and that's not easy."
Contributing to the violence in El Salvador, Dada said, is the lack of strong institutions, the lack of community, and the rampant impunity. He cited a story wherein a woman explained that her daughter was killed by her neighbor, but she was too afraid to go to the police because she had five other daughters and didn't want to lose them, too. In another case, a 16-year-old girl was raped by 18 boys, ages 11-25.
"This is violence for the sake of violence, so what do we do with these people?" Dada asked, then went on to say: "We need stronger institutions, we need more resources, we need efficient tools to have justice and a better way of life. When you turn 15, you have three choices: become a victim, become a victimizer, or you come to the United States."
In October, also as part of the series, veteran journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro of Nicaragua spoke about the challenge of democracy and freedom of the press in his country.
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.
