The crisis facing Oaxaca’s local media forced Mexican journalist Nadia Altamirano to juggle as many as five news jobs. Now she is putting those skills to work at the family business.
For nearly four years, Mexican journalist Nadia Altamirano’s days began at her family’s stationery and office-supply store in Villa de Etla, Oaxaca. She took her daughter to middle school and, by 7 a.m., was already behind the counter, surrounded by markers, cardboard paper sheets and educational charts.
When she didn’t have customers, Altamirano swapped the counter for a computer and became a reporter again. She wrote stories for the local newspaper Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca, where she produced up to three a day. At the time, she also contributed to two radio newscasts and edited a gender-focused news website.
In the afternoon, she left the papelería — as these businesses are known in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries —, she took off her apron, put on her heels and headed to a local television station to anchor the evening newscast(opens in new tab).
Altamirano’s last job in the media was as the evening news anchor for the local public broadcaster CORTV. (Photo: Screenshot from CORTV on Facebook)
“I remember that at one point I had five jobs. And if one opportunity closed, another one came along,” Altamirano told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “Unfortunately, here in Oaxaca, local media outlets don’t offer decent salaries. You have to keep looking and juggling jobs.”
Oaxaca is one of the Mexican states where the media crisis fueled by the closure of traditional news outlets(opens in new tab) has further eroded journalists’ working conditions. To survive, many have tried different survival strategies, from launching their own digital outlets(opens in new tab) to looking for other sources of income outside of journalism.
Altamirano was one of those journalists who turned to a side business to make ends meet. From 2021 to 2025, she combined reporting, interviews and investigative work with document printing, photocopying and laminating. At first, she did it to help her mother, who founded the business, while she dealt with health problems. But as journalism became increasingly precarious, the family business grew into more than a side job.
Little by little, Altamirano began stepping away from journalism as her responsibilities at the store and at home limited her time. Last year, after her journalism-related jobs were down to her work at Noticias and her television anchoring duties, she said the newspaper started paying her late. For several months, she received only partial payments at irregular intervals. She supported her two children with what she earned from the papelería and the television station.
The situation became especially difficult in June 2025, when her daughter fell ill with dengue. Altamirano had to care for her, run the stationery store and write stories for Noticias without knowing when she would be paid. Eventually, it became too much.
“The stress of taking care of her, writing the stories and not knowing whether I was going to get paid made me say, ‘No, I can’t do this,’” she said.
Altamirano called the newspaper’s manager and told her she would not write any more stories until she was paid what she was owed. She stopped working for the outlet and did not receive her final outstanding payments until December.
LJR contacted Noticias to ask about the outlet’s financial crisis, but had not received a response by the time this article was published.
“It was that combination of personal and family circumstances, along with the broader context, that made me say, ‘This can’t go on,’” Altamirano said.
She remained in television for a few more months, until April of this year, when she left following changes in the station’s management. That was her last journalism job, but not the end of her connection to communications.
The papelería bears Altamirano’s name. Her mother, Ignacia Diaz Villafañe, named the business “Nadia” after her first daughter, who was born around the same time the store opened.
“My mom became an entrepreneur when that word didn’t exist,” Altamirano said. “She worked at [another] stationery store while she was pregnant. Then I was born, and she had to go back to work, but she couldn’t anymore because she worked in the city [of Oaxaca]. So her employer suggested that she open a stationery store here where she lived, and he would help her do it.”
The journalist’s mother founded the stationery store in 1980 and named it “Nadia,” after her firstborn daughter. (Photo: Papelería Nadia on Facebook)
Altamirano and her sister grew up in that store, surrounded by school and office supplies. The business gave both of them the opportunity to pursue professional degrees.
While her sister became a teacher, Altamirano went into journalism, initially drawn to the profession by her fascination with radio. At one point, she enrolled in a print journalism workshop and discovered a way to tell stories about things many people haven’t experienced firsthand and, at the same time, to leave a record.
Even after she took on more responsibilities at the stationery store, Altamirano never lost her journalistic curiosity. For years, she found sources and story ideas from chatting with customers.
“I would chat with them and say, ‘You know, I’m also a journalist. Would you let me tell your story, or would you be willing to give me an interview?’” she said. “In dealing with people this way, my different jobs began to merge.”
One of those conversations led to one of the stories that stayed with her the most. In 2023, a woman came into the stationery store to print a document she needed to visit her son in prison for the first time. He was incarcerated for femicide.
“She told me she was going to visit her son, who had killed his partner, and that she was taking care of her granddaughter,” Altamirano said. “It was shocking. I had never had a conversation with the mother of someone who had committed femicide.”
Altamirano wrote a story(opens in new tab) based on what the woman told her, including how it had taken her nearly a year to decide to visit her son because of the resentment she felt over what he had done.
Altamirano realized that people tended to be more open about their problems at the stationery store than they were when she was working as a reporter.
“They open up more here because sometimes I ask them, ‘How are you?’ and many people don’t expect that question,” she said. “Sometimes people carry so much that they are looking for a catalyst to talk or someone to listen to them. And for me, finding those stories was incredibly rewarding.”
In June 2025, around the same time Altamirano left her last job as a reporter, the family’s papelería celebrated its 40th anniversary. For the occasion, Altamirano and her sister finally decided to create a Facebook page for the business(opens in new tab), after considering it for several years.
At first, the page only featured photographs of the store’s products. Then they began posting videos. At a convention for school-supply brands, Altamirano recorded Reels featuring interviews with suppliers.
“I thought, ‘I’ll make these videos. Since I know a little bit about editing, I’ll record them, edit them and post them,’” she said. “And that’s how I started.”
Altamirano posts the “Papetips” reels on Facebook every week, featuring historical facts and information about products sold at her family’s stationery store. (Photo: Screenshot from Papelería Nadia on Facebook)
A journalist colleague later suggested that she turn the Reels into short informational segments about historical events related to the store’s products. She called them “Papetips” and now publishes them every Friday.
She soon realized that the videos performed well. Their views range from 3,000 to 12,000. With support from her colleague, Altamirano writes the scripts, interviews people, records and edits the videos. She knows this is not journalism, but she is happy she can still apply the skills she built during 26 years in the news industry.
“Life is bringing me here with a wealth of knowledge and skills — I say this humbly — and I think, ‘I have to use them here,’” she said.
Altamirano has done some collaborations with supplier brands and is open to doing more. She even has an idea to launch a video podcast featuring interviews at the stationery store.
“For anyone who appreciates and values my work, I may be open to collaborations, but they have to be well paid,” she said. “I’m not doing anything for free anymore. Because all work has a cost.”
Altamirano said it is difficult to imagine her returning to print journalism, given the crisis facing the few traditional media outlets that remain in Oaxaca and the multitude of content creators competing for audiences.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m open to it, but I’m not longing for it.”
This article was translated with AI assistance and reviewed by Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera
