On 12 February, the Coalition for Human Rights in Development organised a regional exchange meeting with independent media and citizen journalism initiatives to strengthen the strategies of communities that do, or seek to do, community journalism in the context of territorial struggles.
We heard reflections from the following journalists from the region:
- Melisa Vida | Global Voices (International)
- Laura Santos | Saltapatrás (Mexico)
- Wendy Juarez | Hackeo Cultural (Mexico)
- Juana García | Milpamérica Resiste (Central America)
- Mariana Aquino | Revista Cítrica (Argentina)
- Rafael Freire | A Verdade (Brazil)
- Javier Arroyo Olea | Resumen.cl (Chile)
During the webinar, we discussed the role of free media in contexts of defence, specifically socio-territorial and environmental struggles. We talked about the importance of community journalism, not only to highlight specific struggles, but also to contribute to a critical regional and global perspective that helps us better understand the trends that affect us.
The journalists also shared strategies from their own experiences in confronting the mass media and corporate media in the machinery of extractive models. Although economic and political elites have always controlled the flow of information, the digitisation of the media and the ubiquity of social networks have accelerated and amplified the dissemination of extractivist and mercantilist narratives.
Among the journalistic methodologies highlighted were the vision of understanding community journalism as a pedagogy and the need to report on cases of multidimensional injustice.