Veteran journalist attacks the trade in Latin America

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Mexican journalist and authorAlma Guillermoprieto, a contributor to publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, has a pretty low opinion of journalism in Latin America, according to an interview with the Mexican newspaper Milenio.

As we’ve reported repeatedly, journalists working in the region suffer persecution and harassment, and Mexico is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.

Ni Modo. Guillermoprieto maintains that no matter what the conditions many journalists are working under, they still need to have standards, and she believes that journalism in the region is practiced with ‘low rigor and a lack of imagination.’

Guillermoprieto, author of books such as ‘The Heart That Bleeds: Latin America Now’ and ‘Dancing With Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution,’ says in the interview:

The newspapers in Latin America, I’m sorry to say, are not very good. There are limited exceptions. The young, often brilliant reporters complain about their editors, their salary ... and rightfully so. But they are not tremendously imaginative in proposing texts and focuses dealing with reality. The Latin American reality is infinitely rich; it’s magic and amazing. Latin American journalism misses discovering how to transmit that. The world is there to discover, and it’s all there to write about. But they don’t commit themselves fully to that. Nor do the Latin American newspapers suggest every day which are the six themes that can change a country, a city.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City