Authentic Journalism Celebrates 10 Years

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My dear friend, Al Giordano, a long-time journalist and community organizer, is a very busy man.

He writes a very popular progressive blog, "The Field", reporting on politics in the United States and Latin America.

He publishes an online newspaper, "The Narco News Bulletin", featuring more in-depth articles on Latin America.

He runs a yearly school for non-traditional and independent journalism students from around the globe, "The School of Authentic Journalism."

Al is celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the School for Authenic Journalism...

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April 14, 2010

Please Distribute Widely

Dear Reader,

Ten years ago this week, an innovative project of online journalism began to break the information blockade in this hemisphere.

The journalistic project of Narco News is that of authentic journalism, one in which the people from below are the protagonists of the story. And in April of 2000 Narco News surged forward with this goal: to give voice to those who are denied it by commercial journalism.

For ten years, we have seen on the pages of Narco News how a project of authentic journalism created the spaces where real information could circulate and arrive to our screens. After thousands of reports and kilometers traveled in the hemisphere, the project also works to expand the authentic journalism model, and has created spaces of teaching and horizontal learning, as its founder Al Giordano designed. From there came the School of Authentic Journalism.

In 2003 the first School took place on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. The following year another was held, that time in Bolivia. Two years later, covering the Other Campaign in Mexico, Narco News packed its work tools to travel throughout Mexico and report what the local people in every state had to say during the zapatista tour of the country. The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign turned out to be a huge school of authenic journalism for dozens of companions that accompanied the caravan.

This February of 2010, the third School of Authentic Journalism occurred, once again in Yucatán. This time I had the chance to attend with another 69 companions from all over the world. Beyond the process of communion and colectivity that we experienced during those ten intensive days of training in the the skills of authentic journalism, the horizontal learning experience was invaluable.

For ten days we share our experiences in the art of journalism and came out of it being part of journalism’s renaissance and with a great responsibility for our communities: to report what is really happening in the street and share these experiences.

The 2010 session of the School of Authentic Journalism is already showing results. Numerous written and video reports fill the pages of this newspaper, where we share the lessons learned during the School. From distinct corners of the globe reports continue to come from the authentic journalists who were there, from Haiti, Egypt, Palestine, the US, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and more. At the end of the day, that’s the goal, that the truth becomes bigger throughout the world. And having this goal we need that these spaces continue to be opened. The School of Authentic Journalism and Narco News are two of those spaces.

I have spent the last year working for Narco News. After reading its pages for the past ten years, entering the project was a great opportunity to submerge myself in authentic journalism and, at that, in the transformation of not only the media but also of the world.

Something else that has surprised me is the level of involvement and participation by the readers we count with in this project. Narco News and the School of Authentic Journalism are in a process of mutual aid, one of things commercial media most lacks. The reader is the foundation stone of this projct.

That’s why on this 10th anniversary of Narco News ‘ authentic journalism we turn to you, kind reader, to continue supporting the newspaper and its school, so we can continue training people from throughout the world to bring information to all of us, and so that authentic journalism becomes reborn in every corner of the planet.

Our world needs it.

Please make a contribution online here:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org

Or send a check to:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism

PO Box 241

Natick, MA 01760

Thank you very much, 

Fernando León

Spanish Language Editor

Posted via web from The DSpot Redeux Blog