2020

Team of South American reporters to focus on GMOs in project on nutrition, biotechnology and food production

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Andean Agriculture

At the Crossroads of GMOs

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Mara Brugés

Daniel Meza

Tania Orbe

Ximena Serrano

Team of South American reporters to focus on GMOs in project on nutrition, biotechnology and food production

InquireFirst is pleased to announce that a team of journalists from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador has been awarded our fourth and final 2020 reporting grant for a regional project on nutrition, biotechnology and food production story which they will produce as part of our Historias Sin Fronteras initiative to encourage cross-border reporting on science, health and the environment.

A partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Department of Science Education, Historias Sin Fronteras has awarded four grants to Latin American journalists for cross-border projects since its launch in 2020.

The South American team selected for this grant is comprised of Ximena Serrano, a science journalist who serves as president of the Colombian Association of Journalism and Communication of Science; Daniel Meza, editor-in-chief of the science and technology news site N+1 and founder of the Peruvian Association of Science Journalists; Mara Brugés, a science writer who is coordinator of scientific dissemination at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia; and Tania Orbe, a journalism professor at the Universidad San Francisco in Quito and the Ecuador correspondent for the science and development news site SciDevNet.

In response to our call for proposals, Historias Sin Fronteras received numerous project proposals focused on nutrition, biotechnology and food production. Our international panel of judges singled out the proposal by the South American team, which focuses on the contentious issue of GMOs.

“Decisions regarding the use of GMOs are especially important in an agricultural powerhouse like Latin America,” the judges wrote. “We felt this project would give this story the nuanced, evidence-based treatment it deserves.

“This a story that has more than just pro/con stakeholders, so we look forward to hearing all the diverse perspectives and the impact ranging from environment to economic as well as health,” the judges noted. “Given the background of the journalists on this team, we’re confident the piece will be nuanced and grounded in science.”

The project will be published in March 2021.

Iván Carrillo, editor-in-chief of Tec Review magazine in Mexico and co-founder of Historias Sin Fronteras, will serve as project editor. Carrillo is part of the 2016-2017 generation of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. He is a contributor to National Geographic and the Latin American editions of Newsweek and has collaborated with the Discovery Channel and CNN en Español.

InquireFirst will be issuing additional calls for proposals in 2021. By supporting this regional initiative, InquireFirst and HHMI’s Department of Science Education aim to convene, inspire and encourage the work of science writers in Latin America.
Through our support of collaborative projects, we hope to strengthen the network of experienced Latin American science writers by providing them with reporting resources and new outlets where they can publish their outstanding work.

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South American team awarded InquireFirst reporting grant for environmental project

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Trapped

The pink dolphins of the Madeira River

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Eduardo Franco Berton

Gustavo Faleiros

South American team awarded InquireFirst reporting grant for environmental project

InquireFirst is pleased to announce that a team of South American journalists has been awarded our third reporting grant for a regional environmental project which they will produce as part of our 2020 initiative to encourage cross-border reporting on science, health and the environment by Latin American journalists.

A partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Department of Science Education, our Historias Sin Fronteras project was launched in February and will award four grants this year to teams of Latin American journalists for cross-border reporting projects.
The South American team is comprised of two journalists – Gustavo Faleiros, founder of InfoAmazonia in Brazil, and Eduardo Franco Berton, founder of Red Ambiental de Información (RAI) in Bolivia.

Faleiros specializes in data-driven reporting. In 2012, he launched InfoAmazonia, a digital map that uses satellite and other publicly available data to monitor the Amazon rain forest. He helped create the Amazon Communications Network, which trained journalists and produced 200 stories about environmental issues in the region. He was twice selected as a Knight International Journalism Fellow for his work to promote data literacy and geojournalism.

Faleiros began his career at Valor Economico, Brazil’s largest financial newspaper, and has also worked at the Brazilian environmental news site O Eco. He has also written for publications such as Scientific American, The Guardian and Folha de S. Paulo. Faleiros earned his master’s degree in environment, politics and globalization from King’s College London and a degree in journalism from the Catholic University of Sao Paulo.

Franco Berton is an environmental journalist and nature photographer with 10 years of experience. He began his career as a lawyer, specializing in environmental law for conservation organizations. In 2016, he founded RAI, a news platform on environment, conservation and environmental sciences with the mission of giving voice to biodiversity and vulnerable groups in Bolivia and Latin America.

He has focused on investigating wildlife trafficking, environmental crimes and overexploitation of natural resources in Latin America. In November 2019, he received an honorable mention in the Latin American Prize for Investigative Journalism COLPIN 2019, for his investigative work titled “A Trip to the Jaguar’s Black Market.” This year, he will be recognized with an honorable mention in investigative reporting during the Society of Environmental Journalists 2020 Award for his story published in National Geographic, titled “Poaching Threatens South America’s Only Bear Species.”

In response to our call for proposals, Historias Sin Fronteras received numerous project proposals focused on water and/or ocean conservation. Our international panel of judges said that each of the proposals demonstrated the experience and creativity of the Latin American journalists who participated. 

The judges singled out the proposal by the South American team, calling it “an exciting exploration” of the multi-faceted and complex issue of large-scale water projects and the danger they present to the environment. “Supported by infographics and other multimedia elements, we look forward to seeing how this story comes together,” the judges said.

The project will be published in February 2021.

Iván Carrillo, editor-in-chief of Tec Review magazine in Mexico and co-founder of Historias Sin Fronteras, will serve as project editor.  Carrillo is part of the 2016-2017 generation of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. He is a contributor to National Geographic and the Latin American editions of Newsweek and has collaborated with the Discovery Channel and CNN en Español.

By launching this regional initiative, InquireFirst and HHMI’s Department of Science Education aim to convene, inspire and encourage the work of science writers in Latin America. Across Latin America, science journalism plays a vital role in providing rigorous and current information to increasingly diverse audiences. Through our support of collaborative projects, we hope to strengthen the network of experienced Latin American science writers by providing them with reporting resources and new outlets where they can publish their outstanding work.

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InquireFirst awards reporting grant to Central American team for regional health project

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Coronavirus in Central America

Voices of the Scientific “Dissidence”

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Marcela Cantero

Beatriz Benítez

Evelyn Boche

Moisés Martínez

InquireFirst awards reporting grant to Central American team for regional health project

InquireFirst is pleased to announce that a team of Central American journalists has been awarded our second reporting grant for a regional health project which they will produce as part of our 2020 initiative to encourage cross-border reporting on science, health and the environment by Latin American journalists.

A partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Department of Science Education, our Historias Sin Fronteras project was launched in February and will continue throughout the year with the awarding of four grants to teams of Latin American journalists for cross-border reporting projects.

The Central American team is led by Marcela Cantero, a science and health journalist with more than 20 years’ reporting experience. For 16 years, Cantero reported for La Nación, covering international conferences on cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. She is now a contributor to La Voz de Guanacaste, the first nonprofit, bilingual newspaper in Costa Rica.

Joining Cantero on the team are:

  • Moisés Martínez, an award-winning investigative journalist and political editor at La Prensa in Nicaragua
  • Beatriz Benítez, political news coordinator at the online magazine GatoEncerrado.news in El Salvador. Before joining GatoEncerrado, Benítez worked in the Political section of Diario El Mundo and later worked at La Prensa Gráfica
  • Evelyn Boche, journalist for the Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico, with 10 years of experience in investigative reporting. Before joining elPeriódico, Evelyn worked at the daily newspaper Siglo Veintiuno and ContraPoder magazine. In 2011, she did a professional internship in Madrid as part of the Balboa Program for Young Ibero-Americans.

In response to this initiative, we received numerous regional health project proposals. Our international panel of judges said that each of the proposals demonstrated the experience and creativity of the Latin American journalists who participated.

The judges singled out the proposal by the Central American team, calling it “an ambitious, multi-platform reporting project.”

“The proposal is timely and embodies the idea of a cross-border journalism effort,” the judges said. “The team is made up of great, diverse reporters who bring their skills together to do the job.”

The project, which focuses on the regional health challenges posed by Covid-19, will be published in late July.

Iván Carrillo, editor-in-chief of Tec Review magazine in Mexico, will serve as project editor.  Carrillo is part of the 2016-2017 generation of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. He is a contributor to National Geographic and the Latin American editions of Newsweek and has collaborated with the Discovery Channel and CNN en Español.

By launching this regional initiative, InquireFirst and HHMI’s Department of Science Education aim to convene, inspire and encourage the work of science writers in Latin America. Across Latin America, science journalism plays a vital role in providing rigorous and current information to increasingly diverse audiences. Through our support of collaborative projects, we hope to strengthen the network of experienced Latin American science writers by providing them with reporting resources and new outlets where they can publish their outstanding work.

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InquireFirst launches Cross-Border Science Journalism Project in Merida, Mexico

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Divided and Dangerous

Bolsonaro’s highway to connect Brazil and Peru

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Alexa Vélez

Fabiano Maisonnave

InquireFirst launches Cross-Border Science Journalism Project in Merida, Mexico

MERIDA, Mexico – InquireFirst is pleased to announce our first regional reporting project which will be conducted by two South American reporters as part of a new initiative to encourage cross-border reporting on science, health and the environment by Latin American journalists.

A partnership with The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Department of Science Education, the Cross-Border Science Journalism Project was launched in February with the awarding of financial support to Fabiano Maisonnave, Amazon correspondent for the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, and Alexa Vélez, senior editor for the online environmental news site Mongabay Latin America.

The project proposed by Maisonnave and Vélez was selected during an environmental investigative journalism workshop organized by InquireFirst in Merida, Mexico from Feb. 16-20, 2020. The project, which focuses on the environmentally sensitive Amazon, will be published in May 2020.

Maisonnave, who is based in Manaus, Brazil, has been reporting from the Amazon for the past three years.  As an international journalist, his reporting has taken him to 32 countries and he has reported from Caracas, Washington, D.C. and Beijing.  Maisonnave has a master’s degree in history from the University of Connecticut and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2016.

Vélez is the senior editor of Mongabay Latin America, a media organization headquartered in Lima, Peru that focuses on global environmental issues. Founded in 1999, Mongabay has teams of journalists in the United States, Indonesia, Latin America, India and Brazil.  Vélez’s work has been recognized with numerous reporting and editing awards.

The editor of the project is Iván Carrillo, a science journalist with more than 20 years of experience as a writer, editor and television anchor. Carrillo is part of the 2016-2017 generation of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. He is an independent contributor to National Geographic and the Latin American editions of Newsweek and has collaborated with Discovery Channel and CNN en Español.

In 2020, InquireFirst will issue three additional calls for cross-border reporting proposals. In March, the editorial focus will be on health, in May the focus will be on water and/or ocean conservation, and in July the focus will be on nutrition, biotechnology and/or food production.

To ensure credibility and fairness, an international panel of judges will select the winning team in each category.  The winners will be announced on InquireFirst.org.

By launching this regional initiative, InquireFirst and HHMI’s Department of Science Education aim to convene, inspire and encourage the work of science writers in Latin America.  Across Latin America, science journalism plays a vital role in providing rigorous and current information to increasingly diverse audiences. Through our support of collaborative projects, we hope to strengthen the network of experienced Latin American science writers by providing them with reporting resources and new outlets where they can publish their outstanding work.

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A collaborative cross-border science journalism project organized by InquireFirst

With the support of