Americas

March 19th, 2013  |  By Mary Stucky

An Orchestra of Guns

Electric Guitar by Pedro Reyes Courtesy of Lisson Gallery, London; Photograph © Ken Adlard

The United States and Mexico share deep personal, economic, geographic and cultural connections, but understanding — on both sides of the border — is often limited by stereotype and media exaggeration.  Round Earth Media is out to change that. We launched in 2005, with a bounty of stories from Mexico, supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Now, in a groundbreaking new collaboration and with generous support from the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, Round Earth Media is pairing young American and Mexican journalists, to produce powerful, untold stories from Mexico.  These stories are broadcast and published in top-tier media, reaching huge audiences in both countries.  Here’s our latest, broadcast on NPR.  Mexico City artist Pedro Reyes is in the process of converting thousands of narco gang weapons seized by the government into musical instruments. Click HERE to listen.

February 19th, 2013  |  By Mary Stucky

Transforming Guns into Musical Instruments

Mexico City artist Pedro Reyes is in the process of converting thousands of narco gang weapons seized by the government into musical instruments.  Mexican reporter Omar Sanchez de Tagle, paired with American reporter Marlon Bishop, produced this story as part of Round Earth’s Mexico Reporting Project.  Omar’s story appears in Animal Politico, a major Mexican investigative news website.

To read this powerful story in Spanish, view photos and a video, click HERE.

Our untold stories, published and broadcast in top-tier media, reach huge audiences in the U.S. and in the countries where we are reporting.


February 7th, 2013  |  By Mary Stucky

High-Tech Manufacturing Driving Economy in Mexico: The latest from Round Earth’s Mexico Project

Mexico City's ubiquitous VW bug } Photo: Marlon Bishop

Mexico was once known for cheap manufacturing. But as that sort of business has fled to Asia, Mexico has concentrated on auto manufacturing and other higher-tech industries.  From Marlon Bishop and Javier Risco, on PRI’s The World.

If you’ve ever been to Mexico City, chances are you’ve sat in an old Volkswagen Bug taxi, stuck in Mexico City’s notorious traffic. Volkswagen first came to Mexico in 1967, when it opened a plant in Puebla, a few hours drive from Mexico City. For decades, the Bug was the biggest-selling car in the country.  Today, the Puebla plant has expanded to become the largest auto factory in North America, employing 18,000 people. It’s a state-of-the-art facility full of industrial robots and blinking computer equipment. The plant has the capacity to produce 2,500 cars a day, in popular models such as the Jetta and Golf.  Many Mexicans are benefiting from this new high tech economy while many others are being left behind.  Click HERE for the story.

January 8th, 2013  |  By Mary Stucky

Mexico Aims To Save Babies And Moms With Modern Midwifery

The United States and Mexico share deep personal, economic, geographic and cultural connections, but understanding – on both sides of the border – is often limited by stereotype and media exaggeration. Round Earth Media is out to change that.  We launched in 2005, with a bounty of stories from Mexico, supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  Now, in a groundbreaking new collaboration, Round Earth Media is pairing young American and Mexican journalists, to produce powerful, untold stories from Mexico, stories rich in place and humanity.  These stories, broadcast and published in top-tier media, are reaching huge audiences in both countries.

American journalist Monica Ortiz Uribe (in photo with mic) and Lillian Lopez Camberos, a Mexican journalist, interviewing in Mexico for the story they produced in partnership.

Round Earth Media’s new Mexico Reporting Project is supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  The focus of these stories: important but little known or commonly misunderstood aspects of life in Mexico.

Click HERE to listen to Monica Ortiz Uribe’s story about midwives in Mexico, broadcast on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Good maternal health care is a challenge in many parts of rural Mexico. Maternity hospital wards are often overcrowded and caesarian sections are routinely scheduled, rather than allowing time for the natural birth process to take place. But this August, in the rural state of Guerrero, the Mexican government opened its first maternity hospital with trained, professional midwives to help alleviate these problems. We pay a visit to Guerrero and see how these new developments are making giving birth easier for women.

November 28th, 2012  |  By Mary Stucky

Mexico’s Drug War Is Changing Childhood

Mexico’s violent drug war has gotten a lot of sensational attention in U.S. media but there’s been very little attention paid to the effect of this unrelenting violence on Mexico’s children.  Round Earth Media’s Mexico Reporting Project is dedicated to reporting important, untold stories from Mexico, like this one from Annie Murphy which was broadcast on NPR’s  All Things Considered. CLICK HERE to listen to Annie’s powerful story about the ways in which violence is dramatically changing what it’s like to be a kid in Mexico. At Round Earth Media we pair early-career American reporters with early-career reporters in the countries where where we’re working to publish and broadcast in top-tier media in both countries.  Here’s Annie Murphy on the partnership and Round Earth’s ground-breaking model.

Mexican reporter Isabella Cota & and American reporter Annie Murphy interviewing together in Mexico.

Like most freelancers, I’m used to flying solo, which often means making many decisions on my own, at all stages of reporting. While there are things I really enjoy about that system, working with Round Earth was refreshing precisely because of the collaborative model the organization uses. I was paired to work in the field with reporter Isabella Cota, a top-notch Mexican journalist, as well as on the production side with veteran reporters and editors Mary Stucky and Leda Hartman. In working with Isabella I found both a colleague and a friend, a fellow reporter I will doubtless turn to for advice and feedback in the future, and someone whose career I’ll support in any way I’m able; that same spirit of camaraderie applies to the editorial side of the project as well. I think that the sum of all our experiences and resources as reporters and editors allowed us to tackle this pair of stories in Mexico in a way that was efficient, in-depth, and fun–and much more comprehensive than what I’d have been able to do on my own in the same amount of time. (more…)

November 8th, 2012  |  By Mary Stucky

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Round Earth’s Mexico Reporting Project: Isabella Cota and Annie Murphy reporting in Mexico

The U.S. and Mexico share deep personal, economic, geographic and cultural connections, but our understanding of Mexico is often limited by stereotype and media exaggeration. This fall, Round Earth Media is pairing young American and Mexican journalists, in a groundbreaking collaboration, to produce untold stories from Mexico, stories rich in place and humanity. These stories will reach huge audiences in the United States and in Mexico.

An indigenous village in Mexico got fed up with gangs and illegal loggers acting with impunity. So they kicked them out, kicked    out their local authorities and set up their own government. And some other villages are looking at it too.  “Josephina,” pictured above, was one of the first to get organized.  For security she doesn’t want to be identified. Photo: Isabella Cota

Click HERE to listen to this story which ran nationwide on The World.

October 6th, 2012  |  By Round Earth Media

Salvadoran Killed While Waiting On US Immigration Papers

The Garcia Family | Photo courtesy of Alyssa Garcia

Some years ago, Charlie Garcia came to the United States illegally and married an American citizen. Then the Salvadoran decided to try to legalize his immigration status. He went back to El Salvador to file his paperwork, as required. Tragically, he was killed there, waiting for his paperwork to come through.

(more…)

August 5th, 2012  |  By Mary Stucky

Imagine: Worrying that your child could be kidnapped into a gang

A child in El Salvador believed to have been kidnapped into a gang. | Photo: Ambar Espinoza

El Salvador has the world’s second highest murder rate – more than 4,300 murders last year alone. That’s just behind Honduras, its neighbor in Central America. The United States bears some responsibility for this.  Many of these young men (or their parents) fled to the U.S. to escape the war in El Salvador in the 1980s, a war that was financed, in part, by the United States. Some of those young immigrants grew up to be gang members and were deported from the U.S. by the courts, ending up back in El Salvador where they continued their gang activities.

The U.S. has poured hundreds of millions into anti-gang efforts in Central America but nothing much seemed to change until just a few months ago, when the Catholic Church stepped in to broker a truce between two gangs in El Salvador.  But the culture of violence there remains.

We sent Ambar Espinoza to El Salvador to report one mother’s story and what the U.S. and El Salvador are doing to try bring justice and safety to the country.  Ambar herself was born in El Salvador and fled the country when she was just a child, grew up in Los Angeles and went on to become an award-winning public radio reporter.   Here’s her story.

July 24th, 2012  |  By Round Earth Media

El Salvador Claims Violence Decline, Mother Still Looks for Kidnapped Son

This photograph is one of many Betty Espinoza keeps of her missing son Franklin, who was 13 years old at the time he went missing. | Photo by Ambar Espinoza

Listen to this story

The following is a transcript. To listen to this broadcast, please click on the link above.

| By Ambar Espinoza

El Salvador has the world’s second highest murder rate – more than 4,300 murders last year alone. That’s just behind Honduras, its neighbor in Central America. The United States has poured hundreds of millions into anti-gang efforts in Central America but nothing much seemed to change until just a few months ago, when the Catholic Church stepped in to broker a truce between the two gangs in El Salvador. But the culture of violence there remains.  Ambar Espinoza has this report. (more…)

June 18th, 2012  |  By Round Earth Media

Bolivian President Caught in the Middle

Highway construction of a road that would have cut through the Bolivian Amazon was halted after thousands protested | Photo by Libby Arnosti

Listen to this story

The following is a transcript. To listen to this broadcast, please click the link above.

Bruce Gellerman: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Bruce Gellerman.

[SOUNDS OF PROTESTS IN BOLIVIA]

Gellerman: In Bolivia, the people spoke and the government listened. For three months, a thousand people marched across the Andes Mountains, closing roads, enduring police crackdown and arrest. They were protesting the government’s plan to build a highway through indigenous lands and Amazon forest. Bolivian President Evo Morales gave in to the protesters and scrapped the project. But while demonstrators may have won this round, the fight over how to develop Bolivia’s economy and protect its environmental future continues. Mary Stucky reports.

(more…)

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