It’s no secret that in the past few decades local newsrooms have been decimated, along with the decline of accurate, community-based reporting. At the same time journalism has expanded from the domain of the printed page and the evening news to a whole host of digital forms and outlets. The Patagonia Regional Times itself, bucking the trend of the disappearance of local news, is continuing to develop, expanding into the digital realm of e-newsletters and adding new features to its website. This coming Saturday, August 6 at 3p.m., contemporary digital journalism will be on stage in front of an audience at the Tin Shed Theater in Patagonia, as Voices From The Border and the Sierra Club Borderlands present “A Peek Behind The Curtain – The Making of a Podcast.” Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller, journalists based in Tucson, Arizona, write “The Border Chronicle,” an online source for original reporting and analysis from the U.S.-Mexico border. They will be present in the Tin Shed, gathering raw material to be edited into a future podcast. Attendees will witness an on-screen interview with Hop Hopkins, the Director of Organizational Transformation at the Sierra Club, where he supports all organizational strategic priority areas to design, advance and support development and change efforts. This includes theoretical interventions related to developing an organizational vision, theory of change and intersectional equity, justice and inclusion. In person, and also being interviewed, will be Erick Meza, Borderlands Coordinator for the Sierra Club. Meza was born in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico and his work is to promote a holistic approach based on community development and understanding of how all the complex dynamics of the Borderlands affect the front-line communities and the environment of this region. Additionally, there will be audience questions taken, potentially enriching the eventual “The Border Chronicle” podcast. Melissa and Todd have spent decades writing about border communities in Mexico and the United States. Cumulatively, they have 40 years in the field reporting for media outlets from The New York Times to In These Times and writing books about the region. They focus on the big issues challenging our region, such as climate change, economic inequality, government surveillance, and the rapid growth of the border security industrial complex. Their goal is to challenge preconceived notions about the borderlands, even their own.
