Mérida, Yuc.- Virginia Bautista was punctual when making her analysis of the challenges of the journalistic exercise: “Discipline and creativity at work, intelligence, dialogue and resistance. This should nurture our character in the face of the challenges we face,” she said upon receiving the National Prize for Journalism 2023 that on Monday night was awarded to him by the rector of the Autonomous University of Yucatán, Carlos Estrada Pinto, within the framework of the Yucatan International Reading Fair (Filey).
In front of colleagues from the union and accompanied by the writers Carmen Boullosa, Rosa Beltrán, Sara Poot-Herrera and Assia Mohssine, the Excelsior reporter assured in her award reception speech: “’Crisi’ is a familiar word in journalistic practice, especially everything, in cultural journalism. But there are other words that we have cohabited with for several decades and that have not scared or stopped us: censorship, precariousness, contempt, indifference.”
However, he said, that the two crises that worry and hurt him the most are ethics and content quality, “Today, there is no time for directors to provide feedback. There are no longer editors to guide and monitor, neither supportive work teams nor loyal sources. Or they are in serious danger of extinction”.
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But, faithful to our tradition of starting from scratch whenever necessary, he assured that we can overcome these crises, giving priority to our own topics and further nurturing collaborative journalism in the cultural field, like the one that already occurs in other sections.
The cultural journalist with 37 years of experience, also stated that today, there is no time for directors to provide feedback. “There are no longer editors to guide and monitor, no supportive work teams or loyal sources. Or they are in serious danger of extinction.”
And that, coupled with having to generate information immediately for different platforms, web, radio, television and print, leads to putting together stories. Before which the report no longer has space or time, and the interview does not exceed the border of four thousand characters, in most cases.
“The different crises have intensified and increased in the last five years. The withdrawal of advertising by the federal government from most newspapers, the three years of pandemic and the consolidation of digital portals have been the united reasons for the perfect storm that motivated the reduction of pages, personnel and budgets in the cultural sections”, he stated.
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But also, in Culture, one starts from a wrong premise: the owners and directors of the media expect it to provide the same publicity as Shows or Sports; but this will never happen, because Culture does not give money, but prestige.
This, coupled with the impersonal sources that no longer respond or attend to any other issue that is not related to the promotion of their work, be they businessmen, politicians or creators, and the army of PRs that harass until they achieve their objective, “have made let’s abandon our own agenda that should characterize a section that seeks to train curious, creative and critical citizens”.
He called to find allies in associations, institutions and universities that value Culture. “This is the case of UADY and FILEY, whose representatives I thank for this award and I invite them to also resist and maintain this vital stimulus for the union,” concluded the journalist upon receiving the Award that put an end to the National Meeting of Cultural Journalism 2023.
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