Periodistas Independientes de El Salvador

My country profile: No for tourists, just for journalists

2005-07-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

El Salvador, more than a survivor

El Salvador, with 7 millon people, is the most densely populated state on the continent of the Americas and the most industrialised in the area of Central America, is a nation that has been wracked by civil war and a succession of natural disasters.

To know El Salvador is important to say that is a tiny country, 21,000 Km2, with a lot of social inequality and located in one of the most active seismic zones of the world.

Since 1980, El Salvador was in 12 years civil war, that was supported by the United States, left around 80,000 people dead and caused damage worth $2bn, but it also precipitated important political reforms.

In 1992 the United Nations pressured to the goverment to sign a peace agreement ended the civil war, but the relief didn't come, because El Salvador is continuesly affected by natural disasters, like the Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and a series of earthquakes in 2001, when more than 1,200 people dead.

The microenonomic parameters in El Salvador are good, but it doesn't mean that the population lives in a good situation, especially because they are extremely dependent on the money that Salvadorans livin in the United States sent to the country. More than $ 200,000 million are sended every year for those people that cause relief to the important social problems.

More than 3 million of Salvadoran lives abroad and its caused a familiar division that is, although, the main cause of the violent street gangs that dominated the poorest areas in the country.

Be positive... OK I'll try

2005-07-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

Is not a beautiful country?

A journalist confession

2005-07-21T03:20:00.000-07:00

How many times we have dreamed with founding our own newspaper to publish the stories that we want, in the time that we want and as we want?

Me? Yes, thousands, as many journalists in El Salvador. Then, this is not a newspaper in itself, but it could be useful as a space to exercise the essence that we lost by the censorship that prevails in the Salvadoran media, wich has been adopted like a personal way to become in the worse of the vices: autocensorship.

Is easy to blame to the mass media owners in El Salvador to be the responsibles of the lack of freedom of expression in the country after the Peace Agreement, in 1992, as the salvadoran society needs.

Yes, is very easy. But, what about the critical vision of a generation of journalists academically formed, but lack of the passion that is needed to publish what the readers want or need. There are no many of those. Now we have a generation of young journalists, with good positions, good salaries and good reputations, who don't want to put under risk their privileges for doing an really free and independent journalism.

Is this a Katarsis? Yes, because I'm one of them. But you know something? I'm tired. The autocensorship is a heavy shirt, and I have decided to walk by the life a little lighter.

Un espacio para publicar lo impublicable

2005-07-21T02:52:00.000-07:00

Cuántas veces hemos soñado con fundar nuestro propio periódico para publicar las historias que queremos, en el tiempo que queremos y como las queremos? Yo, miles de veces, al igual que muchos periodistas en El Salvador.
Pues bien, esto no es un periódico en sí, pero puede servir como un espacio para ejercitar esa esencia perdida por la censura que prevalece en el periodismo salvadoreño y que ha sido adoptada como patrón personal para convertirse en el peor de los vicios: la autocensura.
Que fácil ha sido culpar a los propietarios de los medios de comunicación en El Salvador de ser los culpables de que en el país no se ejerza un periodismo libre y acorde a las necesidades democráticas que surgieron despues de los Acuerdos de Paz, en 1992.
Sí, muy fácil. Pero en dónde está la visión crítica sobre una generación de periodistas tecnicamente preparados, pero sin la pasión necesaria para publicar lo que los lectores necesitan, aún a costa de sus propios empleos. Ya no hay muchos de esos.
Ahora tenemos a una generación de periodistas jóvenes, con buenos empleos, buenos salarios y un buen nombre, pero poco dispuestos a perder sus privilegios a cambio de hacer un periodismo realmente libre e independiente.
Catársis? Sí, yo he sido una de ellas. Pero saben que... estoy cansada. La autocensura es una camisa muy pesada, y he decidido ir por la vida un poco más liviana.