How To Do Great Reporting on US Border Issues

The United States Government policy of family separation and “zero tolerance” asylum at the U.S.- Mexico border only received national and international media attention and clamor when journalists broke the story with an audio recording of a separated child in a holding center. The International Women’s Media Foundation had journalists on the ground reporting directly from the Texas-Mexico border and El Salvador for National Geographic, The Guardian, The Tampa Bay Times, Al Jazeera and National Public Radio. Join the National Press Club Journalism Institute and the International Women’s Media Foundation for a special panel, Beyond Borders: Reporting from the Field, for first-hand accounts and stories straight from these reporters’ notebooks, moderated by Jasmine Garsd Garcia of National Public Radio. IWMF fellows Sarah Kinosian, Tamara Merino, Luján Agusti, and Meghan Dhaliwal, led by Jasmine Garsd Garcia, will give first-hand accounts of their reporting from the border and Central America and discuss the opportunities and challenges of migration reporting from the field.

This event is co-hosted by the National Press Club Journalism Institute and the International Women's Media Foundation.

Panelists include:

• Jasmine Garsd Garcia is a reporter for National Public Radio. Her work is frequently featured on podcasts such as This American Life, NPR's Planet Money and Embedded. Prior to NPR she worked as a women's issues correspondent for The World, a co-production of the BBC and Public Radio International. She began her career covering immigration, Mexico, Central America, and the border, topics she continues to explore.

• Sarah Kinosian is a freelance journalist focusing on security, human rights, US policy and LGBT issues in the Americas. She covers Mexico and Central America and her work has appeared in The Guardian, Teen Vogue, Vice, The Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, the Huffington Post and others.

• Tamara Merino is an independent documentary photographer and visual storyteller based in Chile, focused on human and social issues, identity and migration. Her work has been published in National Geographic, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, Wired, Fish Eye Magazine, Joia Magazine, Folha de Sao Paulo, Bloomberg and Roads and Kingdoms, among others.

• Luján Agusti is a visual storyteller based between Mexico and Argentina. She uses photography as her main language, mixing it with other disciplines to explore stories and issues related to the Latin American culture and identity. Her work has been published in National Geographic, The Washington Post, The New York Times - LENS blog, The New York Times en Español, The British Journal of Photography, Vice, de Volkskrant, among others.

• Meghan Dhaliwal is a freelance photojournalist based in Mexico City working on stories of immigration, religion and public health. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, Ozy, Roads and Kingdoms, Foreign Policy and more.

Event details:

National Press Club
529 14th Street NW (14th & F Streets)
13th Floor – Bloomberg Room
Washington, DC 20045
Thursday, July 26
9.30am - 11am