Hanaa’ Tameez studies on Camille Padilla Dalmau’s publishing and crowdfunding platform for journalists. Tameez writes, “9 Millones is a publishing and crowdfunding platform for journalists seeking to examine tales about Puerto Rico.” For full article, go to Nieman Lab. [Many thanks to David Lewis for bringing this item to our attention.]
When Camille Padilla Dalmau determined to review journalism in america, it was with the intention of later returning dwelling to Puerto Rico.
After graduating from the Columbia’s Graduate Faculty of Journalism in 2014, Padilla Dalmau, who was born and raised in San Juan, landed a job as a metro reporter at El Diario, the most important Spanish-language newspaper in america. The years on the job protecting crime and the New York Metropolis Police Division had been emotionally grueling. However Padilla Dalmau discovered Puerto Rican historical past by way of the diaspora communities she was protecting, which she had by no means discovered about in class. She then went on to develop into an affiliate producer for NowThis en Español. However the longer she labored within the U.S., the extra she began to really feel information tales about Puerto Rico tended to deal with issues, with out explaining how colonialism contributed to them.
“[The news media covers] Puerto Rico by way of this lens of ‘poor Puerto Ricans going by way of one other hurricane,’” Padilla Dalmau mentioned. “The issue isn’t [just] the hurricanes. We’ve been coping with hurricanes for hundreds of years. The issue is the sluggish response, due to the forms of the native, state, and federal governments. The largest downside is that the [news media] reveals breaking information with out contextualizing the historic and socio-political actuality that makes our lives right here difficult.”
After seeing the protection of Hurricane Maria in 2017, Padilla Dalmau determined to maneuver again to the island in 2018. By 2019, she left NowThis to be a contract video producer and take a break from journalism. Then, the pandemic hit.
In 2020, Padilla Dalmau seen that Puerto Rican scientists all around the world had been lending their experience to assist ensure that the already weak healthcare system in Puerto Rico wouldn’t collapse. Padilla Dalmau and fellow journalist Edmy Ayala began partnering with these scientists to publish a e-newsletter that delivered verified, factual details about the pandemic to Puerto Ricans in a relaxed, non-alarming approach. They printed beneath the title “9 Millones” (that means “9 million”), which signifies the three million Puerto Ricans dwelling on the island and the six million within the diaspora.
Padilla Dalmau and Ayala caught the eye of the weekly information podcast Latino USA by Futuro Media in June 2020, which then had the 2 produce an episode on how Puerto Rican scientists hacked the Covid-19 response on the island.
“Loads of the networks that organized throughout Hurricane Maria reorganized throughout the earthquakes that occurred in 2019 in Puerto Rico, after which organized once more throughout the pandemic,” Padilla Dalmau mentioned. “These networks begin occurring, after which they develop into constant and stronger.”
That episode led to a grant from the Options Journalism Community to cowl elections in Puerto Rico, a spot within the Lion Publishers Startups Lab Bootcamp, and a grant from an accelerator program in Puerto Rico. Between these alternatives, the responses from a rising viewers, and curiosity from different journalists, Padilla knew there was a marketplace for new, constructive, and nuanced storytelling about Puerto Rico. In the present day, 9 Millones is each a publishing and crowdfunding platform for journalists seeking to examine tales about Puerto Rico which can be going untold in mainstream information shops.
With that preliminary help, Padilla Dalmau wished to construct a community of journalists to work with and determine a strategy to nurture the communities they cowl by way of their storytelling. One of many journalists she linked with was Bianca Graulau, an impartial video journalist who left TV information within the U.S. to return to Puerto Rico and produce investigative journalism (she’s additionally the journalist who created the documentary portion of Dangerous Bunny’s docu-music video about Puerto Rico’s most urgent points, El Apagón).
Padilla Dalmau mentioned partnering with Graulau was a case research that proved that crowdfunding for particular tales by in dependent journalists works. [. . .]
For full article, see https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/02/a-puerto-rican-journalist-is-helping-crowdfund-independent-journalism-on-the-island/
[Photo above by J. Amill Santiago.]