Journalism | Periodismo
Journalism is an integral part of Under the Volcano’s three-week January residency. With inaugural leadership from Ginger Thompson, the program views investigative journalism as a crucial way to expose injustice and misinformation on both sides of the border.
We welcome working reporters committed to telling stories that matter, including applicants writing from or about areas of conflict or crisis. By bringing journalists together across borders in a community that also includes poetry and novelists, Under the Volcano offers solidarity, community, professional guidance and ongoing connection to accomplished peers.
Taken as a whole, our journalism program and masterclasses in literary non-fiction embody our commitment to what we call Writing of Witness and our core belief in freedom of expression.
Who's Who
in Journalism @UTV
Tyrone Beason, senior reporter at the Los Angeles Times;
Alicia Quiñones, coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean of PEN International;
Alfredo Corchado, Mexico City Bureau Chief of the Dallas Morning News;
Angela Kocherga, news director and a correspondent for public radio station KTEP and professor of journalism at the University of Texas at el Paso.
What makes our journalism program unique
The passion behind the headlines…
Faculty member David Barstow and Breen Fellow Karla María Gutiérrez on why journalism matters.
Journalism Fellowships
We currently offer three full fellowships to our journalism master class—two for Mexican reporters in honor of Robert L. Breen, and the Truthteller fellowship for an English-language reporter. Our Black Writers Matter Fund offers sliding scale support to qualified Black applicants (talent + need). In addition, the International Women’s Media Foundation may provide support for women or non-binary reporters through their Howard G Buffett Fund for Women Journalists.
The Robert L. Breen Distinguished Journalist Speakers Series
Established with a generous gift from Mark and Sue Real, this series brings seasoned reporters from Mexico and the United States to Under the Volcano to share their expertise with the journalism master class, the general public and other interested program participants.
Recent Work by Our Journalism Alumni
Cartels in the Mangroves
América Armenta (2024 Robert L. Breen fellow), a freelance reporter based in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, reports from the hidden waterways at the heart of the country’s inland fisheries, where clandestine narco labs are producing metamphetamines for export to the US with a cocktail of ingredients that are destroying livelihoods and contaminating the environment. The series, created with support from Quinto Elemento, is also available in English on ElPais.com
Bravo To Novelist Nadine Pinède!
Patience and hard work = triumph for debut novelist Nadine Pinède (UT 2017). With her novel, When the Mapou Sings, due out this September from Penguin Random House, Haitian-American Nadine Pinède gives a fascinating advance look at her work in an inspiring piece on CNN.
A conversation with Ivy Raff, UTV 2024
Ivy Raff and I met in the poetry program at UTV in Tepoztlán this past January. We spoke again just as her debut poetry chapbook was released. I was surprised to find out that the poems in Rooted and Reduced to Dust were brewing for 20 years before they became a book.
The Ultimate Reader
Journalist Diego Courchay’s (UTV 2019) latest piece is a slow burn of a tribute to his father, who died earlier this year of Covid in the south of France, where he spent his last year.