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A group of Mexican reporters has set out to form an association of environmental journalists in Mexico.
The movement grew out of a workshop entitled Air Quality and the Environment, which took place in
Mexico City January 14-16.
Journalists at the workshop selected Miguel Angel de Alba Gonzalez, a veteran journalist for Buen
Gobierno of León, Guanajuato, to coordinate of the association-building effort. Fourteen other
journalists volunteered to help launch the organization, and discussed how it could do to help them
cover environmental issues.
The group will begin communicating with each other through PALnet, a listserv recently established
by Michigan State University graduate student Suzana Gúzman. The group is considering sponsoring
training and other programs for boosting their professional skills.
Among the group's advisors is professor Jim Detjen of Michigan State University, the founding president
of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), based in the United States, and the International
Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), based in Paris. Also helping is Talli Nauman, co-director
of Journalism for Environmental Awareness (Periodismo para Elevar la Conciencia Ecológica), based
in Aguascalientes, México.
The Mexico City workshop was organized by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), Detjen's
Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University, the Knight Center for
Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin, and Periodistas de Investigación,
the Mexican affiliate of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE-US), with sponsorship by the Ford Motor
Co. Foundation.
Alba Gozalez has worked for 31 years as an investigative journalist for newspapers such as El Universal,
El Sol de México, El Occidental, El Fronterizo, Noroeste and El Sol de León. He has also
taught investigative reporting techniques in universities.
Mexican journalists who would be interested in joining or helping to form the association can contact Alba
Gonzalez at: Miguelangeldealba@journalist.com; or
request admission to PALnet by contacting Susana Gúzman at:
guzmans1@msu.edu
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