Jorge Espejel and Gerardo Pineda

Jorge Espejel and Gerardo Pineda from independent media outlet Red es Poder participated in the fellowship program investigating the construction and use of a mobile hospital in Moncloa, Nuevo León. The two journalists worked with Kowanin Silva, who helped them establish a solid hypothesis for the story, organize information, and structure the final publication. During a Border Hub interview Espejel stated that the mentor’s help was fundamental in developing a solid story with high quality journalistic rigor. He followed up saying “I’m impatient, so I’m sure we would have published the story beforehand, and it would have been missing information. We truly had a superb mentor within the Border Hub.” Pineda echoed the sentiment saying, “Our work had never been so focused on the structure of a story.” 

In addition, the two reporters learned to search for information from public databases they had not used before. The Border Center even introduced them to U.S. investigative journalist Jason Buch, who helped them track down U.S. court records with corruption evidence against the former interim governor of Coahuila. Finally, Red es Poder had previously received a Border Hub organizational support grant and worked on improving its internal administrative, management, and financial practices. As a result, the media outlet applied and received a sustainability grant and is currently participating in SembraMex’s business accelerator program. In response, Espejel stated: “We are learning to think like business owners.

Investigation: Deuda, influencias y gasto al erario rodean Secretaría creada por Miguel Riquelme