A Texas Monthly editor told UTRGV aspiring journalists they are in the “eye of the storm” of immigration and are in a position to shatter stereotypes.
About two dozen students, including Student Media employees, attended a multimedia presentation by Carlos Sanchez, a newspaper veteran and current Texas Monthly senior editor and border bureau chief.
The presentation was held last Wednesday during Communication Associate Professor Kimberly Selber’s multimedia storytelling class in Liberal Arts Building South Room 310 on the Edinburg campus.
Selber introduced Sanchez by listing his past accomplishments, including his connection to a Pulitzer Prize.
Sanchez, an El Paso native, grew up along the border and graduated with a bachelor of journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 1982.
From The Washington Post to The Monitor, he has worked for a variety of newspapers before working most recently at Texas Monthly since 2018. Ironically, Sanchez said, he had been laid off from The Monitor the same day Texas Monthly posted its job listing, and within 72 hours, was in Austin for an interview for his current position.
He said in the past, he was a four-time jurist on the Pulitzer Prize jury, where he would pick out finalists from his assigned category for the Pulitzer Board to choose that year’s winner. Sanchez said there were hundreds of entrants across the country, and his job was to weed them out for the Board.
He said, professionally, the accomplishments he is most proud of are breaking into the executive ranks in the newspaper industry and ultimately running his own newsroom.
Sanchez began his presentation by describing how he witnessed the “enamored” audience at a Texas Monthly Live event, where writers from the news organization would get on stage and read their works aloud, which brought to light a revelation.
“I guess what revealed itself to me was the notion that no matter who you are, no matter how sophisticated we come technologically, there’s something in our DNA that makes humans just like to hear stories,” he said. “Stories are something that engage you, that capture you, and you learn from them.”
Sanchez addressed the room of students, some aspiring to be journalists, that at this moment, they were entering an area where the opportunity is limitless due to the ability to tell stories utilizing today’s growing technology. He said the exciting part of multimedia was being able to engage people in so many different ways, mentioning the growing technology of Virtual Reality.
Sanchez had issued a “homework assignment” to attendees before the presentation, sending them a link to the article, “Two lives blurred together by a photo,” pertaining to the story of the “Marlboro Marine” and the photographer who captured the piece here: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-marlboro11nov11-story.html
He explained how the story was able to go deeper and deeper due to the detailed description brought on by the writer injecting himself into the story.
“Traditionally, that’s a no-no,” Sanchez said. “You’re supposed to be a journalist, a fly that’s on the wall but the evolution of journalism today, the demands that you all have as consumers of journalism, suggest that no-no is no longer applicable. The best kinds of stories are the stories you can inject yourself into.”
He said multimedia historically isn’t new, mentioning the use of photography as early as the Civil War.
“The ability to view things, there’s always been a component, photography, that is a part of multimedia,” Sanchez said. “And multimedia is something that a photographer helps to add a new dimension to the story. The story adds dimension to the photograph. They work together to complement one another. They don’t replicate each other. That’s what multimedia does.”
During the presentation, he showed several examples of famous photographs used in the past during war that incited different emotions to portray the power multimedia can create.
Sanchez then began recounting the LA Times article, citing the passages describing pouring gunfire, flares to light the night, and the glow of the Marlboro Marine’s cigarette when the photographer captured the photo.
“He’s been to hell and back. You can see it in his face,” he said. “And the cigarette is just a brief repose of an overnight of hell. And the photographer captures that. The photographer says in the story that he wasn’t even sure if he was going to send the photo ’cause he had limited battery power. And that was a battle that was so intense … that he figured everybody in the United States would want to see images of the battle itself. But at the last second, he said, it was the last of the 11 photos that he took. The next day, 115 newspapers across the country published that photo.”
Sanchez said the photo encompassed a combination of weariness and hopefulness, telling the story behind the image.
“Los Angeles Times pioneered something when they brought this story up,” he said. “They pioneered, first off, the notion of injecting the photographer into the story. What happened in this case is, this guy came back and really had some problems adjusting to society.”
Sanchez then showed a video, based on the famous photograph, detailing the aftermath for Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, including the perspective of the photographer.
“It’s a complete violation of everything we’ve been taught in journalism,” he said. “So even though it was a violation of a tenet of journalism, a fundamental tenet of journalism, did you forgive him?”
Despite the act straying from the traditional way of thinking, the act added dimension, a layer of complexity and interest and, most important, information, Sanchez said.
“This is something that if you’re engaged [in], you can dig deeper, and deeper and deeper and that’s the power of the internet, that’s the power of multimedia, and that’s what you should strive for,” he said.
Later in the presentation, he showed a third video of a reporter who recorded on her cellphone the crossing of immigrants, mostly from Venezuela, from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, to Brownsville and the ordeals they went through.
“Technology has basically given you everything you need in the fit of your phone,” Sanchez said. “The idea is to go to places that you’re familiar with, places that others don’t understand. Go to the levee in Mission. Go to existing walls. Go to proposed walls. Go to Santa Ana preserve. Go to the butterfly center. These are all stories to be told and they are stories that can be told using your smartphone, and they’re stories that will blow away the rest of the country. You are in the eye of the storm right now.”
He said the country’s eyes are all focused on the Valley, due to the focus in today’s environment on immigration.
“It is the national stereotype that you all are in a war zone, and believe me, people think you all are in a war zone,” Sanchez said. “Shattering stereotypes is one of the most powerful things you can do as a journalist. It’s honest, it sets the record straight, and people will cooperate.”
He ended the presentation by encouraging students aspiring to be journalists to take advantage of their networks, of their technology and their position in this country of being “in the eye of the storm.”
“It’s always a good learning opportunity when you have professionals from their fields in any sort of communication that just wants to help guide and give tools to the future of the communication of the world,” said Sierra Splinder, a mass communication senior. “So it’s definitely, like, super cool that he was able to come down and chat with us and inform us and show us the tools and give us insight on how our generation, how we’re moving forward with multimedia and how to use that in our favor to tell whatever story we’re trying to tell.”
Splinder said the presentation gave her insight on how her position living in the Valley can help change the perspectives of people.
Previously, Selber invited a former student, Daniella Diaz, who is currently a digital producer for CNN, covering Democratic presidential hopeful and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the 2020 trail, to give a presentation to her students as well. She said she hopefully plans to have another guest speaker who does entertainment news in Los Angeles.
“It’s so important for them to hear from working professionals in our field,” Selber said. “When somebody who works for CNN or somebody who works for Texas Monthly says, ‘We’re not even going to look at your résumé if you don’t have this’… so when you hear it from somebody like that, I think that it just broadens your understanding of what’s expected.”
She said Sanchez is a pioneer in digital journalism, through his leadership roles and how he saw how journalism needed to change by becoming more than just writing, but a multifaceted opportunity to tell stories.
Asked what advice he would give to aspiring journalists, Sanchez said, “Recognize where you are, and take advantage of it. It’s the notion that I was trying to sell here. People in the Rio Grande Valley, that we are in the center of the storm right now. The rest of the country is looking to the Valley to see what’s going on. They may have concerns about immigration, they may believe the notion that there’s an invasion happening, they may believe the notion that the Rio Grande Valley is the place to be. Journalists can dispel that notion or reinforce the factors of that notion. You just need to realize where you’re at and how other people in other parts of the country may view you and then explore that and that’s the basis for good stories and good journalism.”
