9 lessons learned in journalism

Today I complete nine years of journalistic work.

To celebrate, I’m sharing nine lessons learned over this time:

Every publication is a “birthing room.” We journalists and media creators don’t usually explain to people how much reading, research, questioning, recording, editing, writing, and rewriting it takes to do our work. There’s a lot at stake in every publication.

Journalism management tends to be short-sighted. Whether it’s to protect themselves or to avoid taking risks, editors and managers in Dominican and American journalism often block initiatives and innovations due to a lack of vision.

Journalism is a commitment to people on a personal level. Today, when levels of trust in journalism are at their lowest worldwide, journalists have learned that serving people when they most need reliable access to information is a responsibility few know how to handle. Journalists need to carry out their work with great transparency and direct contact with the issues that affect our people and communities.

There are biases that can never be eliminated. Objectivity doesn’t exist in this profession. It’s a device created to prevent passionate journalists from covering the issues that weigh most heavily on them. And for that reason, I’ve learned that journalists must recognize each person’s biases and vices and pass the baton to a colleague when the issues and circumstances are too sensitive for each of us.

Precision and transparency are essential values. We can’t use convoluted or Sunday-style words. Much less can we express vague and questionable ideas. We must get to the point, unless the type of production we produce allows us those liberties.

Your work has an impact on the individual and the collective. It doesn’t matter if you publish once every 100 years. Good journalism, which is written for the people, not for journalists, is usually marked by its tangible impact on the individual and the perspective and general knowledge it presents.

Every day you experience and learn something different. It’s considered the best job in the world. The exposure to people’s memories and experiences is incredibly enriching and helps you grow as a person full of empathy and knowledge.

Stress and anxiety become your life companions. Demanding deadlines and collective workloads mean you’re constantly having to rely on others, develop excellent communication skills, and focus your attention on several things at once. This often takes a heavy emotional and mental toll.

Journalism needs to reinvent itself. I’ve seen that industries are very disconnected from the realities of the people who most need to be informed to make their decisions. Management has journalists (and pseudo-journalists) doing forced and risky work that doesn’t have the desired impact, and they end up giving little value or support to it. A complete overhaul of business structures, the accreditation process, and editorial lines—always independent—is needed.