Nieman fellows Juanita León, NF’07 and director of La Silla Vacía in Colombia, and Graciela Mochkofsky, NF’09, who together with husband Gabriel Pasquini runs el puercoespín in Argentina, have joined with other colleagues to form ALiados, a news association for independent journalism in Latin America.
With common guidelines and goals, a total of ten media organizations met in Buenos Aires on June 15 to create the new group. Their founding document, the Declaration of Al Maitén, calls for professional quality, transparency, independence from political and economic influences as well as coverage of Latin America and the world that goes beyond what traditional media can provide.
Many of ALiado’s members met last May during the 6th Ibero-American on Digital Journalism, where the idea for the association first emerged. The event was organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas in Austin, which is run by Rosental Alves, NF’88. Alves was also present in Buenos Aires for the creation of ALiados.
In November 2011, Mochkofsky, Alves and León spoke about the need for increased collaboration at a Harvard conference on freedom of the press in Latin America, which was co-sponsored by the Nieman Foundation, Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.