A Voice From Argentina
It is 3 a.m. in Amman, Jordan, and broadcast and digital journalism junior Elijah Shama, studying abroad in the city, has just woken up to the sound of his phone receiving a new text. Glancing at the message, he reads “help, an artist just dropped out — what do I do?”
The person on the other side of that text is Camila Grigera Naon, a freshman and the new president of Syracuse University’s Reporters Without Borders. Camila had been running the spring 2018 Rock for Reporters concert, the organization’s highlight event where musicians perform to raise funds for reporters.
“We really had to chop-shop that one to work it out,” Elijah remembered. “But we got it done in the end, and I think that really speaks to who Camila is — she gets things done.”
Camila’s journey to Syracuse began in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The city, whose name can be translated to “fair winds,” is a cultural and ethnic melting pot, home to ethnicities from all over the world. That diversity can make introductions a little unusual, as Camila found out when she came to the United States.
“When I said ‘I’m from Argentina’ I got a lot of varying responses,” Camila said. “Some people didn’t know it was a country. Some asked me what it was like to be European, some asked me if we spoke Italian or French when our national language is Spanish.
Getting into journalism was another story, inspired by Argentina’s past. The country’s history with a private press has been patchy, with journalists being among the targets of purges as part of Operation Condor in the late 1970s. The US-backed operation targeted reporters and scholars as part of a campaign of political repression and state terror.
In more recent years, the government of ex-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has committed more than 450 acts of administrative and legal harassment against the country’s largest selling newspaper Clarin, according to the Global Editors Network.
“Opinions are repressed a lot, and like the United States, people [in Argentina] are divided. I took an interest in politics because my mom is very attentive to the news, and I grew up watching it and learning about these issues,” Camila said.
Believing that the fight for a free press in Argentina was not over yet, Camila decided to study in the United States. She said that Newhouse’s technological advances in the context of journalism drew her here.
“In Argentina, we don’t really have a lot of technical things [like drone journalism or VR journalism] that I can use here at Newhouse, and it’s something I want to bring home,” Camila said. “I was also pleasantly surprised at the global perspective that a lot of professors here have, I assumed from the start that we would only be talking about the United States.”
But Newhouse had one other place for Camila to begin her press activism. Elijah, who at that time was the president and founder of the Syracuse Reporters Without Borders chapter, emailed the Newhouse listserv asking for interested people. Camila, who had been following the organization’s international branch Reporters Sans Frontières, was interested in joining and emailed him back. But there was no response.
“I didn’t know what to do, I was still a freshman and still new,” Camila said. “Getting stood up for this was a bit odd.”
Eventually, Elijah and Camila met at the organization’s general interest meeting. From the start, Camila stood out.
“She immediately struck me because she was involved, she was engaged, and she was one of the three people who came to that meeting,” Elijah laughed.
At the time, Reporters Without Borders was a “scrappy organization” according to Elijah. It was recognized by its international counterpart and by the university, but like many new organizations, it struggled to attract members. Camila immediately got involved in planning events and putting the organization on a larger scale, such as by helping with the Rock for Reporters concert.
However, a new challenge faced Reporters Without Borders. Elijah, who was then in his junior year, was planning to study abroad in Jordan and the rest of the executive board were graduating. Elijah was desperate to keep the group afloat.
“I was willing to run this org from the Middle East,” Elijah said. “On a scale from 1-10, this organization should always be a 9 or 10 for reporters to keep an eye out for.”
Fortunately for Elijah’s plans, it never came to that. Camila was offered the job and she eagerly accepted. Elijah noted that she was already planning for the organization to bring more urgency to press rights.
In February 2019, Reporters Without Borders will host a gallery of conflict photography, with combat photographers sending their photos and visiting campus to show off their work. This is just the first of the events the organization will host, including guest speakers and film screenings.
“This organization should focus on the importance of press freedom and media rights, and what we as citizens can do to improve them,” Camila said.
As for her own future plans, Camila says there’s a lot to do both here and at home. She spoke specifically on partisan media, highlighting Fox News and The New York Times in the United States and comparing them to Argentine outlets such as La Nacion. She also believes Newhouse’s curriculum should focus more on media and events in South America. When students in her COM 107 class didn’t know about the Venezuelan economic crisis, she was shocked. In her career as a journalist, she wants to do investigative reporting on political corruption in Argentina.
“I love my country and I’m tired of seeing people not leading it correctly, it’s a country that deserves the best,” Camila said. “I want to gather the tools that will help me help my country best.”
For now though, she is happy to keep fighting for press freedom all over the world, starting here at Syracuse.