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As a recent master's graduate of the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism, I seek a job that will allow me to craft innovative multimedia of public importance.
I have branded myself broadly as a multimedia journalist to avoid constraining myself. My mission is to hold those in power accountable and educate the public by any medium. I have lived by the belief that our goal as journalists should be simple: Tell the best story by the most effective means. It is my hope that distinctions between words, photos, video, audio, and print and broadcast are becoming irrelevant.
Through my graduate studies in online journalism, I mastered not one, but many forms of storytelling and acquired the skills necessary to weave them into cogent and compelling presentations that leave consumers informed and inspired.
Now, I have completed my formal education and I find myself on the precipice of a new career. As I stood before my master's committee in December however, I said that I saw my degree not as the culmination of my education, but as the beginning. I hope to continue learning by working for an outlet that encourages innovation.
I seek the stewardship of a seasoned but forward-thinking editor who will take a vested interest in my education and advancement towards becoming a distinguished journalist in the public service.
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I have dreamed, since the age of six, of working as a journalist.
It began with a steady literary diet of National Geographic Magazine. The awe-inspiring photos of far-flung places that graced those pages inspired me to become a photographer and infected me with an enthusiasm for discovery that has defined my life.
At six, although a passionate young photographer, I saw the camera only as a means to capture the world's aesthetic beauties. As my studies progressed however, I learned of photography's power to educate, instigate upheaval and precipitate reform.
The works of great photographers like muckraker Jacob Riis and war photojournalists Larry Burrows and James Nachtwey, forced me to contemplate how our world could be made more humane. It was my childhood experiences however that hastened my first forays into journalism.
Reared near the U.S.-Mexico border, I had a front-row seat to the war on immigration, the war on drugs and the war on poverty. I was often a spectator but sometimes a player in the tragedy that unfolded along the border. The violence, poverty and racism I saw there cemented my journalistic convictions.
As an aspiring foreign correspondent, I moved to Washington D.C. in 2003 to study International Relations at American University's renowned School of International Service. I hoped to gain specialized knowledge that would impart depth and nuanced understanding upon my reporting.
While at American University, I took a keen interest in Cross-Cultural Communications. I was inspired by my childhood in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic household in a region at the historical forefront of a North American culture clash. As a journalist dealing with people from many backgrounds, my specialization in Cross-Cultural Communications has proven invaluable.
I also pursued Latin American studies and spent a semester at the prestigious Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas in the heart of my mother’s native Mexico. There, I developed an intimate knowledge of Mexican history, politics and international relations by studying alongside the nation's most influential academics and political advisers. My time in Mexico sparked a life-long love for the country.
In 2007, I enrolled in graduate school at the University of Maryland.
The defining moment in my young career came in the form of a graduate-school internship at the San Antonio Express-News. I worked first on the metro desk and then as a state-desk correspondent reporting from South Texas and Mexico. I spent weeks on the road and covered two hurricanes. At times, I lived out of a Jeep, used its side-view mirror to shave alongside the highway, endured mosquito plagues and more than once waded through a septic soup of stagnant water, sewage, and dead livestock.
For the first time, while reporting in south Texas and Mexico, I had a sense that I was illuminating corners of our world that go ignored and neglected. Like the photojournalists I admired as a child, I felt that I was forcing people to contemplate how our world could be made more humane.
The experience gave me a taste of the hardship correspondents endure but left me wanting more like a harsh but intoxicating apéritif. Now, my mind is plagued by thoughts of finding another editor who will give to me the keys of a company Jeep and turn me lose in the field with all the adventure and hardship it entails.
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