Professional Careers of Journalists in Tijuana and San Diego

The concept of work-related trajectories is based on its technical dimension, which is, on the sequence of work positions occupied by a person throughout his or her life (Pries, 1999 in ^{Frassa, 2007} ), and on its conceptual dimension as a decision making space; that is:

[…] the result of the relative harshness of the segmentation structures of the labor market and the process of interpretation and evaluation by which individuals make sense of their situation and take advantage of their opportunities to realize more or less desirable future strategies (Davolos, 2001, in ^{Frassa, 2007, p. 7} ).

Therefore, strategies are the result of the assessment of possibilities and expectations and decisions made to face external situations ( ^{Frassa, 2007} ).

Employment trajectories comprise chronological markers of the intersection of socially structured events and socially constructed personal choices. As pointed out by ^{Hualde (2014)} , the analysis of work-related trajectories allows for the association of individual biographies with other social spheres, such as the family and education, as well as contextual elements associated with the city, the region, the country, and the global environment. It also makes it possible to include both the dynamic and the relational dimensions into the analysis ( ^{Hualde, 2014, pp. 183-184} ).

Although work-related trajectories are a methodological instrument, we would like to emphasize the fact that they are an expression of the interdependence between social structures and individual action. This analysis considered work-related integration and changes in work-related biographies as the elements that define a person’s work trajectory. Subsequently, using a holistic interpretation focused on job stability, we constructed a typology.

Integration into the Journalistic Field.

Despite their academic background or writing vocation, not all interviewees entered the labor force via journalism—some of them spent years in very different jobs, for instance, as real estate agents, lawyers, or waiters, before becoming journalists. However, when they entered the first jobs in the media using internships, they found precarious working conditions and trial periods in which they were not paid any salary.

Three generations of journalists were determined based on age and educational background. The first category included journalists who entered the field from the late 1970s to the early 1990s and were forged by vocation and practice, although they also had college education. An intermediate generation was composed of professionals under 40 years of age who studied in public and private universities and obtained their first jobs in the late 1990s or early 2000s. These professionals faced years of risk and complications to cover their stories, and today, they need to undertake new activities in addition to journalism.

A third generation was composed of the youngest reporters in the group, those who joined the field before 2010⁶ and learned and practiced journalism during college and were willing to stay and commit themselves to different projects in the industry, although this meant difficult hours and conditions and their salaries were insufficient for them to become completely independent or have the level of income that they expected.

The first generation consisted of four journalists (cases 1, 2, 3, and 4) who were working for media organizations in Tijuana and San Diego at the time of the interview. Case 1, Dianne, an Egypt-born American citizen, made her formal entry into the field at The Miami Herald, where she was an intern in the summer of 1981 after obtaining a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Columbia, in New York. Before becoming a journalist, she had worked as a paralegal at the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. Since 1994, she has been working for The San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper, where she covers border news.

Case 2, Luis, was born in Tijuana, and he entered the profession when still underage and lacking college education; his first job was at the ABC newspaper in his hometown. At first, Luis decided to work for the newspaper without any pay because he was very interested in writing. For most of his career, he worked as a photojournalist and as a correspondent for national media. He obtained a journalism degree from the Autonomous University of Chihuahua in 2006, almost 30 years after he began to work in the industry. Until the interview, he had worked independently for the Agencia Fronteriza de Noticias and had recently quit his job as an editor at La Jornada Baja California.

Case 3, Esperanza, was born in Guadalajara and studied literature at the University of Michoacán. She signed her first contract at the Baja California Newspaper in 1991, where she was responsible for receiving communications from news agencies. She would then become a transcriber, then a newsroom secretary, until she finally became a reporter. Having come to the city to improve her economic status, she has worked as a correspondent for nation-wide media. A mother of two, she is separated and was employed as a general editor at La Jornada Baja California at the time of the interview.

Case 4, John, began working in the industry at the Bay City News Service in San Francisco in 1993. He had recently completed a master’s in journalism at Columbia University in New York. Before he decided to become a journalist in different media in San Francisco, he had owned a real estate agency. John explained that he was always interested in this profession. At the time of the interview, he was working under contract for the Los Angeles Times, where he covered border news.

The intermediate generation consisted of three journalists (cases 5, 6, and 7) who also collaborate with local and international media. One of them, Helena, originally from Tijuana, studied a degree in communication science at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP). One of her main motivations to enter the profession was her father, but also university professors. When she finished school, she returned to her hometown and was hired by Síntesis, a TV channel, in 2000. At the time of the interview, she was still employed with the company as a producer and reporter.

Case 6 is Lilith, who studied communication science at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA), in Tijuana, because she liked to write. Even though she did not visualize herself as a journalist or working in the media, she started out selling advertising for the bilingual weekly newspaper La Prensa, from San Diego, in 2000. Afterward, at the suggestion of friends who were aware of her writing skills, she decided to become a reporter that same year. After working for local, binational, and national newspapers and radio broadcasters, she worked as a freelancer for documentary producers and agencies such as National Geographic, and at the same time, she started a health and well-being business, unrelated with journalism.

Antonio, a younger journalist, started out as a cameraman in 1994, during the weekends, for television channels in Ensenada, Baja California, since his father worked for the same company. He hesitated between psychology and engineering to study in college, but when he obtained his first formal job, in Síntesis, in 2002, Antonio returned to the media and decided to obtain a bachelor’s degree in communication science at the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC), in Tijuana. Nowadays, although he claims to be able to work in any other profession, he continues to work for television networks in the United States as a freelancer.

The young generation consists of three women (cases 8, 9, and 10) who were under 30 at the time of the interview. Case 8, Sarah, studied journalism at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. She entered the profession in 2010, and after completing her internship with The Wall Street Journal, she formally joined the media company and its news agency, Dow Jones Newswire, as a correspondent in Mexico City. Her main motivation for studying journalism and entering the professional field was that she wanted to find a practical way to become a writer. She obtained a master’s degree in creative writing and arts from Goucher College (Baltimore, Maryland). After graduating, she worked for the public radio and television channel KPBS, in San Diego, as a border reporter, a medium in which she is still employed. At the time of the interview, she was writing a book entitled Crux, based on her father’s experience as a migrant in the United States.

Case 9, Miranda, was born in Tijuana and studied communication science at San Diego State University (UCSD) with a student visa. She chose this career because she liked magazines since she was a child. When she finished college, in 2010, she was hired as a reporter by Frontera, a newspaper in Tijuana. At the time of the interview, she had been working as a reporter in San Diego for six years.

Case 10, Abril, was born in San Diego, California, although she lived much of her childhood and youth in Ensenada, Baja California. She completed a bachelor’s degree in communication science at the UABC in Tijuana, and in 2009, and after her internship in the San Diego newspaper, the medium hired her as a reporter, but under a scheme in which there was no economic retribution. A position was opened at the newspaper one month later, and worked there for two years, covering news targeted to the Hispanic community in the United States. At the time of the interview, she carried out freelance work for the EFE news agency and The San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper. The following chart presents the sociodemographic and work profile of each of the cases; the chart is divided into generations.

The chart shows that two of the interviewees had a press and media visa to cross the border as well as a SENTRI pass (permission to cross through a special checkpoint in an expedite way), while others only have a press and media visa. The person from case 2 lacked a press and media visa at the time of the interview, and he never applied for it throughout his entire trajectory because he never deemed it necessary. For instance, when he covered trials or police matters such as the San Ysidro massacre in July 1984, the journalist said that he had only needed his Mexican passport, but not a visa.

Changes in Work-Related Trajectories.

When analyzing the decisions and changes encountered by the interviewees, we determined an average of five significant career transitions, specifically, job changes. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that not all of the additions to a trajectory were new jobs involving quitting other jobs, but independent jobs carried out for other media organizations, including radio, television, or charity projects to support non-governmental organizations, which reflects the high degree of instability in the industry, but also of employability, that is, opportunities to continue working in the field. Moreover, the number of career changes was more than 10 in three cases, which underscores the individual effort needed to build a career in journalism and the conditions of this activity in the cross-border context.

Table 2 summarizes these main changes in the professional trajectories of the interviewed journalists. The number of jobs ranges from 5 to 13, and the most stable cases are case 1 (U.S.) and case 9 (Mexico). The table also shows that these journalists work both as freelancers and employed by media organizations and that many of them, regardless of their generation, have more than one job.

Work-related trajectories are not only a set of external factors that determine the experience of professionals but also, to a large extent, the result of decision-making and the creation and application of survival strategies to remain within the field. The strategies identified from the interviews can be classified into three main types:

Types of Trajectories

After analyzing the most important moments and stages in the professional lives of the journalists in the sample, as well as the types of jobs that they carry out (and, consequently, the strategies and resources with which they ensure their permanence in the profession), we identified a model of career paths among journalists who work for media in both Tijuana and San Diego.

This model consists of three main types of trajectories based on the most prominent elements of the analyzed cases, that is, job stability or instability, predominance of a main job, and the existence of secondary jobs due to low salaries or disadvantageous working conditions, in addition to the strategies used to stay in the profession. These trajectories were defined as:

The three generations and types of trajectories are not directly related because journalists in all of them were employed or freelancers; however, the first generation and the trajectory based on a main job and a professional project were remarkable compatible, as well as the intermediate generation and the trajectory based on a main job in addition to other jobs simultaneously.

There were relatively few changes throughout the trajectory, although the first job was usually not longer than two years due to new job offers, company closure, or because the journalist moved.

In sum, despite the changing conditions during the course of their work trajectories, the interviewed journalists continued to be part of the journalistic field in the region and embarked on new professional projects. A small number of them had begun to take an increasingly firm step toward occupations very different from journalism.

Not all cases were accurately and definitively assigned to each of the proposed categories or trajectories; this categorization was rather intended as an interpretation of heterogeneous and complex labor biographies. It should also be borne in mind that this is an intentional sample, focused on statements and perceptions expressed by the journalists themselves, and is not statistically representative.

Forms of Identity of the San Diego-Tijuana Journalist

According to ^{Dubar (2001)} , identity is constructed and reconstructed throughout life; thus, in the professional context, we can speak of forms of identification rather than a fixed and stable identity in and through work. Based on this consideration, we used Dunbar’s model of four typical forms of identity, constructed by the intersection of the biographical and relational dimensions. As a subjective relationship with work, the form of identity highlights identification spaces and significant temporalities in the construction of the worker’s definition of him or herself, involving the double transaction of the biographical and relational spheres. Therefore, although journalists in Tijuana and San Diego share similar work situations, there are likely to be important distinctions between their discourses about work, their attitudes toward work, and the way in which they discuss their professional past and anticipate their future ( ^{Dubar, 2001, p. 11} ).

In this analysis based on the four possible work-related identity processes, it should be pointed out that two of them derive from recognition or lack of recognition on the relational axis (company identity and profession- or category- based identity), while the other two are based on continuity or rupture on the biographical axis (network or flexible identity and identity away from work).

For analytic purposes, it is useful to differentiate between continuity narratives and rupture narratives, since the former express a way of bestowing meaning on work based on a vocation and a sense of self that allows for a more effective sense of professional belonging, whereas rupture narratives represent a flimsy self-definition resulting from the distance between the inherited and the intended identification, a distance that can be increased by the lack of recognition in the workplace and, consequently, lead to a rupture with and denial of the vocation ( ^{Solís, 2009} ).

Continuity Narratives.

This category includes the construction of company and professional identities, which are associated with permanence in the industry but also characterized by recognition or lack of recognition at work, respectively ( ^{Dubar, 2001} ).

A company identity entails the construction of a sense of belonging to the organization in which the worker conceives him or herself as a necessary element in the production process, so they become personally involved in work activities. On the other hand, professional identity refers to a continuity between one’s identity and the other’s— nevertheless, professional identity is faced with a lack of recognition by the organization. The lack of acknowledgment results in professional blockage or stagnation; although the interviewees value the knowledge acquired during their careers, they are not given the recognition that would give them the opportunity to legitimize themselves ( ^{Solís, 2009} ).

A representative case of company identity is that of Helena, who mentioned that, although she does independent work for other companies, she is committed to her main job, where she feels privileged:

Yes, but in Síntesis I’m treated really well, I can’t complain. I mean, I think I am privileged where I work because they allow me to collaborate with other media; in another company, they wouldn’t let me be [in several media at the same time] and here, yes. And they let me cover what I think is important, so what’s the need? (Helena, personal communication, June 14, 2015).

The case of Dianne shows how identification with the firm is interwoven with identification with the profession: she feels respect for her work at The San Diego Union-Tribune, to which she had devoted 22 of her 37 years of career at the time of the interview. She associates recognition with the time she has worked for the newspaper:

Wow, you know? It’s funny. I don’t know. I mean, am I recognized? Yeah, I think I’m respected at the paper. I think like, I’m the person who does the border, you know? I’ve been there for a long time (Dianne, personal communication, August 30, 2015).

However, when she was asked about her future in the profession, she answered that she planned to leave that line of work to teach because the pace of work does not allow her to develop her goals as an “old school” journalist: “It’s not that I don’t love, I love journalism, I still do, but I don’t love the new dabbling” (Dianne, personal communication, August 30, 2015).

Rupture Narratives.

This category of identity forms is the opposite of the previous category: it is built on the basis of inherited and expected identities, and it includes the construction of network and off-work identities. According to ^{Dubar (2001)} , the former is characterized by voluntary breakthroughs and external recognition, whereas the latter is defined by the ruptures where workers face a threat of exclusion due to the lack of recognition.

The network or flexible identity is valued and recognized within flexible work environments, such as those found in maquiladoras.⁸ It requires personal autonomy and adaptability to the different transformations at work. People with this type of identity collaborate via (work-related) social networks and tend to be innovative and mobile ( ^{Solís, 2009, p. 73} ).

This group includes Esperanza, who has worked as both as a freelancer and as a media correspondent at the regional and national level for most of her career. After 25 years, Esperanza has had many jobs, which demonstrates her ability to adapt to flexible environments; she assumed the responsibility for her two children and considers herself to be a well-known journalist: “I feel especially for myself and for some part of the community” (Esperanza, personal communication, 2015).

Regardless of the precarious conditions of her work, she considers herself committed to journalism: “Look, benefits I don’t have, they are very incipient. But I understand that it’s a company, how can I say this? It is not exactly a family business, more like an adventure among colleagues, so I support them” (Esperanza, personal communication, 2015).

Finally, off-work identity ( ^{Dubar, 2001} ) refers to the construction of identity based on a rupture that also lacks the acknowledgment of the other in the workplace, which leads to a process of exclusion and an identity that is threatened and withdrawn into other spheres of life. Consequently, the worker establishes a merely instrumental relationship with work and seeks other areas of personal development.

An example of this type of identity is Lilith, who decided to be an independent journalist since the beginning of her career. However, she faced several problems when she began to work in Mexican media, derived from sexist threats and accusations, and she had the experience of high-risk coverage, all of which changed her way to work and identity as a journalist.

After completing a project with Milenio Baja California in 2014, where she was also questioned in regard to how she had obtained the job and her role as a leader and producer at the radio station, the journalist experienced an intense rupture with the journalistic profession: “We did a very good job. So, it’s terribly sad that everybody was canned even though they had done such a good job. That was in May, when I lost my job. For the first time in my life, they terminated me” (Lilith, personal communication, August 14, 2015).

Thus, the journalist faced a new process of reflection and distancing from the profession:

When that was over, I realized that I would never go to the newspaper again. If before I was fed up with violence, after those two years of having to think constantly about the radio station, where 30 people reported to me, six hours of radio news, plus national television feeds, the printed version, the site with 60 notes per day, I was squeezed, squeezed (Lilith, personal communication, May 14, 2015).

Another example is Antonio, who expressed:

If you go to the issue of journalists’ work situation, it is terrible. In general terms, it is terrible. Just now that the issue of the situation of journalists in Mexico reemerged with the assassination of this photographer in Mexico City, we said: “Wow, we write notes about all the injustice people face and we help out, but now that we think about our work situation and our security, whom do we tell?” (Antonio, personal communication, September 2, 2015).

The analysis and description of the identity construction process in a profession such as journalism revealed similarities between the four forms of identity and three types of professional trajectories that directly relate to the characteristics of the border reporter, such as nationality, age, gender, and type of employment.

For example, journalists expressing continuity narratives tend to be characterized by stable trajectories, permanent jobs, and in some cases, professional projects, including a main job in addition to other professional engagements. This category includes the three generational groups and is composed mainly of American women working in media outlets in San Diego or Los Angeles.

Network and off-work identities are built within the rupture narratives, characterized by the estrangement between “one’s identity” and the “identity assigned by others.”It is important to point out that the off-work identity includes journalists who have followed relatively stable trajectories and carried out cumulative and independent work, and it is present in two generational groups (the two older generations); both men and women present this identity equally, and these journalists have worked most of their careers as freelancers for Mexican media.

This hypothesis is supported by statistical studies: journalism requires a more intense personal effort from journalists working in the border, especially due to the lack of recognition in the profession.

Finally, personal values and the faithful practice of their vocation was very important for the interviewed journalists. Therefore, despite the lack of recognition, risk, and confrontation they experience in their field, their trajectory in the profession and the type of identity that they develop depend mostly on themselves.