IWMF: What is the biggest challenge facing women journalists in Chile today?
VERONICA LOPEZ: Women add to the news many things that sometimes men leave behind. So, the main challenge would be to try with editors and with media owners and with the staff with whom women are working to have the space for the other side of news that most of the time is left behind. I mean by this that when an issue comes forward, the people, stories, context and so many other things that surround the hard news are most of the time left behind. For example, in Chile, in Iquique, a city up north, in the middle of the desert, young women of nine through 16 years old were disappearing, just vanishing. The authorities, followed by the media, said that young girls from poor cities were convinced to go to work to the main cities either by older people who would profit from their work, or they just had taken a bus by themselves and left their town without saying anything to their parents. So these girls probably would be in any main city throughout the country, being almost impossible to find them.
One of the girls appeared walking, like a zombie, on the streets of Iquique. She had survived a serial killer´s assault and had dug her way up from a grave located in the outskirts of the city. The corpses of all the other girls were found there. Nobody had checked that possibility, nobody had talked to the families, written about the girls: who they were, what happened to them at school, at home, etc.
I mean that family issues, health issues, environmental issues, feelings, are second-hand stories in countries where politics and economics are the hard news that gets all the space.
What do you think, Virginia?
MS. HERRERA: Well, I completely agree, and I also think the big challenge is, for many women who work, to be able to do the job you love so much and have a personal life and a family.
When we [Lopez and Herrera] went to Argentina [to attend the IWMF program, Creating a Foundation for Leadership in 2001], we were among 30 people, and I think only two of them had children. And that's what's going on in every career, but journalism is a career where, when you need to build your career and to be reporting or be writing, you don't have much time. And that's the big challenge to be able to face both of your roles at the same time and do it right.
MS. LOPEZ: Another challenge is for women to become media owners or partners in media corporations, to found new media or to contribute to media as owners.
And I would say that in the case of Chile, it's not so difficult for women to have access to bank loans, to talk to entrepreneurs or businessmen in order to become partners in a company. What women have to understand is that in order to be successful, they have to have a very good and complete project. Content is part of the project, layouts are part of the project, but the economic plan of the project is very important, because people who will be lending the money will want to know how that money will come back to them in time.
IWMF: So you say then that one challenge women face is to include more of women’s views in the news?
MS. LOPEZ: Exactly.
IWMF: How would you say women journalists are meeting this challenge?
MS. LOPEZ: We are not having a nice time, because of lack of space. There is enough space for politics and economics, but never enough for environmental, or women’s issues or family issues or educational issues. We still have this old, archaic formula that everybody's interested in politics, and the reality is that nobody's really interested in politics any more.
Or that economic figures or numbers are the main issue. Of course, they are, because if you don't have a job you have serious problems. I mean you want to know about new jobs, you want to know about new small companies. And how can you do that? You need more information.
These issues are usually left out of the media so the main challenge is to get space for them.
MS. HERRERA: The big thing is that those kinds of decisions – decisions about what is covered in the media – are still mostly in men's hands. Whenever a woman gets to that point in her career when she is able to make those decisions, she becomes …
MS. LOPEZ: Men-minded.
MS. HERRERA: Right. Right. It's like they finally got there, but then they start thinking like men. So a big challenge would be to be able to get to the top and still think like a woman.
In our countries, in Latin American countries, the main issue for media is trying to sell magazines and newspapers, or have a very high TV rating. That’s an issue in any country really. It's not only Latin America. But we are a small market, and in the case of Chile, a very small market.
So you keep going back and covering the issues that you think will sell.
So, for example, even if it is not correct, a woman editor may think that a story on a celebrity will sell more than a story on a woman writer, even one who has written a best-seller.
Editors don't always realize that they have to provoke change.They fear change because they think it will not sell copies.
MS. LOPEZ: And maybe it won't sell copies right away, but probably in time, in a couple of issues, people will be aware that that's an interesting story, too.
And I think that women who decide to change things are always distinguished. It's good to do the change, but you have to be very courageous and take a lot of risks.
IWMF: You two are working to launch a magazine now. Can you tell me more about that magazine?
MS. HERRERA: Sure. The magazine will address women's issues mostly. It will have articles on health, food, family issues, human relationships and other issues, too. We were thinking about articles on places in the country that are at war, maybe an article on children of war.
Well, the big challenge about this new magazine we plan to launch, is that I think it will be the first woman's magazine in Chile that covers women in a new and really modern way. Women’s real interests are not really reflected in the magazines that we have now in Chile.
Another challenge will be the website. Nowadays when you launch a magazine your website needs to be great, as good as the magazine. And that's something that the Chilean media are just getting into and we need to have support from the website as much as from the magazine itself.
IWMF: I understand that you've had a long-term working relationship, that Ms. Lopez has been a mentor to Ms. Herrera. How did that relationship come about between you two?
MS. LOPEZ: Sometimes when you have a new project, you recruit the best graduates coming out of the university looking for their first jobs in journalism.
Sometimes you find a person you think you can work with. This has a lot to do with how much that person wants to learn. You don't learn how to do post-production at the university. You don’t learn that researching and writing the story is not the end of the article.
Post-production means you have to work with the people on the design desk doing layout, work with the photographer so that the photographer knows the pictures you will be need for the story. You have to write captions for the photographs and you have to work with the editor to find the best way to present your product, your work to the readers.
When you find a person who isn’t scared because he or she will be doing more work than only researching and writing, you are steps ahead. You can be very sure that he or she will be a very good team with you.
When I left the last magazine I launched, Virginia also wanted to follow up the work we had started together, so she helped me out with a new project.
MS. HERRERA: Well, I think mentoring is all about generosity – and a challenge. Sometimes women are very special and sometimes we are jealous.
MS. LOPEZ: Journalists are competitive, it's a very competitive profession.
MS. HERRERA: Right, that's what I mean. And it's hard to find a woman who will be glad to share with you her knowledge and her experiences, because we are in some ways jealous and competitive. And I know men are, too, but women, I feel, are more so.
And that's why I say it's about generosity. From the first, Veronica was the kind of person who shares a lot. And she's not afraid that you will steal something from her or will hurt her in some way.
And even though she's had some bad experiences as a result, she's still very generous about showing people the best way to do things and teaching them about the many ways to do a magazine.
The other part of being mentored is that you have to be able to learn. Many young people don't have this attitude of learning. They want to do their own kind of journalism, and they feel older people must be old fashioned. They just want to write marvelous stories and be famous. And if you want to have a mentor, I don't think that's the right attitude.
Veronica and I have a very similar attitude about that. I remember, during our first month together, the first time we worked at a magazine, five years ago, she told me that even being the editor, she was willing to make coffee and clean the office if it was needed. I'm just the same as Veronica is. I'm not afraid to clean, if the office needs to be cleaned, even if I'm the editor.
We don't need to be proving all the time who we are, and that's something that we have in common and that helps us both.
February 2003