by Fernando Leon

You arrive hoping that your stay will be as brief as possible. You carry a sheet of notebook paper with the name of a person you don't know written on it. The people around you turn to see, perhaps not even reading that person's name--as if this could satisfy their curiosity. No, they're looking at that horrible piece of paper that you hope will lead you to the other person and, therefore, your departure from that blood-curdling place. To you and many others, it is a place of transition. However, for others it is a place where daily life is defined.

by Wendy Martinez

Friends, this afternoon in the city of Merida, Yucatan, we visited the newspaper Por Esto.

We spoke with the executive director, who told us about his career in the world of investigation and information, and the path he took to arrive where he is today.

Mario Menéndez Ortiz, owner of the above-mentioned newspaper, has been a journalist since 1958.

Reflections on the journalism profession and the occasional memory...

by Luisa Ortiz

Looking at the Por Esto newspaper's printing press, I reflect about the meaning of our profession as journalists. I look at the machines that at this very moment could be running, making a tremendous noise, splattering ink and grease, filling pieces of paper with colors and letters.

  by Fernando Leon

We could think about the disadvantages that translating the School of Authentic Journalism's sessions might have. However, the need to translate these sessions is part of the great achievements this school represents: multiculturalism.

Image Gallery

I've decided to record the School of Authentic Journalism's work and faces, the emotions of friendly journalists from all over the world who have gathered here. Incredible talent, diverse experiences, and a ton of stories to tell have come together in the Yucatan peninsula to discuss and debate the future of good journalism and to learn about the role of journalists in the most important social conflicts and our peoples' struggles. I hope that you enjoy my work as a photographer.

-Omar Vera (el guey colombiano que se perdio en la traduccion)

This is a help sheet summarizing tips from the plenary on two simple ways to find software for free.  -Ansel

Bitorrent

Bitorrent is a way to share large files over the Internet.  To use it, you need to download and install a small program that can coordinate the file-sharing.  For Mac, the best one is Transmission.  For PC, I recommend uTorrent.

Next, you need to find what you're looking for on a torrent-indexing site.  Say, for example, I'm looking for Final Cut Pro because I want to start producing video with the industry-standard program.  I pick a torrent site from this list, this time Extratorrent. 

I type 'Final Cut Pro' in the search box and press enter, and voila!  The top result is an installation package for the latest version (7) of FCP.  The file size is huge (3.48GB), but that's not a problem. 

Notice the green numbers on the right side of the screen, in columns labeled S and L.  S is short for seeds, L is for leechers.  Put simply, the larger each of these numbers are, the faster your download will be.  If the numbers are zero, you may not be able to complete the download.  Look for torrents with many seeds and leechers.

On the page with the FCP 7 torrent, I click the download button.  A window opens asking if I want to open the torrent file with my Bitorrent program.  Do that, and your files will start downloading within your Bitorrent program.  It will probably take at least a few hours with a file of this size.

One more example: say I want to learn a language.  I know that a company called Pimsleur offers audio products for learning languages.  I go to another site from that list, called btjunkie, search for 'pimsleur,' pick a torrent and there you go...

Downloading from free servers

Sites like megaupload.com, rapidshare.com, mediafire.com, hotfile.com, and many others host large files on the Internet for free.  If you can't find what you're looking for on Bitorrrent, go to Google and type in the name of one of those sites plus what you're looking for.  For example, I might search for 'megaupload Blue Scholars' if I wanted to find some music from my favorite hip hip group.

There are also some blogs that collect links to free stuff hosted on these sites.  The two major ones I know of are rlslog.net and wtfmacos.ws.  Go to either of them, find an entry for the thing you want to download, and click on one of the links.  The download will begin directly within your browser, unlike in Bittorrent, which uses another program.

On a cool night in Cancun, students of School of Authentic Journalism had a session lead by interpreter and member of Labor Justice Radio Milena Velis, who is also a student at the 2010 JSchool. The session started with an introduction by Albert Giordano, who showed enthusiasm for the great work Milena and her colleagues are doing in Philadelphia's Media Mobilizing project (MMP).  

How much do you think about Google’s web-crawling bots when you’re writing a story, or posting a photo or video?  Can you write a great headline that will also make search engines love your work?

The focus of the very first session of the School for Authentic Journalism on February 4 was on the nuts and bolts of writing news stories and producing good photos for the web.