Death, and birth, of a journalist

It’s the cold night of January 28. Outside the Mexican consulate in Little Italy, a bunch of journalists, maybe half of them American, half of them Mexican, gather for a vigil. We’re paying tribute to the three journalists who were murdered in January in Mexico — two of them in Tijuana. Their crime? Covering crime. There are candles, flowers, remembrances, a lot of standing around, occasional tears. A fellow journalist finally reads out their names.

“Margarito Martínez.”

“Presente!” calls the small crowd.

“Roberto Toledo.”

“Presente!”

“Lourdes Maldonado López!”

“Presente!”

A woman? They killed a woman?

The crowd breaks into groups, many old cross-border friends. They talk quietly in the cold. A young woman walks between the groups. She’s Brittany Cruz-Fejeran, a journalism student at San Diego State. She’s 24. I start wondering how an event like this makes her feel about her choice to pursue journalism. “I didn’t know a lot about those journalists who were murdered until it happened,” she says. “And I wish I knew more. But I feel like the sacrifices they made, it just showed how much the truth means.”

She says she got onto this journalism track on a whim. “I loved photography, but I didn’t want to do it commercially. So I felt that [journalistic] photography would be a good way to contribute to the community. And only then did I learn just what journalism does for the community, and for so little. Journalism has opened me up to new experiences and new people. And I just love learning about new things.”

Journalism is her major; her minor is history. “I’m trying to focus that history on historically under-represented communities, like people of color. I’m from Guam. And we’ve been very underrepresented historically, and I just want to be able to give our small territory a voice.” She thinks a moment, then says, “When you first asked me if what happened to these journalists gave me any pause, I hadn’t thought about it. I didn’t think about it like that until you asked me, but it made me stop.”

She says the fact that the journalists at the vigil still want to continue working makes her want to continue, too. “I wrote a Twitter post. I said, ‘I’m so grateful they chose courage. So I’ll choose courage, too.’ I don’t want to say I’m not afraid for my life, because I know I should stay alert. Those instances can happen. But the fear isn’t as strong as my will to go on, because I really want to contribute to the community, and specifically to my Chamorro [Guamanian] community. I want to carry on the work that those journalists did. And what they were passionate about is what I’m passionate about.” She says it was while she was at Southwestern College that her perspective started to change. “I went from, ‘Maybe I’ll do journalism,’ to ‘Oh, my goodness! This is what I need to do with my life! This is the weapon that I will wield for the rest of my life.’”

Someone is at the microphone, addressing the murderers, reading a journalist’s credo. “Long before you kill me, I have already given my life, because I decided to give it to this wonderful craft. If I voluntarily gave my life to true journalism, it should be clear that you do not intimidate me. Do not kill me because I’m a journalist. My blood is ink.”