Juanita Leon

Published on December 2016 | Categories: Documents | Downloads: 45 | Comments: 0 | Views: 406
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Quick biography of Ashoka's News and Knowledge Fellow Juanita Leon.

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Colombia’s Journalism Reformer
Juanita is creating a new model for journalism in Colombia. La Silla Vacia (“The Empty Seat”) is a nonpartisan space for public debate and critical thinking, an alternative to the nation’s media oligopoly. The interactive website combines investigative political reporting and analysis with a diverse range of discussion and blogging from emerging political leaders, economists, academics, and human rights activists. Just as important, it is fostering a vibrant online community committed to engaging in public affairs.

JUANITA LEON

THE PROBLEM: Shallow News Stories, Oligopolies, and Extreme Views
Having worked in the television, magazine, and the newspaper worlds in both Colombia and the United States, Juanita sees the Internet provided a unique opportunity to create a new journalism model promoting integrity and discourse. Colombian media faces four major problems. First, the industry is controlled by an oligopoly of four conglomerates with ties to the country’s political and economic elite. This structure to a second problem: —the lack of independent journalism. Mainstream news publications provide little in-depth research and analysis, dwelling instead in biased and sensationalized reporting. This sort of journalism, Juanita found, tends to polarize public debate, causing broad apathy among the centrist public majority. That apathy leads to a final problem, an absence of interest in deeper analysis of the news, and greater, more peripheral interest in the more sensational issues. Overall, the Colombian mass media seems focused on current stories that cater to interests of those with influence.

THE NEW IDEA: Balanced News Website Fostering Civic Participation

Juanita has created an Internet-based platform that produces and encourages professional political analysis, high-level discourse, expert blogging, and quality citizen journalism. Her aim is to tell the stories behind the news by connecting fact-based reporting with in-depth analyses, and to provide a more balanced view. This new website, La Silla Vacia, has allowed for civic engagement for all individuals.

THE STRATEGY: Providing a Platform to Foster Discourse
Juanita aimed to provide an interactive website gathering diverse opinions and encouraging participation. She designed five different sections of the site, each for different source of information. Desde la Silla features research, investigation and analysis from professional journalists; Movia del Dia brings conversations with important power brokers and opinion makers; Bloggeo is a platform for posts by prestigious young economists, security experts etc.; La Butaca features relevant work from a network of artists; and Mi Puesto represents the views and reporting from everyday citizens. Juanita founded La Silla Vacilla with her own money and a grant from the Open Society Institute – but, it is now funded through Blogosfera Producciones S.A.S, the business arm of her organization. Half of expenses are covered by advertising funds while the rest is covered by sponsorships from banks, airlines, etc.—a coup for an independent media outlet in Colombia.

THE PERSON: Integrating Journalism with Entrepreneurship
Juanita is the daughter of business entrepreneurs and immigrants, who emigrated to Colombia during World War II. While studying Law at Andes University in Bogota, she created an “alter-Ego” magazine dedicated to presenting law-related topics from a layperson’s point of view. She continued her entrepreneurial activities by founding Opcion Colombia, which served as bridge between city hall offices and the university. At the same time, she gathered stories that were used to produce the TV series “Tiempos Dificiles.” Juanita continued her education in journalism at Columbia University, working for Wall Street Journal. While there, she decided to travel on her own initiative to cover the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in South Africa followed by a variety of jobs in the Colombian Journalism industry. While a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Juanita began working on La Silla Vaccia, and launched it soon after.

THE FUTURE: Becoming a Leader in News
In the first six months, La Silla Vaccia has had 121,000 distinct visitors, 419,531 pageviews. Juanita hopes to build on this success by engaging more future leaders and opinion makers. She expects these compelling individuals to produce 30% of La Silla Vacilla’s content. At the same time, she wants to build Mi Puesto to 10,000 users from 1,225, contributing to a total of more than 100,000 visitors and 300,000 pageviews per month. Finally, she plans to launch a campus network to introduce the website to universities and students.

Learn more:
her full profile.

Watch Juanita discuss herwork, motivation, and future plans in her own words; and read

news & knowledge
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH KNIGHT FOUNDATION

http://knowledge.ashoka.org
Our goal is to identify and support social entrepreneurs whose cutting-edge ideas promise to better inform, engage, and connect citizens – and to advance the role of news and knowledge in strengthening democratic society.

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