Why the Mexican newspaper industry sucks

If you've been wondering where all my witty comments and wonderfully written culture features have gone, let me tell you: they've been replaced by an endless cycle of work, from sunrise to sunset.

I wake up in the morning to tend to the niños until 1 p.m., when I change clothes in the big-toilet bathroom and grab the metro then a smelly "pesero" to The News' office in Las Palmas. I've also become that nasty person who eats lunch on the bus with her fingers. Swine Flu Round 2, anyone? Once in the office, I plug away at my Embassy Row supplement as my 12 beleaugered co-workers put in even more work to run an entire paper by themselves. They're editing, designing, procuring photos, and shamefully translating horrible, horrible stories that are sent to us from our Mexican editorial department.

Our first day post-apocalypse (i.e. when 70% of the staff was fired), the new editor-in-chief assured us that The News would still be our paper with our own editorial control. But really he meant that the stories he'd be sending us, which are written by journalists working for other papers under our parent company, would be poorly written, one-sourced and rife with accusations and loaded statements that are never backed up or balanced. It's essentially 'this governor said this.' End of story. I know true objectivity doesn't really exist in journalism, but can't we at least try our best to get there?

My day in the office ends around 8 p.m., although this is kind of an arbitrary time, since it would be impossible to pull off the supplement by working my part-time schedule. I usually leave alone since everyone is still working on the paper, taking another pesero in rush-hour traffic. I eat dinner, yell at Matt and work on my stories until my brain literally turns to mush and I can no longer pull sensible sentences from out of my head.

This was last week at least, we'll see how this week goes. It's been tiring and draining, but I think the hardest part has been everyone's morale suffering a terrible blow. Our managing editor last week was fired, for what I understand as trying to gain back some editorial control so that our paper doesn't totally suck. Another editor is leaving Monday, and most others are thinking about quitting, as 11-hour days and reduced pay don't really jibe well for them.

I myself am waiting to see what transpires. My supplement is pretty independent of the rest of the paper, so as long as the designer and photo editor don't quit too, it would probably still be possible to pull it off...well, if preschool ever ends! But the best part of being overworked is that my Mexican editor told me I had to take my byline off two stories. He said it would be better if the supplement didn't appear to have been written by one person. So we'd take my name off my two least favorite stories and give readers the illusion that another reporter was helping me. What I ended up doing is moving my byline from the top of two stories to the bottom, still giving myself credit but making it less conspicuous to the unobservant reader.

I'm still not sure how my paycheck is going to work out...they're making us all declare taxes with the Treasury, at task that requires presenting yourself in person once a month or so along with a handful of the 21 million that live here. But I still don't have my FM-3 work visa, so I can't get the ID number necessary to fulfill this duty. Pues........

So that's my life thus far. Matt finally moved to Mexico City! But we only see each other for a few stressed-out hours during the week. He's been working most days on the video project with the Institute of International Education and leaves for a week of work in Peru in July! Oh to be able to leave this dead-ended rat race.