Building self-protection networks is key

About Pie de Página

Pie de Página is based in Mexico City and focuses on thorough, in-depth reporting to explain the why and the how of topics such as migration; women, feminism, and gender; peace building and state crimes; local resistance; environment and the climate crisis; and inequality.
The outlet was set up in response to the growing violence and resulting self-censorship in Mexico. The initial aim was to publish reports that members of the local media network Periodistas de a Pie could not publish on their own websites for security reasons.  

Resilience Strategy

From the day Pie de Página was created in 2015, inside Periodistas de a Pie, much has changed in their context, aims, and internal architecture. Their key crises in the last few years have been not security crises, but a #MeToo crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the transition from being simply a project of the network, to becoming an organization in their own right. They have dealt with them by being very clear about core values and objectives of the organization while being flexible in the means and the methods; looking for specialized help and operational alternatives; devising processes collectively, and trying to create safer spaces for the members of the team.

Top 5 recommendations for resilience while working through organizational change processes within a violent context

• Think of internal governance, include everyone in devising it, create a consensus, and then see it through.
• Design crisis responses in advance and train the teams in the application of them.  
• Protect your team from physical and emotional exhaustion by finding out about their stress factors and how to address them.
• Emancipate the organization from dependency on individual leadership.
• Evaluate, learn, and apply lessons learned.
   

"We discovered, between 2012 and 2014, that building self-protection networks was key. The attacks in the northern and southern states were very different. In each region we worked to design a specific form of mini-network from which independent media emerged. We made a self-protection handbook for journalists."

Daniela Pastrana, editor-in-chief, Pie de Página, and co-founder, Periodistas de a Pie, Mexico