InquireFirst

InquireFirst operates in the Southwest U.S., Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay. ³ It has received operational grants from the National Geographic Society, the Network for Good, and the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. ⁴

Programs

Bajo La Lupa

Bajo La Lupa is a project of InquireFirst which awards Latin American journalists funding for larger projects. ⁵ In 2021, award money was given to Aldo Benitez, a journalist from Paraguay, who wrote an investigative piece about the impact that deforestation of the Amazon rainforest had on the countries surrounding it. ⁶ Bajo La Lupa was founded by the executive director of InquireFirst, Lynne Walker, through a grant from the California-based attorney Anthony S. Da Vigo. ⁵

The winner of the grant each year is voted on by Ginger Thompson, Ronny Rojas, and Luis Trelles. Ginger Thompson is from the investigative journalism group ProPublica. She is a Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote for the New York Times for 15 years, focusing on Latin America, immigration, and wars against cartels. Ronny Rojas is a journalist from Costa Rica who was a fellow of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship Program at Stanford University and now works part-time as an adjunct professor for the City University of New York. Luis Trelles is a Puerto Rican journalist who works as a senior writer for Latino USA, a radio program and podcast, previously hosted by National Public Radio, which focuses on Latino issues impacting the rest of the Americas. ⁷

Historias Sin Fronteras

Historias Sin Fronteras is a science journalism project of InquireFirst which awards grants to Latin American journalists. ⁸ It has published articles that cover the history of immigration at the US-Mexico border, the impact on the coastal ecosystems of Chile and Peru from China over-harvesting seaweed, the impact weather-dependent energy has on Latin American countries which mine the materials needed to build electric equipment, and food independence in Latin American countries. ⁹ The founding sponsor of the program is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Maryland. ¹⁰

The judges who pick which organization wins the grant are Robert Hernandez and Jane Reza. Hernandez worked for the Seattle Times and was a consultant of El Salvador’s largest daily newspaper, La Prensa Grafica. Hernandez is now a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Reza is a deputy director for the left-of-center nonprofit Undark. ¹¹

Montana y Selva

Montana y Selva is a project of InquireFirst that provides grants to Latin American reporters focusing on environmental investigative journalism. ¹² It has produced articles about the gold mining cycle in Ecuador ¹³ and the oil industry in Peru. ¹⁴

This project was founded in collaboration with the left-wing Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. These articles have been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Earth Island Journal, and Mongabay. ¹²

Voces Emergentes

Voces Emergentes is the result of InquireFirst’s workshop program in Latin America. The articles are all written by former students of the program. ¹⁵ The articles cover topics including same sex marriage, mining in Mexico, illegal farming operations, the wage gap between professional men’s and women’s soccer in Mexico, and habitat loss. ¹⁶

The project was created on collaboration with the Mexican Embassy to the United States. The articles have been published in Forbes Mexico, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. ¹⁵

Donors

Donors to InquireFirst include the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the National Geographic Society, Network for Good, and the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. ⁴