"Puente" means bridge in Spanish. The goal of the collaborative is to bolster the coverage of communities on both sides of the border, and report on border stories "beyond the border," Corchado said. A 2022 study from the Center for Community Media found that there are 70 news outlets based on the U.S side of the border. But at least 30 counties on either side of the border don't have any active news sources, according to some preliminary research by Puente.
Corchado started working on Puente while covering two historic elections: Leftist candidate Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico's first female president in June, while the U.S. presidential race between former president Donald Trump and current vice president Kamala Harris will be decided in November.
So far Puente's reporting has been picked up by USA Today, the El Paso Times, Texas Observer, NAHJ's Palabra, El Paso Matters, KTEP, and the San Antonio Express-News.
The Puente News Collaborative first launched in 2021 with grant funding from Microsoft and convened eight local news outlets in El Paso and Juárez.
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