Community-focused journalism: The strategy for countering Donald Trump

A president who brands journalists as liars and restricts press access. Major news organizations yielding ground. Sources going silent out of fear. All of these would have seemed unthinkable in the United States before Donald Trump. In Spanish, and at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) conference — the largest gathering of Hispanic journalists in the country —, EL PAÍS opened the conversation Our Journalism Under Attack. Moderated by journalist and author Paola Ramos, the panel brought together four editors who report from communities directly affected by the administration’s policies or who grapple daily with how to cover a democratic, “multiracial” nation living under a climate of persecution.

“We have to return to journalism in its classical sense. We cannot flinch. We have to tell the truth,” said EL PAÍS Editor-in-Chief Jan Martínez Ahrens, who reflected on the newspaper’s origins following the death of a dictator, founded with a commitment to freedom, independence, and rigorous reporting. At a pivotal moment for the American press, EL PAÍS is taking part in the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ annual conference for the first time.

Ginger Thompson, Managing Editor of ProPublica, who spent more than a decade as The New York Times’ editor in Mexico, acknowledged that she never imagined she would witness a United States where institutions proved so fragile in the face of a president. Still, she argued that the answer is “to be present in our communities, make our work more transparent, keep searching for the truth, and keep saying when the president lies.”

Amid what he described as a climate of persecution, where the “abuses have a racial dimension,” Martínez Ahrens argued that “the truth is harder to find,” making “the work of journalists more valuable than ever.”

To build a stronger presence in the communities they serve, Thompson said news organizations must diversify the ways they reach audiences. At ProPublica, that has meant investing in new podcasts, expanding its video strategy, and strengthening its presence on social media. EL PAÍS, particularly in the United States, is making a similar bet by connecting with audiences through video.

“Are you afraid?”

Since Trump returned to the White House for a second term, attacks on the press have intensified. His administration has slashed funding for public broadcasters such as NPR and PBS, restricted access for some reporters to White House press briefings, pursued multimillion-dollar lawsuits against media organizations, and used the Justice Department to seek access to journalists’ sources, as in the case involving The New York Times following its reporting on the security capabilities of the new Air Force One. Dozens of reporters have also been arrested while covering protests against immigration raids across the United States, and at least two have been deported.

Asked by Ramos whether they work in fear under the current climate, Alfredo Corchado, editor of Puente News Collaborative, who lives in the Texas border city of El Paso, said that in a place where encounters with immigration agents — even in a coffee shop — are commonplace, he fears not only for himself as a journalist but also for his family and friends, who face those same encounters.

“You can feel the tension every single day,” Corchado said, recalling the August 2019 mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart — classified as a hate crime targeting the Mexican community — that killed more than 20 people, at the very store where his own family shops.

Corchado argued that a free press is indispensable in places like the U.S.-Mexico border. Communities there, he said, “are deeply vulnerable.”

“There are vast news deserts,” he said. “There’s so much bad information that you don’t know what to believe.” To fill those gaps, he called for greater collaboration between Spanish-language outlets such as EL PAÍS, which is expanding its team of bilingual journalists in the United States, and local news organizations to strengthen coverage and better serve communities that have been left behind.

2026: An election year

Against this new backdrop for journalism in the United States, Ramos asked the panelists how the media should approach the 2026 midterm elections, a vote that could reshape the country’s political balance of power — especially after years of President Trump’s repeated false claims of widespread election fraud.

“As journalists, we have to understand that there’s much more beyond that—that the real story lies elsewhere,” said Mari Torres, a multiplatform media executive who has led editorial strategy at major Spanish-language broadcasters including CNN en Español, Univision, and Telemundo. “We have to be clear about that in order to set our own agenda.”

The editors agreed that journalists must remain focused on the issues that matter most to the communities they serve. For Thompson, that means continuing to report on immigration. For Martínez Ahrens, it also means keeping international conflicts and wars on the agenda.

In the end, EL PAÍS Editor-in-Chief Martínez Ahrens said, “the winner is the one who practices good journalism and gives audiences the truth—facts that have been rigorously verified.”