It’s The Border Chronicle’s 3rd Anniversary!

Help us reach our goal of 1,000 paid subscribers. Also, tell us how we’re doing. Fill out our (first ever) survey—mil gracias!

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Newsletter
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September 3, 2024

Híjole, time flies!

It wasn’t long ago in September 2021 that we embarked on this project in local/regional news called The Border Chronicle with the help of a Substack local reporting fellowship.

As two longtime border journalists, we both felt that the U.S.-Mexico border needed a publication that provides context, analysis and on-the-ground reporting for the entire region, not just one section of border. Because whether you live in ambos Nogales, San Diego/Tijuana, Brownsville/Matamoros or los dos Laredos chances are you have a lot in common and are facing similar challenges from climate change induced migration to ever expanding surveillance and border enforcement.

Covering an almost 2,000-mile border, is an ambitious (and possibly crazy) idea, considering there’s just the two of us. But we have stuck with it. We’ve published more than 286 articles and podcasts since we launched in September 2021. And in this crucial election year where border disinformation is on overdrive, we are doubling down on countering false and dangerous narratives.  We’ve published podcasts and articles including “How the Right Wing Hijacked the Border Narrative” and “Meet the MAGA media militia.” As well as hopeful articles like “The Garden at the Migrant Shelter” which offers a different reality to the chaos and doom narratives so often perpetuated by people who don’t live in the borderlands.

We’re also proud that this year we have been able to incorporate more perspectives and bylines in The Border Chronicle from the stellar Rio Grande Valley, Texas, reporter Pablo de la Rosa and investigative journalist Avery Schmitz to opinion pieces by Dr. Brian Elmore in El Paso and Carolea Hassard in rural Kinney County, Texas.

We’d like to continue to expand our coverage and include more bylines. That’s why we’re asking for your help on our 3rd anniversary. In 2022, Substack’s local reporting fellowship ended. And we made the crucial decision to continue with the newsletter on our own. Since the beginning, we’ve known that we need at least 2,000 paid subscribers to be able to make a living doing this. We currently have more than 11,400 subscribers, but less than 10 percent are paid subscribers. We are very thankful for you, our readers and podcast listeners, because without you we wouldn’t exist. But we’re not going to lie, it’s hard doing this on a shoestring budget while having to work second jobs. We’re hoping that at least 30 of you will become paid subscribers today and help us reach 1,000 paid subscribers for our 3rd birthday. A subscription is just $6 a month or $60 a year. Or even better, become a founding member for $150 and you’ll get a very cool Border Chronicle tote bag, and two additional subscriptions for friends and family. We also accept donations through PayPal to support our work.

One of these cool tote bags (in black or natural) could be yours!

Every dollar from your paid subscription will go towards our reporting, including gas money for travel, FOIA and public record fees, and health insurance and office expenses among other things. It will also help us pay our wonderful part-time editors Steev Hise and Pablo Morales, and other border journalists, so that we can continue to bring you more diverse voices and perspectives from the borderlands.

And we have one more birthday request. We’d like your honest opinion about how you think we’re doing and what type of coverage you’d like to see more of. Please fill out this short survey by Friday, September 6. We’d really appreciate your feedback to help inform our coverage for the November election and beyond.

Take Our 3rd Birthday Survey

Thank you for reading and supporting The Border Chronicle!

Un abrazo desde Tucson,

Melissa & Todd

Authors
Melissa del Bosque

Melissa del Bosque is Co-founder and Executive Director of The Border Chronicle. Melissa has written about the U.S.-Mexico border since 1998 for various media outlets, including ProPublica, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Texas Observer, and The Intercept.

Her work has been recognized with numerous U.S. and international journalism awards, including a Gabo Award and the Internacional Rey de España de Periodismo award, as the U.S.-Mexico investigations editor for Lighthouse Reports. In 2020, del Bosque received the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award as part of a ProPublica group reporting project “Inside the Border Patrol.” In 2016, she received the Hillman Prize for her investigative feature “Death on Sevenmile Road” about the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2015, del Bosque’s four-part series with The Guardian on migrant deaths in South Texas won an Emmy and a National Magazine Award. 

Del Bosque is also the author of Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty. She has a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master’s in Public Health from the Texas A&M School of Rural Public Health, and a Bachelor’s in poetry and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

In her spare time, Melissa loves to travel, spend time with her family, and explore the Sonoran Desert.

Todd Miller

Todd Miller is Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of The Border Chronicle. He is the author of four books that examine border militarization and its externalization, surveillance technology and industry, climate change, and the search for alternatives. His books include Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021) Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019),  Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014).

Todd’s forthcoming book is a deep examination of water as a border issue in an age of climate-induced heat waves and drought. It will be published by Seven Stories Press in 2027.

Besides The Border Chronicle, articles by Todd have appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, TomDispatch, and Al Jazeera English, among other places. He has also authored and co-authored reports on border surveillance, the border industrial complex, and climate change for the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute, where he is a fellow.

Todd’s book Storming the Wall received the Izzy Award in 2018 for “path-breaking and in-depth reporting.” He also received first place in “Community immigration reporting” by the Arizona Press Club in 2013. Todd has a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Journalism from Prescott College, where he is also an adjunct professor.

In his spare time, Todd likes to travel, read, philosophize, and hang out with his two kids—whether it be going to a dance recital or being a basketball coach.

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