Meet Esther Honig, a journalist covering stories rooted in diversity, unity, food sustainability and the Spanish language
Hadi Eltahlawi interviews Esther Honig about her path into journalism looking at connections between agriculture, immigration and climate change.
In today’s world, it’s more important than ever to bring attention to the issues that matter most. One journalist who is doing just that is Esther Honig. Honig is a talented storyteller who uses both print and audio mediums to explore complex intersections of food, people and our planet. With her fluency in Spanish and a degree in Spanish and Latin American studies, Honig is uniquely equipped to report on these issues both in Mexico and across the United States.
Q: Can you tell me about your background and how you became interested in reporting on issues like agriculture, immigration, and climate change?
A: I entered journalism, kind of through the back door. I didn’t study journalism, I studied Spanish Latin American Studies. And I had to do a lot of internships and do a lot of freelance work to kind of build up my portfolio and get my first reporting job. And I started doing exclusively Public Radio. So working for NPR membership stations. And, of course, it was way more competitive to get those jobs in big cities. And so and a lot more expensive to live in those cities. And so sort of, just by those circumstances, I found myself working for stations that were not in big cities, sort of like middle America, places that are kind of considered like flyover country by a lot of our, more prominent, media outlets.
So I was working in Kansas City, Columbus, Ohio, and then eventually moved back to Colorado, where I’m from. And in all of those places, there’s just so much to cover out in rural areas. And that’s where I really started my coverage of agriculture, specifically immigration and agriculture. As a Spanish speaker, it was sort of this natural intersection of the two because you have this very underreported community of folks who work in our food system.
And a lot of the times, the journalists in those areas don’t speak Spanish. And so it was just sort of immediately interesting to me. I also started working in journalism, like my first few years were during the Trump administration. And so we saw a lot of deportations that hadn’t been happening previously, of people who were, you know, nonviolent criminal offenses, things like driving without a license. And these folks worked in agriculture. And so there was just there was a lot, of coverage starting out there. And even just highlighting that, like the lives of people who work in our food system, like we just get our food brought to us at the marketplace, and very few of us have any sort of connection with what actually goes into producing that food and harvesting it and getting it onto the grocery store shelf.
Q: As you mentioned, you have a degree in Spanish and Latin American studies. How has that, in any way, influenced your reporting and storytelling and connecting with the people?
Absolutely. I mean, again, as a journalist, I feel like, if you’re a good journalist, you’re looking at the news environment that’s before you. And you’re asking yourself, like, what has not been covered? And, you know, for so many, so many instances, I was in Kansas City, I was in Columbus, Ohio, and no one in my office spoke Spanish. And so there’s this whole other side of this community that they think they know so well, that hasn’t been covered at all. And you could say that for any number of languages, or language communities that exist in those areas.
And so Spanish was incredibly advantageous. And I would say more so than even having a journalism degree, to be honest, because it gave me that upper hand. It was what got me hired in several instances because it was one more tool I had in my toolbox that other people did not have, even though maybe we had like the same level of experience. And so, I mean, when you think about it, it applies towards everything. Political reporting, to, of course, immigration, but also covering local businesses and schools, and there’s always going to be a very large monolingual Spanish-speaking community, in this country, at least for the next several decades. And so, yeah, that’s, that’s definitely influenced my reporting.
And I think it’s right, what I’ve really learned, or what I think, yeah, something that I’ve really learned from it is just that it’s not enough to be able, like, There are reporters that will go out there, and they’ll say, like, you know, I can speak enough, I can understand enough. And that’s not I don’t think that’s good enough, I think it’s really important to be fluent. And to give those subjects the same respect that an English speaking subject would get, you know, like, to be able to connect with them, and to be able to properly convey what they’re saying, without any sort of doubt, or to really understand their culture.
Q: So, you have been to Mexico to cover multiple stories? Can you share some of your experiences traveling to Mexico, and also across the United States to carry out the reporting? And how do you approach and find and tell the stories of the people that you actually write about?
I think that it’s challenging because, you know, as, like doing international reporting, and even doing reporting in the US where I have to go to a specific location, I don’t always have the advantage to be able to, like spend time in that location to organically source a story to understand community things that I felt were really important when I was a local journalist.
So all I can do, you know, you’re only going to get a budget of three days, four days, you’re not ever going to get three weeks, like the sort of time that would really help you tease out every detail. And so really coming in with as much information as possible ahead of time, having that story, as fully developed as you can from a distance as possible. We live in a wonderful age where we can contact people that we don’t know, via Facebook, via social media, we can call them.
We can work with organizations to help us identify sources, and they can work with us to help us bridge that sort of gap of trust. We just did that recently, when I went out to Wahaca in March, where a local organization has built trust in a community. And so they knew to put me in touch with the local community leader who then led me to the family to then conduct the interview. And without that bridge, it would have been impossible. So really, having all your ducks in a row beforehand, unfortunately, is kind of the name of the game.
Q: You mentioned on your website, that now you’re more focused on in-depth narrative-driven pieces. What exactly draws you to these types of feature stories?
I think that some were the first several years of my career, I was limited to news features for NPR. So those are three minutes and 30 seconds. They’re very short. You don’t get to build up much character, it’s a challenge. And it’s always a puzzle to see how you fit all the elements together. But ultimately, every time I walked away, there was just so much that I had to cut out and it felt very unsatisfying.
And I looked at who I admired in this industry, and they were all freelancers, which means that they didn’t have this sort of quota system they had to meet. And they were able to take the time to really fully report out these pieces into these lovely novels almost sort of like, you know, a narrative arc, and we get to see a full person, we don’t just see like, this tokenization of different demographics in our society. We get to see where they came from, who they are now and where they’re going. And it was just so much more interesting and engaging to me, like I wanted, I sat down and read those stories.
But when I listened to my own work and the work of most other stories on NPR, I kind of zoned out. And so, yeah, I just decided that I wanted to, like it was a new challenge. But it was also just the opportunity to build more with what I was reporting.
Q: Finally, what advice would you give to aspiring journalists, if they are interested in reporting on similar issues, especially from an international perspective?
I think it’s all about finding your niche. I think that speaking a second language is possibly your greatest advantage in this industry. And so your niche can look like a lot of things, it can look like what medium that you work in, it can look like, again, the topics that you choose to focus on.
I think it’s hard because, you know, as I’m admitting that my appetite for news has decreased in the last few years. I know that as we head toward the election cycle, as you know, things get difficult at home, people are less concerned about what’s happening internationally. So how do you work to make those connections? Like, if you want to work for a US outlet? How, like, what is happening in the country where you want to work? And how does it relate directly to what’s happening in the US, which is why Mexico is so convenient because they’re our number one producer of agriculture.
We buy more agriculture from Mexico than any other country, 90% of what they produce comes to us. And we spend more money on it than Mexico makes in their oil production. Like it’s billions of dollars, and it’s increasing every year. So it’s going to continue to be a big topic. And when someone sees a piece of fruit on the table, it likely came from Mexico. So what’s the story behind that? How do you find an intrinsic sort of connection between where you are, and the United States, if that’s who you want to report for?
If you want to report for the EU, or, you know, another country like this, the question would be similar. Like, how do you make it relevant? And yeah, and that niche again, I think the last thing I’ll say is just like the language is great. The niche is great. But what other tools do you have? Personally, I love taking photos. I’ve learned at this point that I do not need to go out into the field with a photographer. And I think actually, I work better without one.
