Hello — my name is Ytaelena Lopez. I am a journalist from Venezuela, where I reported on cultural and international stories for El Nacional and others. I am here to see firsthand the metamorphosis of what we do in this time of rebalancing between consolidated media ownership, new technologies, and newly-empowered cultural groups.

I am not a stranger to the technology: my hotmail account just passed its 10-year anniversary. I am proficient with HTML, have been blogging for several years, and have been worked as News Editor with Yahoo Telemundo. I worked as a volunteer organizer for the NewsTools2008 conference (Sunny Valley), as a twitter reporter for IJ-05 (Innovations in Journalism, Stanford) and as observer for the Maynard Editing Program (University of Nevada, Reno). Presently I am working as a Spanish Columnist at Maynard Institute. Also, I maintain several websites that combine my illustrations, videos and writing.

Since arriving in the US I have been surprised at the many issues of race and culture, from the glaring (why are cities still so segregated) to the tricky (why are Latino writers always given the “immigration beat”) to the under-reported (eg people in custody disappearing). I would love the chance to work with an independent institution that looks at these kinds of things without blinking.