I 'Rose From the Dead.' Here’s What Happened Next.
After more than a year away from bylines, I published an investigation on my own. What happened next surprised me. Or did it?
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For the first time in more than a year, my byline appeared again on an original investigative story.
And my inbox flooded.
People I hadn’t heard from in a long time — readers from my days covering immigration in my hometown — started writing.
Some joked that I had risen from the dead.
Well… kind of.
After my layoff, after having my second baby, after months of applying to job after job and hearing nothing back, I made a decision on Dec.31, as the light from fireworks spilled through my window.
I was done waiting for someone to let me back in.
I was going solo.
I was going to build something myself.
I’ve always been the kind of person who finds a way into the house, even if the front door is closed.
Side door. Window. Chimney if I have to.
Since publishing this investigation, hundreds of old readers have reached out. They remember my reporting — reporting that led to the release of a man who was in ICE detention for 11 years, reached Congress, reunited families, changed policy, saved lives.
They told me they want more of it.
And the truth is, I want to do more of it too.
But what most people don’t see is what this work looks like right now.
I’m not inside a newsroom. I’m not getting paid for my work. I’m nine months postpartum and don’t have childcare.
My sources will tell you that during nearly every call, real life was happening in the background — a diaper crinkling, the hum of a breast pump, a baby crying, a toddler getting into something he shouldn’t.
This is what independent reporting looks like for me right now.
And I’m doing it anyway.
Because these stories still matter.
Maybe this is what rebuilding looks like.
Not inside a newsroom. Not with a badge or a desk or a press pass.
At the kitchen table, between naps, with a laptop open, toys everywhere, and a baby on my hip.
Right now, I have multiple projects in progress. Another story is publishing this weekend (stay tuned)! Part Two of my Alligator Alcatraz investigation is coming soon.
The reporting I recently published — later proudly republished by my alma mater, the Miami Herald — is still ongoing, and I’m continuing to work day and night to answer the questions people across the country are asking.
This past week has also been a reminder of the challenges and injustices that can come with doing independent journalism.
My recent investigation started here on Two Can Be True, my weekly newsletter. I did the reporting myself, outside a newsroom, without pay, without a staff, without the protections that usually come with a byline.
Once the story got attention, it began to move rampantly. It was picked up by third parties, shared, and discussed in new places, including dozens of sites like Yahoo News, The Latin Times, Mediaite, The Independent and dozens of others.
Most of the times, under someone else’s byline and without clear credit to where the reporting actually started — a reminder that in today’s media environment, original work can quickly get repackaged for pageviews while the reporter who did it is still doing the work unpaid.
(Update: After this story was published, Yahoo News + Mediaite corrected their articles and gave proper credit).
I also reached out to several respected publications that regularly highlight immigration reporting in their newsletters, hoping they might share the investigation.
All declined, not because of the reporting itself, but because I am not currently working under a traditional news outlet. In one case, after the Miami Herald republished and linked to my work, one of the outlets then chose to feature it.
Same exact story, word for word, just under a different masthead.
To quote a confused friend who called me this morning — fiercely protective, and with no background in journalism or the media business:
“But the big name didn’t write it. You did!”
Her simple sentiment really landed in my heart. She’s right.
But that’s the reality of this work right now. Even when the reporting is solid, the absence of a newsroom logo can still determine where a story is allowed to go.
I even reached out to Lawyers for Reporters, a program at the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice that many journalists rely on for legal guidance when reporting gets complicated. That kind of support is often available to reporters inside newsrooms — not to independent ones.
“Unfortunately, our organization is not set up to represent individual journalists, except through their commissioning publishers. Regretfully, we are unable to assist…” I was told in an email.
And yet, at the same time, the story can be everywhere, with no credit. And the person chasing the next lead might be reporting from inside a nursery, nine months postpartum, rocking a baby between calls, uncompensated, unsupported and still doing the work anyway.
(It’s actually 4:06 a.m. as I write this).
This isn’t just my experience. Across the industry, original reporting is getting harder to sustain.
Earlier this month, the publisher of The New York Times ran an ad urging people to support any news organization doing original reporting, warning that the profession has shrunk dramatically in recent years.
When even the biggest newsroom in the country is telling people to support reporting wherever they find it, it shows how much the system has changed — and how often the work now starts outside traditional newsrooms.
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This space exists because readers like you still believe in this work.
And right now, I’m building it again — one story at a time.
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