Diego Graglia, journalist

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This is a summation of my professional experience. For a full bio, click here, and for bullet-point highlights, here.

Journalism and Latin America are the keywords in my professional life. Since I started out in 1997, my words and I have been all over the Western Hemisphere.

México D.F., 2008

I covered local news in the urban corners of Northern New Jersey for the best newspaper in the state. I edited one of Latin America’s most admired magazines. I managed an immigration news website that told Americans the stories the mainstream press wouldn’t find. I supervised shifts at The Associated Press‘ World Spanish Desk, filing stories and photos for media outlets from New York to Caracas to Buenos Aires. I wrote cover stories for the biggest business magazine in Mexico and the best narrative magazine in Latin America. I wrote foreign dispatches for the U.S., Chile and Argentina. Along the way, I found time to produce public radio features, create audio slideshows, videos and podcasts, and take photos.

And in 2008 I drove across the U.S. from New York to Mexico to report on Latinos and that year’s historic presidential election.

I also designed this website.

People who believed in me gave me a start in the local newspaper in my hometown of Posadas; a fellowship in Argentina’s biggest news channel, back in 1998; free room and board in Buenos Aires to study and work at Clarín, then the Spanish-speaking world’s biggest newspaper; two awards for young journalists (a long time ago); a Fulbright scholarship, a Moors-Cabot scholarship, an Online Journalism Association scholarship and a Jacobo Timerman scholarship to get my Master’s degree –with honors– at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism; a one-year internship at The Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ; the chance to write for the newspaper with the sixth largest circulation in the U.S.; a McCracken fellowship that covered all expenses to obtain my Master’s in Latin American Studies at New York University.

On this long road, I found that you never stop learning in journalism, as long as you look up to the right people. Life blessed me with great bosses (most of the time, anyway), who taught me a zillion things.

At Clarín, news editors pushed me to write colorful, punchy yet thorough and accurate copy. At Columbia, a maestro like Sandy Padwe instilled in me the notion that you can’t be a journalist without “fire in your belly.” At the A.P., morning, night and overnight shifts on the news and sports desks sharpened my editing skills, speed and instant news judgment. At The Star-Ledger, a seasoned bureau chief showed me there’s always one more question to ask before you come back to the newsroom. The Daily News in New York gave me room to grow in return for my reliability and availability as a freelancer. At Feet in 2 Worlds I worked in multiple formats and with reporters from varied cultural backgrounds to produce a report aimed at the U.S. mainstream. At NYU, I found new ways to look at Latin America’s diversity and to learn from its recent history; and I discovered an amazing, untold story.

This site is intended as a professional portfolio and story archive. Please email me if you have any comments on its design, functionality or content or if you want to know more about anything here. For my personal views (a.k.a. bilingual rants) on journalism, fútbol, my beloved San Lorenzo, surfing and random stuff, check out my Twitter profile. There’s also a complete résumé on LinkedIn and you can at some point in 2011 or 2012 you will be able to subscribe to my blog postings through RSS.

No, I don’t do Facebook.