Theme: Turning Challenges into Opportunities
With September 1st recognized as Press Day on Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, we saw it as the ideal occasion to create an annual seminar for journalists in the month of September. The first edition of the Caribbean Journalism Seminar 2024 marked the official launch of Aruba’s first professional journalism association, Red Arubiano di Prensa Profesional (RAPP). The seminar featured international and local speakers related to the theme: ‘Turning Challenges into Opportunities’. The event attracted a full room of journalists and interested guests, eager to learn more about the topics presented at this inaugural event, which included speakers:
Luis Anibal Villegas: A former journalist in Aruba, now working as a freelance journalist and law
student at UVA in the Netherlands. Villegas presented the “Lob-generator,” a tool designed to make public information requests easier for residents of the Dutch Caribbean islands.
Marlon Kock: A UX expert, who elaborated during his presentation on ‘AI for journalists’ which showed how journalists can use AI as a time machine to aid in production.
Carla Minet (Keynote Speaker): An investigative journalist who has worked on important investigations such as the Panama, Pandora, and Paradise Papers. Minet, the executive director of the Centro Investigativo de Periodismo(CPI) in Puerto Rico, presented on “Challenges and Opportunities for Journalists in the Caribbean.”
She explained the current scenario in various Caribbean countries and the challenges journalists face. She emphasized the need for investigative journalists in the region to collaborate on cross-border stories to better inform the public about issues that affect them and hold responsible authorities accountable. “It is important to work together in the region, especially given the lack of support journalists face, particularly when covering difficult topics where resources are scarce,” she explained.
This first seminar not only launched RAPP, but also set in motion our mission to professionalize journalism and build a stronger, more connected media community.
