Puente News Collaborative started out as an experimental local news pilot in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez in 2021. Led by the El Paso Community Foundation, with seed funding from Microsoft, the collaborating network of newsrooms and journalists focused on rebuilding the local news ecosystem to provide high-quality, fact-based reporting on the border.
To support the growth and expansion of local newsrooms along the U.S.-Mexico border, Puente News Collaborative seeks to:
local newspapers
have shut down.
counties have no
newspaper at all.
campaigns have
grown exponentially.
Half of the counties
have only one
newspaper.
News deserts
continue to expand,
particularly in smaller
cities and towns.
Fueled by AI, there are now
more ‘pink slime’ or
purposefully fake local news
websites than real ones.
Of the 25 counties along U.S.-Mexico border, nearly half have only one or no newsroom at all.
Many of the remaining newsrooms are ‘ghost newsrooms’ with no editor or publisher and little or no local news staff or original reporting.
Narratives about the border region, fixated only on security and immigration, are manipulated or exploited nationally for political gain.
With the collapse of local news, communities experience:
Voter participation and civic engagement
Government accountability reporting
Awareness of the U.S.-Mexico border’s essential economic and cultural impact
Community polarization
Government waste and abuses of power
The spread and effectiveness of disinformation campaigns
A foundational element of every community is in real jeopardy.