Welcome back to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol.

One of the most special things about KAMU is that we have as many student workers as we have full time employees.

And those students learn everything from video production and audio storytelling to writing stories for our newsletter.

And handling cam use, social media marketing and community events.

General Manager Kelly Brown has a strong background in journalism and to a lesser extent, I do too.

But among our top priorities for KAMU is forging a closer relationship with Texas A&M Department of Communication and Journalism so we can collectively teach and train as many students as possible on how to find and credibly report news for their community, wherever their community might be.

And that brings me to today's topic and guests.

Mariano Castillo is a professor of practice in journalism at Texas A&M, which means he brings real world experience to the classroom.

And among his career stops were the San Antonio Express-News, the Associated Press, and CNN.

He's an Aggie who I believe was part of the Corps of Cadets and also wrote for the Battalion student newspaper, during his time here.

Mariano, welcome.

Thank you so much.

Jay.

And Avery Foster is a senior journalism major from Pasadena who you may know from some recent episodes of Brazos Matters.

She's been my co-host and a content contributor at KAMU Studios this semester.

But before coming to campus, Avery was part of a real world reporting assignment in Laredo under Mariano's guidance.

And that's what we're going to talk about today.

So, Avery, thanks for being in the guest seat.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I'm going to start with you, Mariano.

I'd love to know about this particular initiative and what it was intended to do.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much for having me.

Sure.

You know, the the origins of this South Texas project, as it's known, were after the most recent presidential election.

In the aftermath of all that, a lot of the talking heads were talking about, the voting patterns in South Texas especially.

Right?

Right.

And there was a lot of hay made about how a lot of the border region, which traditionally had voted blue, had gone like almost fully red.

And of course, those of us who live here knew that it wasn't something that happened just all at once.

Right.

There had been a pattern.

Over time, the Republicans have had a lot of increasing success in winning a lot of those, counties in South Texas.

And so, a group of professors and faculty in the Department of Communications Journalism got together and kind of started hatching an idea along the lines of, you know, there are some changes afoot in South Texas, such an important and vibrant region.

What are some some of those changes, you know, whether political, culturally, economically.

And so what we did was paired up some of our research faculty together with our journalism faculty, to try to create this umbrella, known as a South Texas project, where we would send researchers to peer up and look for research ideas in South Texas.

And alongside the journalism professors and faculty, to do a hands on project where we could travel with a group of students to do some real life reporting in that important area.

So talk about the story that you found and why you felt like this was a good match for your students.

Yeah.

So there's, like I was saying, it's such a vibrant area and there's all kinds of stories that that touch upon that region of Texas and destroy that we found was one about air pollution and air contamination, in that region.

And what we were looking at specifically was a chemical, called ethylene oxide.

And it's a chemical that gets emitted by certain factories and is used by certain industries, particularly industries where they do sterilization in this case, the sterilization of medical devices.

Right.

That is, hospitals and other clinics use devices right in their in their medical work.

They have to be sterilized in a very specific way.

In the most effective chemical to fully cleanse those items is using ethylene oxide.

Now, what we have known with the scientific community has known is that this, chemical is a carcinogen, right?

So a certain amount of that is released into the air.

And the reason why we chose this is because maybe 2 or 3 years ago, there have been a really great journalistic investigation done by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune.

And they hired analysts and looked at reams of data that showed that the levels of ethylene oxide that were being released in Laredo from one factory in specific were a lot higher then, you know, considered safe.

It caused a risk, to some of the local population.

And as a result of that really great journalistic investigation, the city took note the city of Laredo and, Webb County, they had meetings where the residents and activists demanded change, demanded action.

And there were fenceline studies done to confirm, you know, what the journalists had found and to demand changes to those regulations.

Now, what happens a lot of times when you have such that even like, like a groundbreaking investigation, like this is what happens to the follow up after that.

And so there's been this great investigation.

And over the years when we were searching, there were less and less follow ups as to what came of that.

Yeah, right.

And so I saw an opportunity in our studies and opportunity to kind of pick up the baton and say, hey, you know, two, three years have passed since this investigation.

Several years have passed since city officials promised, to take steps, to make these changes.

Where do things stand now?

Okay, so this was the follow up to the stories that Texas Tribune and ProPublica did a little bit earlier.

Correct.

If we wanted to, you know, pick up that baton and catch people up.

So for you, Avery, if you don't mind, describe how this assignment played out for you and your peers and maybe what did you learn and how did you prepare for that story before you ever arrived in Laredo?

Right.

So it was actually really funny because I came to Professor Castillo a little bit before and started asking about internships.

And I was, you know, I was afraid because I lacked experience.

I'm still very young.

So I was like, oh, I don't know if I have an experience going to internship.

And then this fell into my lap when he talked about it in class, and I was like, you know what?

This would be a really great opportunity to, you know, broaden my horizons and, you know, be able to actually experience something in the field.

And so I went into this thinking, you know, if I don't get it, that's fine.

But I'm going to try, because what better way to get experience than with people who have actually done it, you know?

And so I applied and I got it and a little bit of the before we had some meetings, we went through the whole process.

We got the, the initial stories and we read through those.

And then from those we were supposed to come up with some potential contacts.

And just as a group, we worked together about, you know, who would get what and then planned, meet ups, who we would contact and how we would do that, and scheduled interviews and just things like that.

And how many students from A&M?

Three.

It was me.

It was Callahan.

And then it was Olivia.

And then there was two from the international school, Texas A&M international.

Yes.

Okay.

And did did you have to coordinate in any way with those students while you were here before you went to Laredo?

I think we kind of did that as a group when we had our meetings, we kind of went through everything.

We had zoom meetings as well to kind of plan the processes and just things like that.

So you had a plan of attack before you ever left here, right?

Would you guys walk me through you get down there.

Then what?

Yeah, I think that one of the really neat things about this project was that chance that our students had to work with students who live in Laredo, right, who go to Texas A&M International University?

It's great for us, you know, from College Station to go down there and, you know, find a story that we find interesting and report on it.

But it's so much stronger when you're working with people who live there are invested in that community.

And, you know, as Avery was saying, a lot of the pre-work was that, you know, when we had these brainstorming sessions where we'd come up with, you know, politicians and activists, experts and, you know, families, you know, who believe they may have been affected by by the contamination and the process of, you know, the whole journalistic work of, you know, setting up pre interviews and phone calls and everything.

You know, you you mentioned that, you know, as a professor of practice, I come to A&M with a lot of that that professional experience.

And I you know I miss it sometimes.

It boy was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun to write to, to get to drive down and to share it with the, with the, with the students, and the field trip element, you know, tolerate.

It was really neat because, you know, we had maybe 48 hours or so actually in Laredo.

And so that was it.

That was it.

You know, it was, you know, the drive, you know, one day was kind of driving from College Station to Laredo, and then we had 48 hours to get a lot of work done.

And I think it was pretty nonstop.

Right?

A lot of interviews, I would say even less than 48 hours for being honest.

But you had I'm sure you had a pretty tight schedule, like, we're going to talk to this, person to interview.

We're going to interview this person.

And you had things probably laid out pretty meticulously, right?

Oh, sure we did.

I think, you know, we knew that as soon as we got there we were going to, you know, visit some researchers at the, the Rio Grande Institute, for International Studies.

Yeah.

They were some of the activists involved in this.

And I think things got tricky when, you know, some of the people that we planned to talk weren't as available as.

Yeah.

Well, why tell me about that?

As we were driving down there, actually, we had our, city official canceled on us.

I think we were two hours out, from having the interview, and we got a call saying that she couldn't she had, you know, preexisting, you know, commitments, and she needed to reschedule with the city staff or city council.

Council?

Oh, okay.

So an elected official had said, yes, I will talk to you.

And then it turned out that she was unavailable.

Right.

Yeah.

Was there any particular reason why this this elected official, was on your radar as a potential source?

Yes.

Because she was in the district or represented the district, that the, sterilization company was in.

So we were very interested in the fact that, you know, she represents the district.

She also co-founded, I believe, the Clean Air Coalition, which is an activist group.

So we were like, you know, we think this she's a really good person to talk to you, not to mention that she was also in the initial article as well.

Yeah.

Well, she was in the initial reporting from the Texas Tribune or Propublica.

Okay.

And decided maybe that's all she wanted to do.

I probably.

So what are some other things that during this 48 hour period, went right and maybe went wrong?

And I think that's one of the lessons here for the students also, you know, for journalism students.

And, you know, Jay, you know, this is a longtime journalist.

You know, sometimes you can't always get the sources that you want to speak, right, for any number of reasons.

So that was, you know, challenging, I think in some sense, you know, to have to explain who we were, you know, I think people would love to hear, oh, you know, we're with, you know, a news outlet, you know, because this is a pilot program.

This is something new.

How to explain.

Look, this is a group of students from Texas A&M who, studying journalism, and who want to investigate this and report this the way they would, you know, for any for any news outlet.

I think we had maybe the most success was we were able to find and have some really touching and emotional interviews with families who lived in the area where there were recorded levels of contamination, who welcomed us into their homes.

You know, they just open up their living rooms and spent, really hours with us.

I think, you know, and they just, you know, sat there and told us their stories.

We talked to separate families who, had family members who had battled cancer.

Right.

In one case, it was a, a child who had overcome leukemia.

And the other was was a man who currently is battling lymphoma.

And it was through some of the earlier journalistic reporting that they learned that, wait a minute.

The kinds of cancers that we're battling are the exact same cancers that have been known to be caused right by this.

And, you know, it's one thing to get the data in, to talk to the officials and to kind of, you know, hear those aspects of it, you know, but then to really kind of put a human face to these stories and hearing and knowing in their own words was something else.

I'm sure if you just tuned in, I'm Jay Socol, you're listening to Brazos Matters.

I'm visiting with Texas A&M journalism professor of practice Mariano Castillo, and senior journalism major and KAMU student content contributor Avery Foster about a reporting assignment that focused on increased cancer rates around a medical device sterilization plant in Laredo.

So even with our near-total reliance on technology, at least that's how it feels.

I'm guessing that the remains some fundamental old school techniques that you guys used that maybe you demonstrated or taught.

To help develop sources on this particular story.

Is that fair?

No, no, I think so.

I mean, I mean, everything you would agree.

Like how?

Well, we're so thankful for those interviews we got with those families.

It wasn't easy, you know, to find them.

And I did snitch to Jay.

But you did some knocking on, JJ's, on doors.

You went door knocking.

That's true.

So, you know, I had shown the students that, you know, that there is so much public data.

And so, you know, we always have that concern.

You had so much public data about us that exists on the internet in different directories and such.

And, you know, through those we had a lot of numbers, you know, and the students had tried a lot of these numbers, you know, without success.

And these numbers sometimes comes with addresses attached.

Yeah.

And I think on when it was like maybe the night before, we have an interview and we hadn't found a family member yet, and I said, you know what?

Let me just what do I have to lose?

And, you know, I drove I think maybe it might have been after dinner had dropped the students off at the hotel.

I didn't want to bring them with me in case it was a lost cause.

Sure.

But I knocked on this door and then ended up being the grandparents of this family.

So, like, the name wasn't the correct name that matched the address.

But when I was able to explain who the students were, right, why they traveled from College Station to Laredo, why they were interested in speaking with the family.

They were so open and they said, you know, let us get you in touch with the parents.

They'd love to do this.

And by that night, we we had the interview set up for the next morning.

Wow.

And you know, that's that's a, an essential, skill set and, requirement sometimes of effective reporting.

But that is hard to do when you're, when, at least in my experience.

And of course, I'm going back a number of years.

But when you're approaching people about a very difficult subject, that generates a lot of emotions, it can be really intimidating to go up, to knock on the door, to see them on the street, or even pick up the phone and call, Avery, did you kind of did you absorb any of this kind of stuff but recognize it?

I may have to do this if this is the field that I pursue.

Yeah.

And as an introvert, that's really scary to think about because, you know, even, you know, picking up the phone call and calling someone you don't know is a little bit nerve wracking.

But obviously it's things that you have to go through if you want to get a story and you want to really invoke an emotion in something like that, were there were there technologies that you guys took with you?

It wasn't just notepads and pencils.

I mean, how did you capture some of these, source stories?

I'll tell you something that I learned.

And I think one of the biggest use of technology was after the fact.

You know, some of these families that we spoke with that were affected, spoke only in Spanish.

Okay.

And so, you know, we were able to leave with, you know, these taped, recordings of these interviews and the job of translating and transcribing it is not an easy one.

And I know from my days as a reporter, it was more the more time consuming and tedious tasks that I did not enjoy doing.

Sure.

But nowadays we learned that there's AI software that you can just upload these audios and with a good amount of accuracy, we're able not just to transcribe but also translate the Spanish into English.

Huge time saver.

Huge.

It was a matter of it.

Did it.

And then we had to just listen to it once and just, you know, check it and make sure that that, you know, we fixed anything that was that was off about it.

Maybe while you were down there doing that story, is there is there anything else like impressions you got, whether it was about this particular story or is about the story gathering process that that stays with you?

I think what has really stuck with me is when we went to interview the families, listening to their stories and seeing how much that they went through, but they had no animosity towards the company itself, really learning that they understand what it does for their community.

But also wanting some, you know, middle ground to where, you know, maybe they move the facility backwards, or maybe it just isn't in Laredo at all.

Did you run into any families of victims or what have you, who actually have family members working for the company?

I don't think so.

I don't think we ever got to that point.

No, I don't think so either.

Okay.

And I think also the other interesting thing about, you know, going out there and interviewing everyone is that we knew that the story assignment was, let's update the community about where, you know, what has happened, you know, to this to this case, you know, since the last couple of years.

And we had that general kind of directive, but we didn't know 100% which direction it was going to take us.

And that's one of the things that impressed me most about the students and their ability to kind of suss out from all the interviews, what the most important stuff was.

Right?

Because I was present for some of it to help with translations.

But, you know, most of it, it was 100% student run.

Yeah.

And then they would able to pull out the main kind of, you know, thesis of the story, which is that these activists, about a year ago were celebrating a kind of victory because the EPA did come out and say, you know what?

You're right.

This, chemical, ethylene oxide, it's being emitted at a concentration that's too high.

And so the EPA said there is a new final rule.

That's what they call it.

Final.

Right.

And you final rule, there's going to be new restrictions on how much of this can be made, it into the atmosphere.

Right.

And it would mean maybe up to a 90% reduction for some of these factories, including the one in Laredo.

And what the students learned through their interviews is that along with that change in administration, we got a new EPA administrator, right.

Who has, who's rethinking a lot about this.

Right.

There is an ethylene oxide, sterilization organization, right.

That, that lobbies for the safe use of ethylene oxide and from from where they sit.

They've never broken the law.

Right.

What the company says they have always been within legal limits in that they find the new restrictions to onerous, right, that they would be, you know, too restrictive.

It would hurt their business.

They would not be able to do what they do.

Right.

And, the EPA, under new leadership, has been very open to listen to that.

And so what, to the activists at least, seem like a victory a year ago?

You know, they might not see any changes.

You know, things are now tied up in courts.

There's, you know, delays and pauses and all this mercy.

So for both of you, why is an initiative kind of this real world assignment like this important for Texas A&M journalism and for journalism majors?

Either one of you.

Yeah, I can start.

So, you know, when professor Dale Rice is the one who kind of spearheaded this, you know, for for our side in the Department of Communication and Journalism.

And, one of the things that that that he said that I think is right, that this kind of goes and speaks to our mission as a land grant university.

Right.

And these are areas, you know, in South Texas that are news deserts, right?

That means that there's not, many or in some cases, not any at all, you know, news outlets to cover these local communities.

And we are doing a service by being able to fill in some of those gaps.

And, I think South Texas is a great, it was a great pilot program.

I mean, I hope we do it again, you know, this coming semester and next and go back to that area.

But we're already thinking ahead, based on the success of this initial program about a future where we can do this kind of work around here, right around Brazos County, you know, there are news deserts not that far from us in all of the surrounding counties.

The Medill school at northwestern has a very good, you know, news deserts map, and it shows there are a lot of counties near where we are here.

And Aggieland do not have, many news outlets and very few journalists I would love to see in the future our journalism department doing similar projects in our own backyard, where we can find stories and help fill in some of those gaps.

Right?

Right.

Avery for you.

Valuable.

Yeah.

I think it's important, especially for the department, since we just got the journalism school back about two years ago, and we're still kind of, you know, building up, you know, what it used to be is everyone or especially students.

I think we have this preconceived notion of what journalism is and what it's like to write a story.

But unless you go through the process of, you know, finding the contacts, is there initial articles interviewing people, the, you know, post-production process of of it all, the writing, the getting quotes, all of that.

You really don't know what it is until you do it.

Because I went in, you know, thinking that I was just shadowing.

I wasn't actually going to do anything.

But then when I got there, I was like, thank goodness I'm actually getting experience because this is going to help me when I do it for real.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

Mariano, what is the next assignment for your students that that is similar to this?

No, it's great, a great question.

And, as the fall semester comes around, I think it's a good time for us to gather a new group of students and start brainstorming.

You know, I think in South Texas.

And like I said, I hope hopefully in in our backyard as well around this area.

Yeah.

And do you know if there is any desire by the journalism folks to find ways to do more of this sort of thing, but to do it at scale because instead of doing it by the twos and threes, do any by a greater numbers?

Oh, I think that'd be great.

You know, I think we're, right now in a moment of growth, you know, and we're a very ambitious department right now.

There's a lot of things that we want to accomplish and do.

And I think it's we're finding our footing.

There will be an opportunity, you know, to find, you know, benefactors who want to help us achieve these things and make more of this, possible with the last few minutes that we have here.

Mariano, I'm curious, because of your experiences where you have spent a lot of your career, what advice are you able to give your students in terms of the future of the journalism profession?

Because clearly it has changed a lot from when you and I started to where it is now.

But what kind of advice are you giving?

What vision do you have?

Right?

I mean, I wish, you know, had a crystal ball to say exactly what it's going to look like, but we know which direction it's been going, you know, and we know that there's a lot less, working journalists than there were, you know, when I first started and when you first started.

And so, you know what I stress to students is, that this is such an important, career path.

And, you know, the world needs journalists, maybe now more than ever.

Yes.

And there's not a lot of those jobs, but I encourage them, you know, when we're in the classroom to study journalism and always obviously, keep in mind that the skills that we teach are transferable to all kinds of careers, right?

You don't have to think purely in terms of, you know, digital or broadcast or online.

But I do encourage all my students that even if you think that you know your goal further down the line might be law school or advertising or marketing.

Texas A&M is so, they do such a great job here of stressing the importance of service.

And I think it's a great service for you know, our young people to consider who have the skills to consider working as journalist, you know, in local newsrooms for 2 or 3 years.

Right.

And, you know, they might find they really love it and grow and do great things in, in that field or, you know, do your 2 or 3 years and then move on to to other places as well.

And I can't knock on the door to, to a family member to get an interview.

Right.

So I assume that you guys are embracing as a department, how I can be helpful, with reporting and other, requirements of the profession.

But it's got to be a good, marriage of of human effort and whatever the machines could do.

No, absolutely.

You know, I mean, I is good at a lot of things, including like, you know, summarizing news, but it summarizes from material that's already out there.

Yeah.

Right.

And for example, there's plenty of material out there about national politics, international issues, that kind of stuff.

But, when you know, what I'm talking about here is your states, local news, our local communities, and there's not a lot of material there for even I to you having summarized.

So it's a real area of opportunity and a real necessity I think.

Yeah, I am not going to go sit in the city council meeting or the school board meeting or anything like that.

You need good training, qualified people to go in and then report to the rest of us what's going on?

Yes.

No.

And we feel very fortunate in this department to have such strong students, you know, like Avery and, Callahan Mitchell, Olivia Biggs, who traveled with us and our two partners from, Texas A&M International University, Sean Jimenez, who took some great photos for this project, and David Perez, who was one of the authors on this.

Yeah.

Well, I really appreciate you coming in and talking about this particular story, both of you.

Because I think it's it's an important, it's not only an important story to tell and a good example of the kind of stories that are in communities all over Texas and the country.

But a good sign of where Texas A&M journalism is going.

So thank you both for being here.

I didn't have a choice.

It's true.

You did.

You'll be back in the co-host chair soon.

Mariano, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Pleasure to be here.

Brazos matters is a production of Aggieland's Public Radio, 90.9 KAMU-FM, a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement.

Our show is engineered and edited by Matt Dittman.

All Brazos Matters episodes are available on YouTube and on podcast platforms like Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon, also on the NPR app and the KAMU website.

Thank you so much for listening and for watching.

For Brazos Matters, I'm Jay Socol.