An episode for your weekend: Humberto Basilio

A science writer from Mexico who now shares what his experience has taught him.

Humberto Basilio is a graduate student at NYU and a freelance science writer who often writes about Latin American science topics. He recently had an essay published in the book, The Craft of Science Writing, edited by former podcast guest Siri Carpenter.

Hope you enjoy the interview excerpt (edited both for length and clarity), and that you’ll listen to the episode too.

Is it fair to say that your beat literally covers the entire world?

Yeah, I haven't thought about that in that way, but yeah, maybe. I'm really interested in talking about the issues that are affecting the people who are most vulnerable and vulnerable communities are all around the world.

And every time I see there's a potential story about someone or some community being affected by something that was not something that they provoked. I usually get interested in that.

I think that I've been taking a lot of advantage of being a Spanish speaker writing for U. S. media outlets, and therefore, I've decided to cover a lot of stories in Latin America. I've covered stories in Africa and stories on other continents. But every time I write about Latin America, I feel much more comfortable, not just because of the language, but also because I think I understand there are more similarities with my country (Mexico).

It is very important that people like me who have had life experiences and who know how things work in our own countries are the ones who tell the stories of our countries and our regions, because we understand what is happening. It is great to be able to tell all these stories for non-Latin American audiences, but also to Latin American audiences and especially to people who do not who do not know my region, who do not speak my language, and who wouldn't have the possibility to know our stories if there were not journalists in all the countries in Latin America telling those stories.

Is there a story you've done recently that you're particularly proud of?

I think the story on the Venezuelan election was very important for me because I was doing this story in real time for Science Magazine, and it is a short story, but it took a lot of work.

I'm not from Venezuela, and I do not completely understand the Venezuelan political arena. I just know some about it because of what I read in the newspapers, but it was great because I am part of this big community of journalists in Latin America that include journalists from all over the region.

And as soon as I knew that there was a story in there, the story was basically how the reelection of Maduro would affect science, I started contacting all my Venezuelan journalists [contacts]. And I told them, hey, I'm covering this story. I want to know more about what is happening in the election.

Also, the media coverage of the election was not the best because of the problems they have in the country. There's a lot of trouble with that too. So, I asked my fellow colleagues to help me with that. I just told them, hey, if you know anything important, if there's anything that I should know about this specific part of the election about the scientific enterprise, about the scientific community, about the universities, about the labs, about whatever, just let me know.

And I love to talk about that. And my friends were very helpful with that. They sent me tons of articles. They invited me to some talks that other journalists were having in Venezuela, to talk about certain topics. That was very helpful and that's why I was so proud at the end of that piece too, because I think it was, one more time, an example of how the journalism community is so cool and so helpful all the time and just amazing.

What did you write about in your essay in The Craft of Science Writing?

Humberto's answer went for 7 1/2 minutes. Here are a few of the highlights, but there's much more covered in the podcast itself.

I didn't know at the time that I was making good decisions, but that now that I look back, I can see how those many good decisions led me to where I am today. The first thing was that as soon as I knew that there were journalists from Mexico working for U.S. media outlets and media outlets in other countries, I immediately started reaching out to them.

I was like, okay, if I want to do this, I have to ask that person how to do it. I have to reach out to them. And I found all these amazing journalists that were open to talk with me and to show me the way to achieve this in order to start pitching my first stories.

So that was very helpful. They also basically taught me how the industry in the U. S. worked. What was a pitch, how to make a pitch, which kind of media outlets were receiving pitches, how to look for their submission lines, how to find stories, how to read papers, all those things were just given to me by these amazing journalists that were open to help me.

The next thing I did was to join a community of journalists. I found the Mexican Network of Science Journalists. So, I joined that community because that helped me to understand how journalism and how science journalism was being done in Mexico. And that helped me see as well, what was missing in the U S coverage of Mexico and of Latin America. So that was really useful too.

Then when I wrote my first piece, I was very afraid because I didn't have anything written in English since I was maybe in high school.

I was really afraid because I don't know if I'm ready to start writing in English, but now I have to write an 800-word news story for this magazine. And I was very afraid of that.

But one of my mentors told me, hey, you might not have the best writing skills in English because it is your second language but try to use that as an advantage. Journalism has to be written in an easy way for our audiences and not knowing a lot of words in English might be good for that. Just try to write as easy as you can. Don't complicate it. Do not stress over how beautiful your prose is while writing. Just try to be really clear with the message you're trying to send to the audience

How has being a journalist impacted you as a person and how you view the world?

Oh, that's a really deep question. I think being a journalist has taught me how important it is to question everything that is happening in your life.

Everything.

Just try to understand why things are as they are. Because the better you understand why things work like that, the better you're capable of adapting to what is happening in your surroundings. Talking to all these people has taught me how to, to just not be afraid of asking questions and bonding with other people while having conversations. That's also something that's maybe the thing that I like most about this job. You're able to get to know all these amazing stories of all these amazing people all around the world, all the time. It's just never ending.

Everyone has something to share and every single thing they're doing, and all their decisions are important, affected by something around them or those decisions also affecting something in their surroundings.

So, it is just amazing to be able to understand all that and to be able to feel confident enough to talk with them in a respectful way.

Thanks for reading - next week we’ll be joined by North Carolina State student Erin Ferrare about her experience as a sportswriter and a science writer. She’s the recent author of a piece, The Invisible Girl on Press Row about her experience covering sports.

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