Unconventional Journalism: Few publications could get away with placing a story about a 300-pound stripper dressed as a nun on the same page as a piece on social inequality. In Chile, The Clinic, a newspaper where parody meets investigative journalism, offers an alternative to mainstream media. Published twice-monthly, with 230,000 readers in Santiago alone, it is one of the most successful major media outlets established since Augusto Pinochet left power. The magazine is named after the building where Pinochet was held in England in 1998 while awaiting trial. The editorial staff spares no one, not least Chile’s press, which they lambast for complacency during the Pinochet era. Students are the target demographic, but the readership spans generations. The tenth anniversary will be celebrated in November.
Pushing Back In English: Andrés Oppenheimer’s book, “Cuentos Chinos”, reviewed by AQ in its Spring 2007 issue, is now available to English-speaking readers. Published by Random House Mondadori, Saving the Americas: The Dangerous Decline of Latin America and What the U.S. Must Do includes travel notes from India and recommendations for the next U.S. administration. The English-language edition is more than just a crossover success for a book that has sold over 240,000 copies in Spanish; it’s a challenge to U.S. political leaders to stand up for the region and for their country’s Hispanic citizens. Says Oppenheimer: “At a time when isolationism, protectionism and chauvinism are spread by journalist agitators, the book makes exactly the opposite argument.”
