Berkeleyside is thrilled to welcome a new photojournalist into our newsroom who will deepen our visual storytelling.
Support visual journalism by making a tax-deductible donation to Berkeleyside.
Ximena Natera — a seasoned photographer from Mexico City who has spent much of her career in high-risk zones, documenting human rights violations against migrants, the aftermath of cartel violence and forms of community resistance and resilience — will become Berkeleyside’s first-ever full-time visual journalist.
Natera will start June 1, at the same time as new environment reporter Iris Kwok, bringing Berkeleyside’s newsroom to a staff of eight.
The positions are a partnership with Report for America, a national service program. Natera will also be supported by CatchLight, a California nonprofit dedicated to leveraging the power of visuals to inform and connect communities. Berkeleyside is one of just 13 California news outlets chosen for Report for America this year and one of just five chosen for the CatchLight Local Visual Desk.
“The addition of this position will be a leap forward for Berkeleyside,” said Editor-in-Chief Pamela Turntine. “Ximena’s work will deepen our coverage of Berkeley, providing more of the type of visual journalism our readers have long told us they appreciate.”
Ximena Natera: Curious and community-minded
Natera describes herself as a “resilient and joyful woman” who aims to place the daily struggles and victories of teachers, mothers, children, artists and workers at the narrative center of her journalism.
“I thrive when I form bonds with people playing different roles within a community to map out its complexities through small stories, like a mosaic,” she said. “Berkeleyside is somewhere I can shine, to give myself to a newspaper. I’m curious and nosy and love talking to people and have always worked on the ground, going to community meetings, school dances, football games.”
A graduate of Carlos Septién García, Mexico’s first journalism school, Natera worked for six years with Periodistas de a Pie, a nonprofit that trains reporters and runs a high-profile investigative news website, Pie de Página. Natera traveled across the country on assignment and edited a monthly newspaper on Central American migration, distributed to migrants at 12 shelters throughout Mexico.
Long-term relationship building is at the heart of Natera’s photographic practice.
She spent three years reporting the story of Maria Herrera, who founded a support group for Mexican families looking for their missing children after four of Herrera’s own children disappeared. Natera’s photos for this project won the prestigious Gabriel García Márquez Journalism Award.
Victoria Bouloubasis met Natera in 2017 on a reporting trip to El Salvador. Natera photographed survivors of the 1981 El Mozote massacre, in which over 800 civilians were killed by the Salvadoran Army.
“I’ll never forget the photos she came back with from the field, and the silent video portraits she took,” Bouloubasis said. “Ximena always catches the light. Despite the pain in the stories shared with her, Ximena always finds beauty in someone’s experience to honor their full personhood. Her ‘performance’ on the job is brave, diligent and caring.”
Since 2019, Natera has been living in New York, where she studied documentary journalism at the International Center of Photography.
Near the start of the pandemic, she published a deeply reported photo essay about “the migrants who fed New York City.” And she covered the city’s post-George Floyd protests against systemic racism for Mother Jones, using a portable white screen she toted in on a small wagon to capture the images of young child protesters — their emotions and signs showing up all the starker against the blank backdrop.
“I love photographing people out of context,” she said. “I stubbornly take my little photo booth to places I shouldn’t.”
Berkeleyside has a goal of raising $300,000 to underwrite both these new positions for two years, and, thanks to the generosity of our readers, we’re already one third of the way there. To support our new climate and transportation and visual journalism beats for the next two years, make a tax-deductible donation to Berkeleyside.
About Report for America
Report for America is a national service program that places talented emerging journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics and communities. Launched in 2017, Report for America is creating a new, sustainable system that provides Americans with the information they need to improve their communities, hold powerful institutions accountable, and rebuild trust in the media. Report for America is an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, an award-winning nonprofit journalism organization with an established track record of training and supporting teams of emerging journalists around the world, including the recent launch of Report for the World in partnership with local newsrooms in India, Nigeria and Brazil.
About CatchLight
CatchLight is a hybrid nonprofit media organization borrowing from the practices of art, journalism, and social justice. It is a transformational force, urgently bringing resources and organizations together to nurture and grow a thriving visual ecosystem.
