Agenda Takeover: The Border Chronicle

Reporting on the real border, not the cable news version...

The two reporters behind The Border Chronicle, Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller, know what they’re talking about when it comes to the borderlands.

They have more than 40 years combined on the beat, countless bylines in local and national papers and a great sense of the stories that drive the region that they report on and analyze in their twice-weekly newsletter, and Substack podcast.

And they aren’t just reporters — they’re bona fide authors. Besides writing for The Intercept, ProPublica, Harper’s, The Texas Observer, Texas Monthly and The Guardian in her long career as a border reporter, Melissa is also the author of Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty.

Todd has authored four books: Build Bridges, Not Walls,  Empire of Borders,  Storming the Wall, and Border Patrol Nation. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications.

The Border Chronicle was one of our cohorts in the Substack Local program. Out of 12 publications worldwide chosen for the program, two were from Arizona. If you want to understand the real Southwest border, not the cable news version, read the professionals. Subscribe now — it’s only $60 per year!

What if we could look at the U.S.-Mexico border differently? How about from the perspective of the people who live or migrate through there?

Doesn’t seem complicated. But the U.S.-Mexico border is probably the most politically contested and debated region in the United States. It’s also the least understood. 

That’s why we launched The Border Chronicle in September 2021 to dispel misinformation and provide news about the border with in depth reporting, context and analysis readers need to fully understand what’s happening in this diverse region. 

We are two longtime border journalists, Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller, based in Tucson, Arizona, who have spent decades writing about border communities in Mexico and the United States. Cumulatively, we have 40 years in the field reporting for media outlets from The New York Times to In These Times. 

Melissa del Bosque interviewing border humanitarian, Fernando “Fernie” Quiroz, about asylum seekers arriving at the border wall in Yuma, Arizona in April 2022. (Photo: Ana Adlerstein)

We focus on the big issues challenging our region, such as climate change, economic inequality, government surveillance, migration, and the rapid growth of the border security industrial complex. We also know that with all the shouting and political posturing over the border in the news, that many people have tuned out, because they see it as an intractable problem. And frankly, depressing. 

But the border region isn’t that at all. It’s a vibrant place full of innovation and hope, which the rest of the country can learn from. That’s why we also report on community-driven solutions to some of these big challenges facing our nearly 2,000 mile-long border, whether it be Todd’s report about Café Justo, a coffee cooperative formed by Mexican coffee growers and U.S. border residents which provides a fair wage so that coffee growers can stay home, rather than be forced to migrate.

The Right to Stay Home: A Coffee Cooperative Slows Down Displacement

Or Melissa’s report on how border residents on both sides of the line gathered to build migrant resource centers in Mexico in response to Title 42 and asylum seekers being stranded in Mexico. 

“A Hot Meal and a Little Hope”: Border Residents Step Up to Help Migrants

In addition to publishing articles twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays we also host a podcast where we speak with fascinating border folks from a neurosurgeon in San Diego treating border wall injuries to an Arizona border sheriff, who goes to battle over a shipping container wall.

In September we celebrate our 2^nd anniversary and we’re striving to become a sustainable local news operation. We hope to eventually hire another reporter. But to achieve that goal we need to double the number of our paid subscribers. Subscriptions are just $60 a year or $6 a month. Or even better, become a founder for $125, which also comes with two additional paid annual subscriptions for friends and family.

With your paid subscription you’ll have access to our archive, and our discussion threads with invited border experts where you can post comments and ask questions. You’ll also be supporting local border journalism from a border perspective and getting inspired by everything that’s happening here. We hope you’ll join us!