1982

At the time I worked as a general editor for O Estado de S. Paulo. I applied my scholarship toward a Master’s in Mass Communications at the University of Montevallo in Alabama. People ask me why I went to Alabama. At the time there was no internet so I went to the U.S. Consulate library and copied names and addresses of universities in many states beginning with the letter A of Alabama. I received numerous responses to my inquiries, always with that standard, impersonal letter. From the University of MontevalloI received a handwritten letter written by the graduate director, Helen Perkins (deceased) full of information and telling me she had lived in Brazil. I was accepted by other universities but I chose to go to small Montevallo, Alabama, where I was treated with great affection.

When I finished my master’s it was time to return to Brazil. I was on leave from the newspaper and unsure if I wanted to return. Then my advisor suggested that I spend the summer and then do an internship in a small TV station in Atlanta that was launching a whole new concept: 24 hours of news with an international focus. The channel was still unknown and was called .... CNN. At the time I decided not to take the job – but, who could have imagined how powerful it would become!

The IAPA scholarship opened my eyes to the world. Because of it I decided to make a change and, from practicing journalism, I became a professor of journalism after completing my doctorate years later, also in the United States at the University of Florida under a Fulbright scholarship. Today I am a professor at California State University Long Beach and live with my family in Huntington Beach, a beautiful place south of Los Angeles.

With the IAPA scholarship and other fi nancial support I studied at the University of Texas at Austin, and was able to earn a BA in Journalism, my second degree. My stay in Austin was from August 1982 to June 1983 and again from August 1984 to December 1985.

I returned to work at the newspaper El Norte (Monterrey, Grupo Reforma), where in 1988 I was named deputy editor.

The degree I earned in Texas unlocked opportunities to work as a media consultant, a specialty I have practiced since 1991.