Is this play about us? One-woman show explores emotional impact of journalism

Mexican pop star Natalia Lafourcade’s song “Hasta La Raiz” played through the speakers as people settled in to watch a new play about journalism made for journalists by another journalist. Some hummed along to the folksy music, others bobbed their heads slightly to the catchy beat. 

Luisa Ortiz Perez, creator and star of the play, was not yet in the room. 

Behind the metaphorical curtain, Ortiz Perez grounded herself. This isn’t her first time performing her one-woman-play so the chills on her arms felt routinely familiar; as a fellow chilanga, Lafourcade’s song has always reminded her of home. 

Moments after the music ended, Ortiz Perez’s play titled “A Human Condition” began. 

“My name is Luisa, and my mission in life is basically to bring joy, health and care to the people in the profession,” said Ortiz Perez, a former John S. Knight Journalism Fellow. 

Developed in 2023, the play explores the heavy emotional impact of the people who cover the news through variety monologues. Each answers the same three questions: 

• What do you love about what you do? 
• What do you not like about what you do? 
• And how would you describe your relationship to journalism?

Through these monologues, Ortiz Perez shares the stories of unnamed journalists she interviewed; their concerns about safety, their grievances with newsroom policies and the uncertainty of their future in an ever-changing industry. 

Wearing a white button-down shirt, Ortiz Perez transformed into a woman who followed the body of an immigrant found in the desert as the remains made their way back home — and the mental health crisis that followed her long after the story published. 

“I learned the hard way that no media outlet, no project deserves to put your emotional stability at risk,” the anonymous reporter had told her.

Next, she put on a tie. She stood a bit more casually and her voice twinged with sarcasm, as she embodied an older, jaded journalist. This character is fearful of being left behind by technology. 

She continued cycling through different clothing items — a watch, a bright rebozo, a T-shirt— to represent archetypal journalists along their journeys. 

Ortiz Perez ended the night like any “proper Mexican gathering,” with music. So as folks wrote on their multicolored sticky notes, the legendary crooner Juan Gabriel serenaded them with his Spanish-language version of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”

She views the play as a healing device, said Ortiz Perez, who is also a certified mental health expert.

It’s meant to raise awareness and create spaces to talk about the emotional impact reporting and industry shifts have on journalists, she told the Latino Reporter after the show.

Once it ended, attendees shared out loud what resonated with them. Echoing the spirit of the play, they shared their own monologues. 

Nadely Y. Requena, a professional journalist since she was 18, began writing in high school. Three years later, she finds herself questioning the expectations held of journalists and the perception of bias when they report on their own communities. 

“I’m a very emotional person and I become emotionally attached to every story I write,” said Requena, a student at the University of Texas at Austin. “ The moment you turn off your emotions you become AI, you become a robot and that is not good journalism.”

For Steph Solis, a Boston reporter for Axios, the monologues roused memories of the many challenges they’ve faced over their career, including a lot of unlearning. 

“I thought I knew everything because I was evangelizing all the principles, objectivity, AP style, all this stuff,” says Solis about their high school newspaper experience. “It wasn’t until college where I started to study the way discrimination and racism seeps into various forms of life and various forms of our society that I realized I’m perpetuating all this awful stuff.”

Possibly because Ortiz Perez is a journalist, she relates so much with the gaggle of reporters who are her audience. It takes time for her to shake off the pain of the people she interprets. As rapt as her attendees were with her performance, they are now focused on the writing activity she has assigned them: 

Answer the prompt, “Before today I thought ___. After today I think___.”

For this reporter, who heavily guards her emotions about the work we do, I now know I can commiserate with my fellow journalists about what we face as journalists. 

Briana Mendez-Padilla is a bilingual journalist based in Long Beach, California, who is passionate about covering education and her community. She is a recent graduate from Cal State Long Beach where she managed ENYE (Formerly known as DÍG En Español), a bilingual magazine working to uplift stories on and for the Latine community. Reach her at brianampadilla1214 [at] gmail[dot] com or on X at @brianampadilla.