Former director of Guatemalan news site Plaza Pública gets ready to launch new publication (video)

After his rupture with the Guatemalan university that has housed for three years the innovative digital publication Plaza Pública, its founder, journalist Martín Rodríguez Pellecer, is getting ready to launch a new site this summer.

Rodríguez Pellecer founded Plaza Pública in 2011 in collaboration with the Rafael Landívar University (URL). In a relative short time the independent news site has cultivated a strong following, generated attention thanks to its investigations on politics and human rights, and became one of the most notable Latin American examples of new models for journalistic sustainability in the digital age.

Last January, Rodríguez Pellecer resigned to his position as director of Plaza Pública. In an open letter published that month, the journalist said his relationship with the URL had deteriorated to a point where his authority as director had become undermined. Even though he said the university never intervened with his editorial decisions, Rodríguez Pellecer concluded the letter by saying his relationship with the URL was beyond repair.

During the Seventh Ibero American Colloquium for Digital Journalism, organized on April 6 by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, Rodríguez Pellecer presented Nómada.gt, the new digital publication he has founded and will officially launch on July 17, after the World Cup comes to an end.

Rodríguez Pellecer said Nómada will produce “cutting-edge journalism” that will focus in specialized investigative journalism, data visualizations and essays on everyday life in Guatemala. The site is currently looking for new team members.

In the following video interview in Spanish with the Knight Center, Rodríguez Pellecer shares more details about his plans for the new site: