She landed an internship, then a full-time reporting job at the Seattle Times right out of college. Daisy Zavala Magaña (’21 Comm.) was half a state away from home, covering breaking news in the big city, when work began wearing on her. She felt disconnected.
“Eventually I decided that I needed to pursue something else,” she says. “It really came down to why I got into journalism, and it wasn’t to work at a certain publication or to work in a certain place.”
(Photo Angela Gervasi/Nogales International)
Zavala Magaña left Washington state’s largest newspaper for the much smaller Nogales International, an English and Spanish newspaper based in the border town of Nogales, Arizona, where she covers border issues and local news. The weekly community publication allows her more time to focus on the kinds of stories she wants to tell.
“What interests me the most are these underrepresented stories about immigration and labor rights and those intersections,” says Zavala Magaña, who spoke on two panels at Washington State University’s 2024 Murrow Symposium organized by the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. The theme: “Illuminate! The Power of Untold Stories.”
Zavala Magaña, the oldest of four and a first-generation college student, found Murrow College during her sophomore year, switching majors from anthropology to journalism and political science. She grew up in Wenatchee, where her parents—originally from neighboring ranches in rural Michoacán, Mexico, without access to education beyond elementary school—were farmworkers. They followed tree fruit crops from California to Washington, where they eventually settled.
“I grew up speaking Spanish in the home. It’s my first language,” Zavala Magaña says. “All of the traditions of the culture they kept—the food, the holidays, other traditions. I grew up in a community where you very much help your neighbor no matter what. That was the dynamic I was used to.”
Leaving that close-knit environment for college felt scary. “I had no idea how to navigate it,” says Zavala Magaña, who first visited WSU through a trip organized by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, or MEChA. But “because I knew there was support through that student group, I felt like WSU was somewhere I could see myself and thrive away from home.”
She chose anthropology because “I enjoyed public service, and I liked meeting people.” A media and society class piqued her interest in the power of the press, especially in helping readers understand under-represented communities. “That stuck with me,” she says. “I kept thinking about that and decided to apply to the student newspaper.”
She twice participated in the Rural Reporting Project, in which WSU students experiment with community-guided rural reporting and ways to improve rural news coverage.
“What’s really great about the Murrow program is there’s an emphasis on multimedia journalism and building skills beyond writing,” Zavala Magaña says. “That was very helpful because we work in a very fast-paced landscape. Journalism isn’t what it was 10 years ago or even five years ago.”
One of her professors, Ben Shors, chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Production, encouraged her to apply for an internship in Olympia with the Spokesman-Review, reporting on the legislature. After the spring internship, the Spokane newspaper offered her a summer internship on the city desk. She then freelanced for the newspaper and other publications through her senior year.
Those cumulative experiences helped her land an internship at the Seattle Times after graduation. That internship turned into a temporary job, then a full-time breaking news job, covering the 2 to 10 p.m. shift.
“It was really tough because, at the same time, I was trying to write stories that delved into labor rights and the Latino community. But I was working odd hours. It messed up your system and your mental health,” Zavala Magaña says. “You’re dealing with real people and real tragedy. It’s really hard to churn that out on a daily basis. I’m asking a mother to tell me about her dead child and hoping that humanizes the person or the problem, but it might not. Sometimes, it felt like gawking at heavy tragedy. It started to feel like I didn’t have enough space for my own grief. It started to pile up.”
Zavala Magaña was at the Seattle Times from June 2021 to August 2023. That fall, she moved to the US-Mexico border. “It was a drastic change,” she says. “I do miss my family. But this community feels like home. It makes me feel like I get to exist as a Mexican American and am not made to feel like one or the other.”
Nogales International covers Santa Cruz County and Nogales County as well as the neighboring Mexican city sharing its name. “Our focus is on community-centric stories and hyperlocal news that goes beyond the usual narratives you see for a region that has become highly politicized nationally and elsewhere in Arizona,” Zavala Magaña says. “Being bilingual and having the ability to do those interviews in a way that flows and feels comfortable makes such a difference.
“I feel like I am prioritizing journalism the way I think it should be, and that’s community-oriented with heart. At the end of the day, I feel good about my choice.”