Changing the Story of Urban Violence in El Salvador: The Crónica, the Community, and Voices from the Ganglands

With more than a million unique visitors per month, the online news portal El Faro in El Salvador has become one of Latin America’s most trusted news sites. Their journeys deep into the country’s gang culture have produced award-winning journalism and fostered a deeper understanding of what is a complex social phenomenon. The journalism of El Faro therefore constitutes a direct challenge to the dominant representation of the country’s marginalised communities. This chapter argues that by deconstructing the victim/perpetrator dichotomy its reporters can explore structural issues, which may in turn promote social cohesion and provide a deeper contribution to our understanding of urban violence. Through the inclusion of voices from the ganglands, El Faro provides a space in which those who live on the edges of society can voice a perspective. This inclusive journalism encourages social cohesion and reconstitutes the notion of community to emphasise the importance of human connection.