Metropolitano interviews director Craig Whitney about The Red Note podcast

Earlier this week, the director of The Red Note podcast, Craig Whitney, spoke with the Aguascalientes-based publication Metropolitano about the process of recording the project in Ciudad Juarez, its origins as a feature film, and the involvement of journalist Lydia Cacho, who served as its host.

An English translation of Craig Whitney's interview with Metropolitano is reproduced below.

Click on the following link to read the original interview in Spanish: La Nota Roja, podcast sobre los feminicidios en Ciudad Juárez.

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The Red Note, podcast about the femicides in Ciudad Juarez

By María Miranda Franco / Metropolitano

Worldwide there are many projects that seek to make visible violence against women, femicides and Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua, for 25 years it has been the banner of Mexico for these atrocious crimes.

"The Red Note" is one of these projects that seeks to make visible the reality of women only in one municipality of Mexico, Ciudad Juárez. This project is part of the Spotify podcasts (https://open.spotify.com/show/1HdBBadfeYYliSuIa06te7).

Metropolitano interviewed Craig Whitney, director of The Red Note, who highlighted the collaboration of Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho as executive producer and who gives voice, in Spanish and English, to the narration of the 10 chapters that are part of The Red Note.

“In the podcast we examine the history of the femicides in Ciudad Juárez in the voices of the families of the victims, journalists who do research on this issue, academics, members of the government to have many perspectives on these cases, because it is a very complicated phenomenon and it is also a 25-year phenomenon, so there are many important changes and also the host of the podcast is Lydia Cacho in both versions, for us it was very important to have Lydia as host of the podcast, because Lydia was a reporter in Ciudad Juárez during the In her nineties, doing her research on femicides, so she has a lot of experience in this case, but she is also a legendary journalist in Mexico for her investigations and for her book 'Los Demonios del Edén', she has to live outside of Mexico."

This project began looking to be a feature film, however, the producers themselves decided that it would be a podcast and with it have more than eight hours of research material in 10 chapters.

“It was an opportunity to explore different perspectives, share much more information than in a feature film and explore it more as a sociological story, in the voices of the victims, relatives, journalists, researchers and not in the style of a work of fiction, it was an opportunity very exciting for us. We feel very free in a very honest and strong style”. Finally, Craig Whitney added that “there is a myth of the city that kills women or the most dangerous city in the world and the world's opinion about Ciudad Juárez is not more complicated or more comprehensive than the phrases, the myths about the city and it was very It is important for me to portray a very honest version of the events, of the femicides, but also that we are talking about the people of Ciudad Juárez and the culture; that we can communicate what the people of the border are like how friendly and hospitable the people of the border are, as a gringo I was a little worried that the border people would think badly about this project and that they would not have confidence and it was very miraculous for me that all the people with whom we spoke, not only for the interviews, we found that many people appreciated the realization of this project to share it with the world ”.