The blackoutbeyond being the audiovisual of one of the songs from Bad Bunny’s latest album, is a material that adds to the thousands of voices that currently denounce the precarious economic and social situation in Puerto Rico, the artist’s native country.
The video clip also features a report titled people live hereby the independent Puerto Rican journalist Bianca Graulau, who investigated the economic, political, social and energy situation that exists on the Caribbean island. In itself, the report is a complaint against the incentives of foreigners on the island to do business with the purchase of public resources.
“What an honor to be trusted to tell the stories of our communities, to have the opportunity to work with such a talented team of people, and to have your support to do this work. Thank you to each one of the people who made this project a reality. And thank you Bad Bunny for sharing your platform and supporting independent journalism,” the filmmaker says on Instagram.
The reactions to ‘El apagón’, the Bad Bunny song that sounds like a documentary-protest
Graulau’s report collects testimonies of several Puerto Ricans who are victims of eviction when the land where their homes are located is sold to foreign companies and owners.
Five years ago, Bianca Graulau worked as a local television reporter in the United States. Today, she is one of many Puerto Ricans who have returned home despite power outages, school closings, and all other challenges. She produces TikTok and YouTube videos explaining Puerto Rico’s colonial status for an audience of millions of viewers, mostly outside of the archipelago. Despite being made for strangers, her videos are also widely shared among Puerto Ricans.
“I just try to connect that with the real life examples that Puerto Ricans experience.“, said. “You know, when Puerto Ricans think of the Junta (the fiscal oversight board), they think of closing the schools. And I try to make those (connections) because everyone can understand what it would mean for their community to lose their local school, ”he says on the Latinousa.org site.
In the video The blackoutthe journalist points out as the main problem of the US incentive Law 22, the Law to Encourage the Transfer of Individual Investors to Puerto Rico which, according to Gaurau, “allows foreigners not to pay certain taxes” when they move to the island. The Puerto Rican also ensures that people who move to the country “do not pay taxes on the earnings of their investments in shares, cryptocurrencies and real estate.”
The report shows how the presence of these negotiators has affected different state resources such as public housing, beaches or electricity (belonging to Puerto Rico until 2021).
Shortly before finishing the video clip, Graulau explains one of the island’s problems: power outages. The journalist recounts the explosion of a power plant that left the entire island without lighting last August. This is the Costa Sur de Guayanilla plant, which cut off the electricity supply to 1.4 million people. The video cut, prior to the start of the report, indicates the purchase of electrical control of Puerto Rico by the private company Luma Energy.
In another video that went viral in 2021, Graulau also connected directly with her audience and their story. She had sold a protected parcel of land behind her house and was going to develop it, and she was reporting on that very topic. In a tearful recording, she explained that she was sharing the video not as a reporter but as a Puerto Rican concerned that the island was being sold and that the government was not enforcing the laws. It was widely shared by Puerto Ricans who could relate to that sentiment, and she has since produced several videos about displacement and gentrification there.
And while Graulau has years of training in traditional newsrooms, her work as a freelance journalist also challenges the conventions of typical reporting. Her explanations are brief and meant to be shared on social media, and she doesn’t get bogged down in obscure government office acronyms. She also continues to refine the boundaries of how much to share with the public and how to disengage from the constant cycle of content production.
“There will always be urgent stories to get to, and I have to slow down, take a deep breath, and take a few days off if I want to do this for the long haul.”
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
