Jillian Melero had worked multiple jobs when she saw Anthony Bourdain on TV and decided to do what he was doing: travel, experience new cultures, challenge one’s perceptions about the world and help the audience do the same. She didn’t know what to call that type of work, but her goal was clear enough: to find a job she didn’t hate.
But what began as a simple longing for a fresh start became the intentional pursuit of concrete solutions for real problems. After a 10-year-long journalism training combined with a five-year career as a reporter and editor, Jillian founded Connect Puerto Rico (or C-PR), a monthly newsletter that brings together community leaders, policymakers and investors to promote Puerto Rico’s transition to renewable energy. She is also a project manager for a local resource guide for migrants in Chicago.
Why Journalism
“I'm either going to get into journalism somehow, or I'm going to become a chef,” Jillian told host Amy Boyle during the latest episode of the Speaking of Phenomenal podcast when describing the beginning of her career transition. She went back to college and eventually joined a master’s program at Northwestern University in Chicago, a choice that resulted more from the city’s history in community organizing than from the school’s reputation.
A second-generation NuYorican (a New Yorker with Puerto Rican roots) and a first-generation college graduate, Jillian decided to report on Puerto Rico’s transition to renewable energy for her final project at Medill. She identified three main things during her embedded reporting: an aging infrastructure prevented the use of modern solar panels and batteries, there was not enough trained workforce to make the needed repairs and it was challenging to find specialized workers who could deal with Puerto Rico’s challenges in a quick and efficient way.
After graduating from Medill, Jillian got a job with the digital nonprofit Climate Central, where she learned to work with data and write for local and national audiences. She has also worked for the PBS affiliate in Chicago and has become familiar with newsletter and social media writing. Her last job before founding C-PR was as an editor at the immigration-focused Borderless Magazine, which allowed Jillian to think about the impact and the human aspect of reporting.
From these experiences, she built a concrete mission statement: “not just to tell the stories, but to make sure that we're getting the results that we want from telling them.”
Finding Needs
Years after her reporting trip to Puerto Rico with Medill, she joined an entrepreneurial journalism program at the City University of New York, where she pitched an idea for a newsletter that, at the time, she generically named “Puerto Rico project.” By the end of the program, she had written and published a manifesto “out there in the universe,” which was the seed for Connect Puerto Rico.
But her work conceptualizing C-PR didn’t end with her completion of the program at CUNY. As Jillian told Amy, she continues to think of ways to help the right policy and the necessary funding meet the needs of the people directly affected by the energy crisis in Puerto Rico.
Partnerships have also been vital as Jillian moves forward. C-PR has been supported by Medill Local News Initiative, led by Northwestern University, which enabled the hiring of two fellows, and the Media Innovation and Leadership Academy (MILA).
Driving Change
To avoid promoting a type of energy transition that negatively impacts Puerto Rican culture (like gentrification, for example), Jillian cultivates a network of local experts, community advocates and members of the Puerto Rican diaspora who understand the nuances of the problems the country faces.
“It's about not just the grid,” she told Amy. “It's about strengthening Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans.”
Jillian adopts a similar mindset when it comes to building the resource guide for migrants in Chicago. An initiative by the Chicago SunTimes, now part of Chicago Public Media, now in partnership with La Voz Chicago, its Spanish version and WBEZ, the radio component, the guide is an evolving compilation of answers to both difficult and frequent questions by migrants, which involve issues like housing, employment and health. One of the challenges is to produce content that is bilingual and, therefore, accessible to migrants whose first language is not English.
“What is it that people need?” is one of the questions that inform her work. “How can we help? What can we do about it?”
Jillian has been finally able to find a job she doesn’t hate. And she only gets involved in projects she deeply cares about.
“Tell me what you think about more solution-based reporting,” Amy asked her at the end of the episode.
“I love it.”
You can be a part of the solution when you subscribe to and share the Connect Puerto Rico newsletter!
Carolina Baldin is a freelance journalist from Brazil. Having worked in law, policy and regulation, she is passionate about everyday stories that illustrate larger issues. She graduated from a master's program at Northwestern University in 2023 and became a guest blogger on the "Speaking of Phenomenal" podcast blog in March 2024.
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