• Eduard Ribas, Political and Administration Sciences and Journalism alumnus, correspondent for Agencia EFE (Mexico City, Mexico)

Eduard Ribas i Admetlla earned his degrees in Political and Administration Sciences and in Journalism from UPF in 2016. His training as a political scientist gives him tools and a strong intellectual background that help him explain and better understand what is going on in the world. That is what he does for a living, and what led him, in 2017, to move to Mexico City, where he works as a correspondent in the country for the EFE news agency.

‘In 2016, I was awarded a scholarship to spend the summer at the EFE agency in Madrid. When I finished, I took the exams to apply for another EFE scholarship sponsored by the La Caixa savings bank. Thanks to that scholarship, I spent nine months working in the agency’s Barcelona bureau and then another nine at its Mexico City bureau, where I was ultimately hired’, Eduard explains.

Of his time at UPF, he especially remembers studying with his fellow Journalism students at the campus bar. He studied abroad at the University of Tel Aviv for a few months in which he was also working, on a collaboration for the newspaper El Confidencial, in addition to as a correspondent in the Israeli city for the Televisió de Catalunya programme Blog Europa, doing the socio-political coverage of the country. Before moving to Mexico, he was co-editor of the hard-copy magazine Hemisfèria.cat and he earned a master’s degree in Transmedia Journalism from the Spanish National Distance Education University (UNED).

As an EFE correspondent in Mexico, Eduard writes about the most important events in the country, such as the violence crisis, the migrant caravans or the Covid-19 pandemic, which he has had to follow very closely. ‘I want to do my job well, explain Mexico – which is a very complex country  truthfully and clearly, publishing stories that are worth reading’, he says. According to him, ‘Mexico is a country where current events are very intense. I think I still have a lot to explain.’ As a result, he does not currently have any plans to return to Barcelona; he would also like to work as a correspondent in other countries.

“The real heroes are the local journalists who cover drug trafficking in some of the country’s states”

With regard to the safety and dangers of doing journalism in this zone, Eduard recalls that Reporters Without Borders says that Mexico is the most dangerous country not at war to be a journalist in and the one where the most reporters are killed. Still, he says, ‘The truth is that the real heroes are the local journalists who cover drug trafficking in some of the country’s states.’ He is convinced that Mexico City, where he lives, ‘is a relatively safe place and a vibrant metropolis that will pull anyone in!’

Photo gallery

Eduard Ribas in his graduation and presenting a programme for "Cetrencada" at UPF; with the Mexican economist and politician Jesús Seade (photo 3) and with the former president of Bolivia Evo Morales (photo 5), and in different situations of his daily life (photos 4, 6, 7 and 8)