S. Lynne Walker is an American journalist who was the longtime Mexico City bureau chief for Copley News Service.
[2][6] In 2007, Walker took part in a discussion titled "The State of Politics, Law, and Security in Mexico: Implications for U.S. Immigration Policy."
Walker noted the severe impact of Mexico's violence and crime on tourism, investment, and emigration to the U.S. (for example, Oaxaca's hotel occupancy rate was 3 percent).
[11] At the Institute of the Americas, Walker has participated in a number of seminars, discussions, screenings, and other events, including a panel on "Freedom of Expression and the Persecution of Journalists"[12] and an International Media in Danger workshop.
"[14] In 1989, Walker received the Gerald Loeb Award for Medium Newspapers[15] for a five-part series entitled "The Invisible Work Force," about the Mixtec Indians who migrated from Mexico to farms in southern California.
This honor was accorded in recognition of her four-part series "Beardstown: Reflection of a Changing America," about the mass influx of Hispanic workers into an Illinois town.
[1][3][18] This award was also her Beardstown series, about which the judges commented: "With blunt honesty, the writer delivers a powerful, intimate account of what happens to a town changed by an influx of immigrants.
[20] Walker won a 2005 Maria Moors Cabot prize from the School of Journalism at Columbia University, which praised her for going "to extraordinary lengths to find original ways of telling the remarkable stories of ordinary people whose voices might otherwise not be heard....Among the many correspondents who cover the uneasy relationship between the United States and the countries south of the border, Walker stands out as one of the very few who manages to fully convey the human side of the story....With a natural sympathy for the underdog and a keen eye for detail, and by probing the depths of Latin American culture and society, Walker gives readers a full and unblemished view of and greater insight into the region.