BBC Mundo Journalist Boris Miranda Dies At 37

He died on Sunday, at the age of 37, in Miami, United States.

The news was confirmed by his relatives, according to information released by the ATB network.

His last journalistic work was on the morenada and it was published a few days ago on the BBC Mundo portal.

The causes of his death were not reported.

On January 18, his father Iván Miranda, who was also a journalist, died suffering from coronavirus.

BACKGROUND

Boris Miranda was a journalist with experience in social conflict and organized crime. He was a correspondent for the BBC in Colombia and covered different countries in Latin America.

In 2008 he started as editor of the political area in the newspaper La Prensa. He was part of the founding group of the newspaper Página Siete, where he worked for three years (2010-2013).

He made reports and chronicles throughout Bolivia, as well as special dispatches from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Colombia, Uruguay, and Germany.

His last tweet was to defend the dance of the morenada, its Bolivian origin, and world heritage. As a journalist, he dreamed of the independence of the media. He died at the age of 37 and with several national and international awards, won with his pen as a chronicler. Boris Iván Miranda Espinoza was part of the founding team of journalists for Página Siete in April 2010.

“A centuries-old Andean dance that does not lose its validity and is gaining more and more followers is the center of a controversy between Peru and Bolivia,” he published on his Twitter account on Thursday (13); the same day he published a report on BBC Mundo after Peru declared the morenada as “Cultural Heritage of the Nation” and Bolivia began to defend dance.

“We worked with Boris in the first three years and two months of Página Siete; he was brilliant and quick in writing political news, he had no problems dealing with other issues,” commented Martín Zelaya, who also worked in the writing of the new newspaper. He said yesterday that “it is difficult to believe and assume” his death.

He argued that according to information collected from his relatives, Boris died of internal bleeding in Miami (USA), where he was a correspondent for the London newspaper. Raúl Peñaranda, the founding director of Página Siete, affirmed yesterday: “It is sad to conceive his departure” and recalled his chronicles and great reports.

Carlos Hugo Morales fired Boris on social media. “You leave a deep mark on all of us, not only because you were a great professional but above all because you were a great person. Supportive, generous, cheerful. I still can’t believe the news. We worked together, side by side with La Prensa and you went far, far with your wonderful way of telling reality (…). Bolivian journalism loses one of its great men. Fly in peace ”.

The journalist Nancy Vacaflor also remembered Boris in his days in the Blue Tower, at the beginning of Página Siete. “In those days we were proud of the team and of the work. I can’t believe your departure, fly high dear friend.”

Marco Fernández published: “Che, Boris, I’m waiting for the message that denies this news. I am waiting for you to write to me so that we can meet in Plaza 10 de Febrero to share in the Orureño Carnival ”.

Mayor Iván Arias also expressed his regret for the journalist’s departure, who he said left his mark despite having left so soon.

“I deeply regret the death of journalist Boris Miranda Espinoza, only a few months after that of his father, Iván, who was my friend. I send to the family the wish that he may find resignation. Boris was a great journalist, who left his mark despite having left so early, “the mayor posted on Twitter.

Boris’s father, Iván Miranda, also a journalist, died on January 18, 2021, due to complications in his health as a result of Covid-19.

Dream and the awards

In an interview with WordPress, Boris referred to Bolivian journalism and how he was concerned about independence in the media.

“It is currently going through a difficult time, not only because of the general discredit that journalism has at a global level, but because it has to reconnect with the country. Here (Bolivia) it was never written about indigenous people or peasants deciding what to do with subsidies. So the new generation has to get used to a new universe of Bolivia, with new actors and protagonists. Beyond this adaptation, here there is no plural quality offer, and the independence of the media is still a dream ”, he declared.

He won the 2010 National Journalism Award on Municipalities organized by the Association of Journalists and the Municipal Democracy Support Program. He won the Scholarship for Advanced Investigative Journalism, convened by the Press and Society Institute (IPYS), Montevideo 2011.

He received the Distinction for Journalistic Merit from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the La Paz Journalists Association for his coverage of the march in defense of Tipnis in 2011.

In 2012, she won the National Prize for Digital Journalism for a report that revealed fifty cases of political violence against women.