Performance plays a lead role in the story of journalism. From the speeches of town criers to the spectacles of television comedians, the news has always relied on performers. Media scholars, however, have largely accounted for journalism’s history with a bias toward space and print at the expense of time and performance. This article argues that corridistas (balladeers) balance the spatial bias of print with the temporal bias of performance in order to preserve the historical connection between music and news. Corridos (news ballads) induce scholars and reporters to rethink the role of objectivity in journalism with methods that show more than one truth. A textual analysis of two ballads from different centuries illuminates the importance and relevance of performance journalism today.
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