Natalia Viana is the co-founder and executive director of Agência Pública, Brazil’s first nonprofit investigative journalism outlet. She leads long-term investigations and multimedia projects about human rights violations and the abuse of power. Viana has reported from Paraguay, Colombia, Bolivia, Angola, India, Mexico and Venezuela.
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She is the author or co-author of six books about political violence and social issues in Latin America. Her latest, “Dano Colateral” (“Collateral Damage”), looks at how the military regained prominence in Brazilian politics during the last decade. Viana is a fellow of the Ashoka network of social entrepreneurs and a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Her work has featured on the Guardian, Intercept, The Nation, BBC, and Asymptote.
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As a reporter and editor, she has won several journalism awards, including the Vladimir Herzog Human Rights Award (2005/2016), the Comunique-se Award (2016/2017), the Women's Trophy Press Award (2011/2013) and the Gabriel García Márquez award (2016). Her investigation into the killings of the Brazilian military was a finalist at the Global Shining Light Award, by the Global Investigative Journalism network.
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Her work as an entrepreneur has impacted journalism through the incubation of start-ups, mentoring for journalists, and Brazil’s first journalism festival focused on innovation. She is a board member of the Gabo Foundation, an organization founded by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez dedicated to promoting better journalism and the stimulation of creativity.
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Since 2021, Viana is the president of the Associação de Jornalismo Digital (Ajor), an association of digital media start-ups in Brazil whose mission is to strengthen independent, sustainable and diverse journalism in the country. In 2022, Natalia Viana spent her year at Harvard University as Nieman Fellow studying the erosion of democracy in Brazil with a focus on media manipulation and disinformation campaigns.