Natalia Viana, Brazil, a Nieman 2022 fellow, is a co-founder and executive director of Agência Pública, Brazil’s first non-profit 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.
She is the author or co-author of five 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 ICIJ. Her work has featured in The Guardian, Intercept, The Nation, BBC and Asymptote.
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.
Since 2021, Viana has been 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. Viana is a board member of the Gabo Foundation and of the Center for Media Integrity of the Americas of the OAS (Organisation of American States).
How a women-led news organization is holding the powerful to account in Brazil
Brazil’s Natalia Viana co-founded Agência Pública, a women-led investigative news outlet that focuses on human rights, gender equality and abuses of corporate and government power.
