Announcing the recipients of the Democracy Undone Reporting Fellowship

BOSTON — The GroundTruth Project is pleased to announce the recipients of its Democracy Undone Reporting Fellowship. This group of journalists will explore from different angles erosion of democracy in different countries around the globe and spotlight the people and organizations fighting to preserve their rights. Let’s meet them:

Letícia Duarte, reporting in: Brazil

Letícia Duarte is a Brazilian journalist and a recipient of a 2019 Overseas Press Club Foundation Award. In more than ten years working for Zero Hora, the main newspaper in southern Brazil, she produced a range of significant stories on social and political issues. In 2015 she accompanied a Syrian family from Greece to Germany, chronicling their journey to escape civil war through eight countries in seven days, for what became an award-winning multimedia story called A Refugee Story. With her body of work, she placed 24th on the 2015 list of the 200 most-acknowledged journalists in Brazil’s history, published by Jornalistas & Cia.

Since last year, she has reported on disinformation and the rise of authoritarianism in Brazil. The theme is the topic of her M.A. in Politics and Global Affairs thesis at Columbia University. Besides the GroundTruth Democracy Undone Fellowship, Letícia has a post-grad fellowship with Columbia Journalism School, focused on gender and migration issues.

Soumya Shankar, reporting in: India

Soumya Shankar is a journalist focused on democracy and social movements in South Asia. Her work has appeared in Foreign Policy, The South China Morning Post, The Intercept and The Wire, among others. She is an alumna of the Columbia Journalism School and teaches journalism at Stony Brook University, New York.

Quentin Ariès, reporting in: Hungary

Quentin Ariès is a French reporter based in Brussels where he focuses on European politics, lobbying, the latest twists of the Brexit saga … while keeping an eye on France and Belgium. He regularly contributes to several U.S. and French media outlets including the Washington Post, Contexte and Médiapart. On his spare time, he is also the president of Cafébabel, the first multilingual pan-European media dedicated to Europe in real life.

Lorenzo Bagnoli, reporting in: Italy

Lorenzo Bagnoli is investigative reporter and board member at IRPI – Investigative reporting project Italy. He joined International teams of journalists in project such as “The Daphne Project”, “Unfinished lives, unfinished justice”, “Security for Sale”, Gold for visa” and “Mafia in Africa”. His main topics are transnational organized crime groups, money laundering and migration. He is currently investigating in the rise of the far-right movements in Europe.

Alessia Cerantola, reporting in: Italy

Alessia Cerantola is an investigative journalist working with OCCRP. She is a co-founder of the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI), a member of the ICIJ and a radio reporter for the BBC World Service. Alessia has been reporting from Japan since 2007, with a special focus on the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake, the ensuing tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. She covered environmental issues, sex crimes and corruption for a cross section of media including the Guardian, The Japan Times and Al Jazeera. In 2016 she was part of the Pulitzer Prize winning investigation of the Panama Papers.

Una Hajdari, reporting in: Poland

Una Hajdari is a freelance journalist focused on issues of post-conflict and post-socialist identity, and their interplay with the far-right. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, and The New Republic, among others. She has been awarded numerous fellowships over the years, including those by the International Women’s Media Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Berlin Journalism school and awards for investigative stories on minority and ethnic issues.

Juan Arredondo, reporting in: Colombia

Juan Arredondo is a Colombian-American documentary photographer who has chronicled human rights and conflict stories in Colombia, Venezuela and Central America. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times, National Geographic, ESPN among others.

Since 2014, he has been reporting on the use of child soldiers by illegal armed groups in Colombia, the peace agreement between the Colombian Government and FARC and most recently the demobilization and reintegration of formers fighters into the Colombian society, for which he was awarded a World Press Photo award in 2018. He is 2019 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Nicole Tung, reporting in: Middle East

Nicole Tung is a photojournalist based in Istanbul covering conflict and its consequences across the Middle East. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Le Monde, Harper’s and Buzzfeed, among other publications.