(Xanic) Alejandra Xanic

Alejandra Xanic is a Mexican investigative reporter. In 2013, she won the Pulitzer Prize with New York Times reporter David Barstow for a series of articles on Walmart. According to their reporting, the US company had bribed officials in Mexico. Xanic is the first Mexican journalist to win this prize for the “Investigative Reporting” category. In 2016, she co-founded Quinto Elemento Lab, an investigative news outlet that is behind several major scandals in Mexico. They delved into what had happened to Mexico’s missing persons. In 2018, after a yearlong investigation, they were the first to map out the country’s clandestine graves. They also did research on the Mexicans involved in the Odebretch corruption scandal, named after the Brazilian construction company accused of having bribed local officials in 12 Latin American countries in order to win million-dollar contracts. Quinto Elemento Lab zoomed in on Emilio Loyoza, the former director of the state-ownned petroleum company Pemex. She is co-coordinator of MásterLAB, Quinto’s training program for investigative editors. The first of its kind in the Spanish speaking world. She is one of 2023 Maria Moors Cabot award winners.