J. Fernando Rodrigues

Fernando Rodrigues has been a Brazilian journalist since the mid-1980s. He helped pioneer political journalism on the Internet in Brazil in 2000 by starting a political blog and website. In 2002, he launched Políticos do Brasil, a website and database about Brazilian politicians. By 2006, the website contained some 25,000 records, encompassing virtually all Brazilian politicians. From 1987 to 2014, Rodrigues was a journalist at Folha de S. Paulo, Brazil’s most prominent newspaper. He has been an economics editor in São Paulo and a foreign correspondent in New York, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. In 2002, he helped co-found Abraji, the Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism, served as its president in 2010-11, and is currently a board member promoting Brazil’s Freedom of Information Act. Rodrigues was a political commentator from 2007 through 2017 for Jovem Pan, one of Brazil’s leading radio stations. Rodrigues has received the web journalism prize from Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, and in 2006 his Políticos do Brasil was awarded the best journalism book in Brazil. From 2007 to 2008, Rodrigues was a Harvard University Nieman Fellow. In 2016, Rodrigues started the news portal Poder360 covering public policy and politics in Brasília, Brazil’s capital.