From news@Northeastern, November 28, 2016 by Greg St. Martin

Giulia Afiune’s jour­nalism career has already come full circle.

Before arriving at North­eastern, Afiune worked for Agência Pública, an inves­tiga­tive jour­nalism agency in her native Brazil that focuses on human rights issues. She reported there for about two years, part of which coin­cided with earning her bachelor’s degree in jour­nalism from Cásper Líbero Col­lege in São Paulo. But eager to become a more dig­i­tally fluent sto­ry­teller, Afiune enrolled as a grad­uate stu­dent in Northeastern’s Media Inno­va­tion pro­gram in fall 2015.

This past summer, Afiune, MA’17, returned to Brazil to free­lance for Agência Pública, where she spent two months on an inves­tiga­tive team exam­ining the fallout from Brazil­ians being evicted from their homes due to con­struc­tion for the Rio Olympics. For “Project 100,” Afiune and other jour­nal­ists inter­viewed 100 fam­i­lies about their har­rowing experiences.

This fall, Agência Pública’s reporting earned a Vladimir Herzog Award, a prize that rec­og­nizes jour­nalism that denounces human rights vio­la­tions and pro­motes democ­racy. The mul­ti­media project won in the “Internet” category.

For Afiune, it was an emo­tional moment, a pow­erful example of journalism’s impor­tance, and an affir­ma­tion of her career choice. “It was so exciting,” she said, “and it was an indi­ca­tion to me that I’m on the right track. This expe­ri­ence showed me that this type of jour­nalism that I love to do—investigative, mul­ti­media, and con­cerning human rights—is also the type of jour­nalism that the public and the jour­nalism com­mu­nity value.”

Another inter­esting twist: Afiune’s first jour­nalism intern­ship was as a reporter for OBORÉ, a com­pany that orga­nizes com­mu­ni­ca­tion projects, from jour­nalism work­shops for stu­dents, to movie ses­sions and com­mu­nity engage­ment forums to dis­cuss social issues. The com­pany also helps orga­nize the Vladimir Herzog Award, and she cov­ered the 2012 award cer­e­monies. At the time, she never thought the script would be flipped—that others would one day be reporting on her work being rec­og­nized with one of those awards. But on Oct. 25, there she was, award in hand, with col­leagues, family, and friends by her side to celebrate.

‘Project 100’

Some 2,600 families—around 10,000 people—were forced to leave their homes due to Rio Olympics con­struc­tion, according to an inde­pen­dent report pro­duced by a com­mu­nity rights net­work of researchers, stu­dents, workers, and res­i­dents. Afiune arrived partway through “Project 100” and inter­viewed 16 families.

“In most cases, fam­i­lies said they had no choice but to leave,” Afiune wrote in a story for Public Radio Inter­na­tional, in which she focused on Maria da Con­ce­icao Queiroz da Silva, a 41- year- old babysitter who lived in Rio de Janeiro’s Vila Auto­dromo com­mu­nity for 19 years. “They fret about ending up on the streets if they don’t accept one of the government’s offers: rent assis­tance, indem­nity or an apart­ment in a fed­eral housing project, some­times up to 25 miles away from their orig­inal neigh­bor­hood. All around the city, com­mu­nity ties were broken and the inter­ac­tion with neigh­bors and family was hampered.”

“This expe­ri­ence showed me that this type of jour­nalism that I love to do—investigative, mul­ti­media, and con­cerning human rights—is also the type of jour­nalism that the public and the jour­nalism com­mu­nity value.”
—Giulia Afiune

Afiune said the work under­scored the value of mul­ti­media jour­nalism, an increas­ingly impor­tant field in the dig­ital era and an emphasis of Northeastern’s Media Inno­va­tion pro­gram, where she’s cur­rently honing her mul­ti­media and data jour­nalism skills.

Her pri­mary respon­si­bil­i­ties for “Project 100” mostly involved researching, pro­ducing, inter­viewing, and cap­turing and editing video and audio on reporting. She said the expe­ri­ence strength­ened her dig­ital jour­nalism acumen and left her eager to return to the class­room to con­tinue sharp­ening those skills.

“As our class is maturing and becoming closer, we’re get­ting more chances to work together and see the pos­si­bil­i­ties of where we can go as a team,” she said.

Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University, Giulia Afune, MA’17, is a graduate student in the Media Innovation program in Northeatern’s School of Journalism.