Juanita León García (born 1970) is a Colombian journalist, writer, and public speaker. She is best known as the founder and director of the
news website
An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical.
Going online created more opportunities for newspa ...
''
La Silla Vacía''.
Biography
León obtained a law degree at the
University of the Andes in Bogotá and an M.S. in Journalism from the
Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City.
Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism s ...
in New York. She worked as a reporter on the
Wall Street Journal Americas before returning to Colombia in 1998.
In Colombia, León worked for the newspaper ''
El Tiempo'' and for ''
Semana
''Semana'' (Spanish: ''Week'') is a weekly magazine in Colombia.
History
''Semana'' was founded in 1946 by Alberto Lleras Camargo (who would become president of Colombia in 1958) and that folded in 1961. It was relaunched by journalist Felipe L ...
'' magazine. She was
editor-in-chief
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies.
The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
of the weekly's website and collaborated with the
TV series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
''Tiempos difíciles'' and ''Regreso a la Esperanza''.
In 2006, she returned to the United States as a Nieman Fellow at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. In 2008, she helped launch alternative online news magazine ''Flyp''.
In 2009, León obtained a grant from the
Open Society Foundations
Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a Grant (money), grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the wo ...
. With this grant and her share in her family's food production firm, León founded ''
La Silla Vacía'', a news website focused on
Colombian politics. In 2016, León and several of her family members appeared in the
Panama Papers
The Panama Papers ( es, Papeles de Panamá) are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) that were published beginning on April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 ...
, which revealed that hundreds of Colombia's elite families held their capital in off-shore accounts. On her news website, León showed that her investment in Panama was legal and known to the Colombian tax office, and declared her conflict of interest in reporting on the Panama Papers.
She was an Academic Visitor at
St Antony's College, Oxford
St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1950 as the result of the gift of French merchant Sir Antonin Besse of Aden, St Antony's specialises in international relations, economic ...
and the Latin American Centre at the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
from 2018 to 2019.
Awards
*
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
's World Prize for Health Journalism (2001, for an article on the health risks posed by the conflict in Colombia)
* Fundación para un Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano - Cemex journalism prize (2002, finalist)
*
Lettre Ulysses Award
The Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage has been given annually since 2003 for the best texts in the genre of literary reportage, which must have been first published during the previous two years. The award was initiated by Lettre Intern ...
(2006, 3rd prize for the book ''País de Plomo: Crónicas de Guerra'')
* Premio Gabriel García Márquez de Periodismo
abriel Garcá Márquez Journalism Award(2016, Coverage Category, for a series of stories on the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC)
Bibliography
* ''Años de Fuego''
ears of Fire(2001) (editor)
* ''No Somos Machos Pero Somos Muchos''
e Are Not Machos But We Are Many(2004)
*''País de Plomo: Crónicas de Guerra''
'Country of Bullets: War Diaries''(2005)
* ''Los Súperpoderosos''
he Superpowerful
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
(2014) (co-authored with the
La Silla Vacía team)
* ''El Dulce Poder: Así Funciona La Política en Colombia''
weet Power: This Is How Politics Works in Colombia(2017) (co-authored with the
La Silla Vacía team)
References
External links
''La Silla Vacía''
__NOTOC__
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leon, Juanita
Colombian journalists
Colombian women journalists
University of Los Andes (Colombia) alumni
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni
Nieman Fellows
Columbia University faculty
The Wall Street Journal people
1970 births
Living people