News values - The editor who defends the oppressed

Elaíze Farias’ phone is buzzing. Sitting at a restaurant in central Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state in Brazil, just weeks before the presidential election, Farias is in demand.

- Mélissa Godin

She is fielding requests from domestic and international organisations to comment, give lectures and speak on panels about her work as a journalist in the Amazon.

Amid the election buzz, Farias is committed to ensuring her less high-profile stories do not get forgotten. “We want to tell the stories of people who are excluded from mainstream media,” she says. Farias is the editor of Amazônia Real, a digital outlet dedicated to telling stories about the violation of Indigenous, environmental and human rights in the Brazilian Amazon.

Frustrated by the way traditional journalism perpetuates colonialist mentalities, they created Amazônia Real with the goal of doing journalism differently. However, the platform is about more than seeking to tell untold stories about injustice: it is a laboratory for thinking about what postcolonial journalism could look like.