BOSTON, July 18, 2022 —Preethi Nallu, an award-winning international journalist, documentary film-maker and press freedom advocate, joins Report for the World as its inaugural global director this month.
Nallu has lived and worked in 14 countries across the globe over the past two decades. She has reported for various international outlets, was founding editor at Refugees Deeply and led global advocacy campaigns at UN agencies that presented individual and community level experiences. These local-global connections have resonated throughout her work, from creating media collaborations at International Media Support, to coordinating whistleblower led investigations at The Signals Network.
“Drawing on my journalism and advocacy experiences, I started working with independent media on the ground—women-led newsrooms in Myanmar and Afghanistan, environmental reporting in rural Colombia, community journalism in the Palestinian camps, cross-border outlets along the US-Mexico border and migration focused publications in Europe,” said Nallu. “I hope to engage these communities in the brilliant partnerships program at Report for the World.”
She joins Report for the World — an international service program that matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe — at a time of steady growth.
This fall, the initiative will double to support an estimated 30 full-time reporters working at service-minded independent newsrooms in Brazil, Nigeria, India and other countries facing critical challenges to the free press.
“While working with news media in the global south, I saw a noticeable gap in journalism dedicated to critical beats, such as the environment, supply chains, criminal justice and data driven journalism,” said Nallu. “Report for the World is a direct, bold response that will reduce this gap and strengthen local public interest journalism, with a global reach.”
Report for the World, an initiative of the award-winning nonprofit The GroundTruth Project, is made possible by founding partners MacArthur Foundation and Google News Initiative, along with family foundations and individual donors around the world. It seeks to support 500 reporters by 2026, covering critical beats like health, education, criminal justice, gender, immigration and climate change.
It is the sister program of Report for America, which since 2017 has grown to include 300 journalists working in more than 200 local newsrooms across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Guam, helping local newsroom partners raise $12.9 million over the last 3 years.
Report for the World newsrooms and corps members join a global network of professionals dedicated to serving their communities with high-quality, ethical journalism while building healthy, sustainable organizations.
Nallu will help scale this global network while connecting its members with the resources and professional support they need to serve their communities and reach new audiences. Nallu is based in Mexico City and has lived all over the world. She speaks 6 languages.
“We could not be more delighted to welcome Preethi,” said Kevin Grant, GroundTruth’s co-founder and chief partnerships officer. “She is the epitome of a creative and solutions-oriented leader who will take the program to new heights.”
About Report for the World
Report for the World is an international journalism program that matches local newsrooms with talented journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe. By creating a more sustainable and impactful media ecosystem, Report for the World informs, engages, and enables communities through public service journalism. Report for the World is an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, an award-winning nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to rebuilding journalism from the ground up.
