Marcelo Beraba, a journalist who played a prominent role in the newsrooms of Brazil's four largest newspapers and co-founded the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism, died Monday in Rio de Janeiro at age 74 from cancer.
Dozens of news websites and countless journalists from Brazil and Latin America published tributes to Beraba. The obituaries praised a restless, generous, rigorous, and visionary professor, whose professional attitudes marked the lives and work of countless colleagues and whose training efforts decisively influenced thousands of journalists.
Before becoming a journalist, Beraba, the son of a businessman and a homemaker, wanted to become a priest, according to Abraji. After studying at Colégio Santo Inácio, a traditional Jesuit school in Rio de Janeiro, Beraba entered a seminary in Vila Velha, Espírito Santo. He dedicated himself to seminary life for four years, obtaining a classical literary education and practicing writing.
After leaving the seminary, Beraba returned to Rio at the end of 1970, during the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship. He took the entrance exam for the School of Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (ECO/UFRJ), which had been established just three years earlier as the second communication program in the country. Beraba placed first in the admissions ranking.
Beraba would recall ECO, an institution that philosophers and sociologists founded with a multidisciplinary approach, as a space of political fervor with little practical teaching. "We had very few journalism classes. It was much more about political activity and discussion," Beraba said in an interview with Memória Globo. Some professors, in his words, "were libertarians who taught Hegel, Heidegger, Foucault, Althusser, and poetry."
Learning would come through practice. In early 1971, even before classes began, Beraba started working as a reporter at O Globo, in the Metropolitan section. His first assignment was simple: he accompanied a reporter on a story about fences installed on an avenue to reduce pedestrian accidents. At O Globo, Beraba developed an interest in public safety that would stay with him for decades.
His most notable scoop during 13 years at the newspaper occurred in 1981, according to O Globo's obituary. Beraba got a photograph of Captain Wilson Dias Machado in the hospital. The image of the soldier, seriously injured while attempting to plant a bomb to unjustly incriminate left-wing activists, proved crucial in preventing the dictatorship's plot from succeeding and motivated the redemocratization campaign.
Also at O Globo, another side to Beraba emerged: his ability to collectively mobilize journalists. Marcelo Pontes, a journalist who met Beraba in 1973 and became his lifelong friend, told Abraji that Beraba was "a union activist who made speeches on the newsroom tables."
In 1984, Beraba joined Folha de S.Paulo as a reporter. That same year, under Otavio Frias Filho's leadership, the newspaper launched the Folha Project, a milestone in Brazilian journalism's editorial modernization. Drawing inspiration from independent press models in the United States and Europe, the project sought to transform Folha into a pluralistic, critical, and ambitious newspaper.
The main changes included emphasizing investigative reporting, investing in training, adopting an editorial manual, and embracing diverse voices. This initiative proved crucial to making Folha Brazil's most influential newspaper, with Matinas Suzuki Jr., who served as executive editor for years, playing a key role. He was the one who invited Beraba to join.
Beraba "was a 'chef' who gave consistency to Folha's journalistic kitchen,” Suzuki told Abraji. “He taught the newspaper how to structure and plan major coverage and trained a generation of reporters in the São Paulo press. By setting agendas, guiding, and reminding us of the questions that needed to be asked in a coverage, he was worth an entire school of journalism within the newsroom."
In 1985, Beraba became director of the Rio bureau. Under his leadership, the team produced nationally impactful reports, such as revealing classified nuclear tests that the Ministry of Aeronautics conducted in Serra do Cachimbo, in the Amazon. Elvira Lobato, then a reporter at the station and Beraba's future life partner, led the investigation.
"He was my boss when I received the information off the record. He told me, 'If you can prove this, it will be your crowning achievement,' and he told me to disappear from the newsroom to investigate," Lobato, now renowned as one of Brazil's greatest reporters, told Abraji. The report made headlines for weeks and became part of Brazilian investigative journalism's history.
In 1988, Beraba moved to São Paulo. He first headed the Cities section before taking over the Politics section during the 1989 presidential election — the first since the military dictatorship ended. No journalist in the newsroom had ever covered a presidential election.
"Not just us. The country had no experience, the candidates had no experience," Beraba said, according to Abraji.
Under his supervision, Folha became the only outlet to reveal the first signs of corruption involving future president Fernando Collor. In 1992, authorities would impeach Collor for corruption. Beraba also adopted the "tick reporter" model, in which reporters attempted to follow candidates' every move.
Beraba rose to editorial secretary, one of the newspaper's highest positions. In 1996, he left Folha to become executive editor at Jornal do Brasil, replacing Rosental Calmon Alves, who was departing to take up the John S. and James L. Knight Chair at the University of Texas at Austin.
This would mark JB's last phase of great prestige. The paper already faced financial problems but still boasted respected columnists like Luis Fernando Veríssimo and Zuenir Ventura.
The change initially generated distrust among some newsroom staff, accustomed to a different leadership style. "We were a bit nervous because the newspaper was already facing financial difficulties, and he came with the Folha culture, which was very demanding. But it soon became clear that he was passionate about reporting," Marcelo Moreira, then a young reporter in the Cities section, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
Beraba gave Moreira his first major assignment: investigating the Rio de Janeiro bus cartel, a thorny and largely unexplored topic. According to its author, the report—a finalist for the prestigious Esso Prize—took six months to complete and had a profound impact.
"In my 30 years in the profession, it was perhaps the most comprehensive story I've ever done. And it only happened because Beraba believed in the story," Moreira said.
In 1999, Beraba briefly served as executive editor at Jornal da Globo, his only television stint. He returned to lead Folha's Rio de Janeiro bureau that same year for a second nine-year term. Beginning in 2000, executive editor Eleonora de Lucena led the newspaper, and most of the newsroom viewed her as someone who granted her staff considerable editorial freedom.
Journalists who worked under Beraba during that period remember their former boss as exemplary.
"He was always a very calm, strict, and fair guy. He didn't treat people based on personal friendships, but rather offered very equal treatment. He knew what each person did best and sought to capitalize on that," Claudia Antunes, who served as branch coordinator under Beraba, told LJR.
Plínio Fraga, who worked as the bureau's coordinator and special reporter, captures his experience with Beraba in an anecdote. When opening newsroom meetings on weekends, Fraga said, Beraba would always ask if journalists planned to report any news, or if they would "accept that nothing was happening." The provocation actually encouraged work, even on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.
"It's a lesson in essential restlessness. We can't accept that nothing is happening; that idea is a mistake. We need to be prepared for the news, and we need to go after the news," Fraga told LJR.
In June 2002, the brutal murder of TV Globo reporter Tim Lopes mobilized Brazilian journalists. After Lopes' disappearance, before authorities confirmed his death, Beraba led the response, first organizing meetings at the Rio de Janeiro Journalists' Union and then protests.
Days after a seminar on investigative journalism held in Rio as a response to the crime, Beraba sent an email to 44 reporters and editors, inviting them to found a new independent association. "During the seminar, several of us once again asked ourselves why we don't yet have in Brazil an institution formed and maintained by journalists, independent, focused on the exchange of information among us, professional training, and the deepening of knowledge,” he said. “Focused primarily on the professional growth of journalists, which signifies respect for the society that demands quality journalism from us."
In December that year, approximately 140 journalists gathered in the auditorium of the University of São Paulo's School of Communications and Arts and officially founded the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism, or Abraji for its initials in Portuguese. The group elected Beraba as the organization's first president, a position he held until 2007.
According to Rosental Calmon Alves, director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, which was key to Abraji's genesis, Beraba proved indispensable for the association.
"Without Beraba, there would be no Abraji," Alves said. "Leaders like him are rare in the creation, development, and stabilization of journalist associations. His leadership style is based above all on sincere dialogue, transparency, patient listening, and the ability to find common ground and compromise amidst disagreements."
Professional development through courses and workshops topped Abraji's initial priorities. Soon, defending press freedom and the right to access public information became part of its mission, said Marcelo Moreira, who participated in the organization's creation and served as president in 2012 and 2013.
"The association's focus was on training journalists, something that would give them more tools to learn how to do better investigative work," Moreira said. "The union defends the profession in labor matters; Abraji's idea is not to have that kind of role."
The association grew rapidly and became a benchmark in training reporters, promoting conferences, and combating threats to the press. In July, it held its 20th Congress in São Paulo. Beraba received recognition at the conference.
Abraji's current president, Kátia Brembatti, says she relied on the journalist as a decisive reference for advice.
"Within an organization like Abraji, there are many complex diplomatic and administrative situations, and he always knew how to read the situation clearly,” she told LJR. “He anticipated problems and saw risks.”
What impressed her most, according to Brembatti, was his humility and constant willingness to learn. "I learned from him, and he learned from me," she said.
In 2008, he accepted an invitation from O Estado de S.Paulo's then-editorial director Ricardo Gandour and left Folha to become executive editor of its main competitor. This completed his quartet of Brazil's main daily newspapers.
Applying the same methods he had used since his Folha days, Beraba at Estadão rigorously structured election coverage, strengthened data-driven reporting, and emphasized long-term planning. He became known for insisting on careful preparation, often months in advance.
In Brasília, during his final years as a newsroom editor, Beraba continued wielding his influence discreetly and firmly. As investigative reporter Breno Pires recalled, Beraba coordinated one of the last decade's most significant political journalism stories: revealing the Odebrecht plea bargains, known as the "end-of-the-world plea bargain."
"On the same day I arrived with the exclusive material, through an effort coordinated by Beraba, we managed to publish a series of reports on the Estadão website that left Brazil with bated breath," Pires told LJR.
Beraba left the newsroom in 2019. In March this year, doctors diagnosed him with a brain tumor. According to Estadão's obituary, he remained calm until the end and dedicated his last months to incessant reading.
Beraba is survived by his wife Elvira Lobato, two daughters Ana Luíza and Cecília, two stepchildren João and Olívia, and three grandchildren.
Among the journalism community, tributes continue to multiply. Abraji is collecting testimonies from Brazilians and Latin Americans, as Beraba also played an important regional role as one of the founders of the Latin American Conference of Investigative Journalism (COLPIN).
Many tributes emphasize that Beraba used the term "Professor" when referring to his professional colleagues. The professor, these eulogies claim, was actually him.
