With smaller staffs and budgets, local outlets are leaning into their community ties to find stories national newsrooms can’t easily see.
Brazil’s election season is officially underway. Voters will choose a president, governors and federal and state lawmakers, with candidates now free to ask for votes, buy advertising and hold rallies through Oct. 25.
And across Brazil, local and niche news outlets are rolling out coverage built around their biggest advantage: proximity to their audiences. They’re interviewing residents, spotlighting women’s stories, partnering with other small newsrooms and covering the campaign through specialized lenses.
With smaller teams and fewer resources than national outlets, they’re turning their community ties into an edge. Samuel Pantoja Lima, one of Brazil’s leading researchers of local journalism, said topics like public health and public safety, often discussed in national debates, are unequivocally matters of regional interest and play a key role in shaping voters’ decisions.
“If local journalism provides in-depth coverage through a series of reports and investigative pieces, I believe it can make an important contribution to these issues that affect us all,” he told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
Agência Mural, a 16-year-old news outlet devoted to serving audiences in São Paulo and its surrounding communities, wants its electoral coverage to underscore the impact of national politics on the peripheries. The outlet plans to start off with an overview of previous races in peripheral communities to emphasize the importance of voting for state representatives.
“We’ll show how the votes broke down in 2022, by electoral district, in each area of Greater São Paulo,” Agência Mural co-founder Paulo Talarico and editor Sarah Fernandes explained in a recent editorial about how democracy only develops with the suburbs.
“This is the starting point for reports that will examine how these lawmakers have performed over the past four years: Did they vote on bills that impact life in our territories? How did they use legislative amendments during this period? And what is their stance in the election race?”
Mural’s network of 60 correspondents in the outlying areas of São Paulo is what sets the outlet apart, Talarico said, explaining they will help contextualize what local residents think of the candidates.
For Talarico, focusing on local perspectives allows them to report stories that stray from the typical approach of national newsrooms and show how the election plays a fundamental role for these communities.
“Correspondents live in their communities; they know where the problems and key issues arise, and they also know which residents are important community leaders active in those areas,” Talarico told LJR “Based on that, we’re able to uncover stories that are highly relevant to those communities and directly address the needs of the people who live there.”
But not all publications have access to a network of collaborators. Arthur Raposo Gomes, journalist and director of the online news outlet Notícias del-Rei, said during the Abraji Conference held in São Paulo in August that many small, local outlets rely either on a small team or on so-called “one-person teams” — essentially journalists with multiple roles within the same media outlet.
So to boost their coverage, some are leaning into their niches and teaming up with others.
Gomes said Noticias Del Rei is partnering with another small local outlet, Revista Mana, that centers its coverage around women’s stories, and perspectives, in the region . Their goal is to go beyond hard news and show how decisions made in the country’s capital affect their audiences’ daily lives.
The outlets started their shared electoral coverage with explainers on the timetable for the elections and on how political parties, parliamentary groups and Brazil’s proportional representation system can determine who actually comes to power.
Revista Mana editor Daniela Mendes said many women are highly engaged politically and play an important role in local political life, but there is always a need to explain to audiences certain aspects of the electoral process, including how it works and what is at stake.
“That is where I see a tremendous opportunity for dialogue between Mana and broader local outlets such as Notícias del-Rei,” she said.
Gomes said local electoral coverage should not aim to compete or replicate what large outlets are doing, but report from a perspective that national outlets often miss.
“Journalists who work in the country’s interior have a significant advantage in this regard,” Gomes told LJR. “They cover the region year-round.”
Moreno Osório, journalism professor and co-founder of Farol Jornalismo newsletter, which covers journalism in Brazil, said local journalism’s biggest strength is the ability to inform the public from a perspective that is consistent with local realities.
“This is something that out-of-town newspapers, the so-called ‘big papers,’ may find difficult to achieve due to the need for broader, less specific coverage,” Osório said.
In Rio Grande do Sul, the country’s southernmost state, Coletiva.net focuses on a narrow niche: communication, marketing and business in the state.
This campaign season,the 25-year-old outlet’s coverage will focus on the role of journalism and political marketing in the state’s electoral contest, which they have done since 2018.
“So, in addition to the perspective of the press, we also offer the point of view of those on the other side of the table — the people who work on election campaigns,” Patrícia Lapuente, editor of Coletiva.net, told LJR.
Through its multiplatform project “Behind the Scenes of the 2026 Elections,” the outlet will cover the main debates and activities of candidates for governor and the Senate from a communications perspective.
“We seek to show our audience what happens during an interview before the cameras start rolling, who is involved in the preparation, what the challenges of moderating are, and how journalists, advisers and strategists work during coverage,” Lapuente explains in their editorial.
When asked how such a niche outlet can set itself apart, Coletiva.net’s director, Márcia Christofoli, explained they do it by being very awre they’re the only ones catering to their corner in the market.
“We serve as a showcase for these professionals, so one of our major missions and pillars is precisely to promote, recognize, publicize, and shine a light on our communications professionals. Regardless of their specific field—in this case, within the realm of electoral journalism coverage”, she said to LJR.
