FJA 2020 Shortlist
Category: Contribution to Civil Rights
Kevin Douglas Grant, Leticia Duarte, Soumya Shankar, Juan Arredondo, Quentin Aries, Tracy Jarrett
(United States)
Democracy Undone: The Authoritarian's Playbook
The GroundTruth Project
October 17, 2019
The original publication is available via the following link: https://thegroundtruthproject.org/democracy-undone-signs-of-authoritarianism/
Overview:
Seven steps by populists worldwide to undermine the democracies that elected them
By Kevin Douglas Grant
WASHINGTON – The hallmarks of populist nationalism are gaining ground in many of the world’s largest democracies from Modi’s India to Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Trump’s America. In
these, and many other countries, elected leaders are flirting with aspects of authoritarianism in an extreme era of digital disruption, mass migration and the mounting effects of climate change.
In this project, Democracy Undone: The Authoritarian’s Playbook, GroundTruth reporting fellows in India, Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Poland, Italy and the United States chronicled how seven nationalist leaders in each of these countries seem to be working from the same playbook.
...
Meet the intellectual founder of Brazil’s far right
By Leticia Duarte
PETERSBURG, Virginia — Talking with Olavo de Carvalho can be an exercise in self-restraint. As I walked into his house for an interview recently, he was sitting behind his desk, his gray hair neatly combed back. More than 100 smoking pipes were lined up on a rack, and thousands of books were stacked on the shelves of his home office alongside at least 20 rifles.
...
The slow death of Colombia’s peace movement
By Juan Arredondo
As a photojournalist, Arredondo has documented the hopes of the peace process between Colombia’s government and the FARC rebels – and the repercussions of its setbacks. We’ve included his photography from his time as a freelancer up to being a GroundTruth reporting fellow, offering a glimpse at the on-the-ground impact of the peace process from 2015 to present.
Europe’s failure to protect liberty in Viktor Orbán’s
By Quentin Aries
BUDAPEST — For Attila Babos and Ervin Gűth, simply doing their job has been getting harder and harder. Their news website, Szabad Pécs, has won plaudits for its coverage of local news in southwest Hungary, from stories about a (consensual) relationship between a priest and a male high-school student to a municipality running out of money to pay its bills.
Not everyone has a vote in the world’s largest democracy
By Soumya Shankar
Editor’s note: Originally published in Foreign Policy, this dispatch by Democracy Undone Fellow Soumya Shankar explores another aspect of “Exploit Religion,” a tactic from The Authoritarian’s Playbook.
How Trump sells his war on truth
By Tracy Jarret
DALLAS — A sea of red flooded the streets around a downtown arena. American flags waved
high among a crowd wearing red t-shirts and hats. People — young and old, men and women,
families and old friends — flowed toward the big show like a surging tide.