About us

About Altavoz Lab

Altavoz Lab mentors, trains, and supports local reporters to pitch, produce, and publish impactful accountability and service journalism in community outlets serving historically disinvested audiences across the U.S. Our programs help journalists engage with their audiences while building lasting careers in local news — offering an alternative to the traditional journalism pipeline that too often pulls talent away from community-based reporting. By investing in trusted messengers and the stories their communities need, Altavoz Lab strengthens local news — and, with it, the foundations of democracy.

Mission

Our mission is to strengthen trusted community journalism by mentoring, supporting, and equipping reporters who serve historically disinvested communities — helping them produce impactful, collaborative accountability reporting that is in conversation with the communities they serve, fostering civic participation and strengthening local news.

Vision

We envision a future where reporters committed to their communities can thrive — producing journalism that empowers their audiences, strengthens civic life, and drives local change, without having to leave their communities behind.

Our Story

Altavoz Lab was founded on a powerful belief: strong local journalism strengthens democracy — and this must start by serving communities that have been historically overlooked, disinvested in, and misrepresented.

Our founder and executive director, Valeria Fernández, is an award-winning journalist, newsroom leader. She began her career in 2003 at a small Spanish-language newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona, where resources were few but trust with the community was deep. She went on to report for national outlets like The Guardian, Latino USA, and The World, and later became managing editor of palabra, a publication of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. There, she championed fair pay for freelance journalists and led award-winning projects that amplified voices too often excluded from national narratives. Now, as leader of Altavoz Lab and alongside a team, she is meeting a greater need: strengthening more journalists, more newsrooms, and more communities.

Throughout her career, Valeria saw a recurring problem: the traditional journalism “pipeline” encouraged reporters to leave their communities in order to advance — chasing prestige and resources rarely available at the local level. This extractive model left both the reporters and their communities without the journalism they needed to thrive.

Altavoz Lab was created to offer a new path — a way for journalists to grow professionally while staying rooted in the communities they serve.

In 2022, with support from the Emerson Collective Democracy Fellowship, Altavoz launched its first pilot projects, partnering with reporters and local newsrooms in California, Illinois, Florida, New York, and Puerto Rico. The results were impactful: fellows produced accountability journalism that led to civic engagement, and sparked meaningful conversations within their communities. The fellowship strengthened fellows’ commitment to local journalism, opened professional doors, and empowered them to produce deeper accountability stories than they could have on their own. Fellows also built a lasting network of mutual aid and support — proving that with the right resources, local journalists can thrive without leaving their communities.

At Altavoz, we strive to make the big stories doable and replicable.
We provide mentorship, editing, training, and distribution support — not to pull journalists away, but to equip them to stay, grow, and deepen their impact where it matters most.

We invest in the stories each community needs, and the trusted messengers who can tell them best.

Now, building on the success of our early work, Altavoz Lab is expanding — growing stronger journalism, stronger communities, and stronger democracy at the roots.