Daniel Salazar-Murillo, journalist and researcher, joins the Institute as Data Insight Lead
Atlantic Fellow and Costa Rican journalist, Daniel Salazar-Murillo, has joined the Atlantic Institute as its new Data Insight Lead. A Global Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, Daniel has devoted the past 11 years to communication projects relating to tax accountability, climate change and media literacy. He has a passion for analysing data to find stories that can promote transformative processes to reduce inequality and fight corruption.
He has worked as a researcher in some high-profile projects that include the “Panama Papers,” an investigation of leaked papers detailing the financial and attorney–client information for more than 200,000 offshore entities. His painstaking research also contributed to the “Paradise Papers,” a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments; the Open Lux investigation into tax havens; and Swiss Secrets, an international investigation into Credit Suisse, one of the world's wealthiest and most important banks. He co-created the first fact-checking and media literacy outlet against misinformation in Costa Rica (“DobleCheck”) and worked as a lecturer at the University of Costa Rica where he taught students of journalism how to examine data as a source of investigative news stories.
Daniel has worked with community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations in rural communities on how to analyze local government budgets. He helped LGTBQ organizations in East Africa use data to further their advocacy objectives to promote a fairer society on sexual and gender diversity.
He worked for two years as an investigative journalist for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). With OCCRP and Transparency International, he published a handbook “Follow the money! Manual to track companies, properties, public contracts and rulings in Latin America.” It explains how to use the collection and analysis of data gathered from open sources (OSINT) to produce actionable intelligence that can be used to investigate companies, assets and public contracts in Latin America.
As an Atlantic Fellow, he describes the global community of Fellows as “a refuge, a community of care and a place of hope” to continue his work, and feels “profoundly honored” to continue collaborating, building and learning from this global family.
“I am passionate about learning and working with teams to promote social change through intersectional and creative lenses. I believe that narratives are a powerful instrument to perpetuate inequality, but we can also use them as a tool to fight against it,” he said.
“As a data analyst and storyteller, I believe data is just another piece of our narratives. It can help us to expand our knowledge on how to challenge inequalities. Still, we must be careful to use it in a transformative, transparent, ethical and critical way.”