Facing down power – whatever it may be – means kicking the hornet’s nest. When the press takes it upon itself to challenge dictators, presidents, football executives, priests, or autocrats, a crucial task lies ahead: to remove from the shadows whatever authorities would rather remained nebulous, and to bring to light whatever may do them harm. Many times, the result for reporters is arrests, persecution, and lawsuits. The heavy hand of the powerful versus the nimble pen of the writer. The coverage of power across the world is the theme for the third Piauí GloboNews Journalism Festival, on October 8^th and 9^th, in the auditorium of Colégio Dante Alighieri, in São Paulo.

Curated by piauí reporter Daniela Pinheiro, the Festival presents renowned reporters from six different countries, who will tell of how their work unearthed cases of corruption, tyranny, and pedophilia, among other things. From the United States, Walter Robinson, who won a Pulitzer Prize as the head of the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe for coverage of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, Jon Lee Anderson, writer, war correspondent, and New Yorker collaborator, and Michael Hudson, a veteran investigative journalist who has delved into financial misdeeds on Wall Street and across the world; from Colombia, Ginna Morelo, who wrote articles about the crimes of death squads in the Colombian interior, helping head up an internationally renowned investigation on desaparecidos in Mexico and Colombia; from Germany, Thomas Kistner, author of FIFA-Mafia – The Dirty Business of World Football; from Italy, Gianni Barbacetto, who told the story of the vast corruption investigations in his country in the book Mani Pulite – La Vera Storia 20 Anni Dopo; from Venezuela, César Batiz, who wrote articles on censorship under Chávez and Maduro; and from Russia, Mikhail Zygar, author of All the Kremlin’s Men, an insider’s look at the Putin era.

In “Talk with the Source,” piauí reporters will meet up with the subjects of major profiles written by them and published in the magazine. Topics will include their relationship with the press.

Excerpts from all events will be made available on the Festival’s social media accounts and its blog, as well as through special coverage inserted into GloboNews programming.

For decades, German journalist THOMAS KISTNER has worked to denounce corruption in sports. He is the author of Fifa Mafia, the definitive book on the scandals of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association.

The winner of this year’s Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award – the highest honor in Spanish-language journalism – is the editor of the Bogotá-based newspaper El Tiempo. GINNA MORELO has written about the crimes of death squads in the Colombian interior, and helped head up an internationally renowned investigation on desaparecidos in Mexico and Colombia.

MIKHAIL ZYGAR was the editor-in-chief at Dozhd, the only independent TV channel in Russia. Persecuted by Putin, he ultimately left his post. He has published a biography of the Russian president, written over the course of 16 years.

WALTER ROBINSON headed up the Boston Globe team that investigated cases of pedophilia inside the Catholic Church. Their work inspired the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight, where Robinson is played by Michael Keaton.

Hounded by both Chávez and Maduro, CÉSAR BATIZ is dedicated to producing quality journalism in an increasingly authoritarian country. The editor of the website El Pitazo, he knows what it means to be an opposition journalist in Venezuela.

A specialist in Wall Street’s financial scandals, MICHAEL HUDSON is a senior editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – which, among other projects, coordinated coverage of the Panama Papers.

JON LEE ANDERSON, of the New Yorker, is both a war correspondent and an eminent profiler of dictators – who almost always give him access. In 1997, as he was finishing up his biography of Che Guevara, he wound up discovering the site of his subject’s remains, which had been missing for thirty years.

GIANNI BARBACETTO is the author of the most renowned book on Italy’s “Clean Hands” Operation, which has inspired the judges at work on Brazil’s Operation Carwash. He also came to prominence for having exposed Silvio Berlusconi’s connections to a prostitution ring.