Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab Wilhelm, Mexico, became a member of ICIJ's Board in 2018. She is also an ICIJ member.
Xanic, as she’s known to her colleagues, is a freelance journalist and has worked for two decades as an investigative journalist for newspapers and magazines in Mexico.
Von Bertrab started in Guadalajara as a radio broadcaster and writer with the Siglo 21 newspaper, covering topics such as migration and the energy business. She later joined the paper’s investigative unit and worked on stories ranging from drug trafficking to state corruption and political assassinations. Von Bertrab reported on social issues such as the plights of the deaf in Mexico and of marginalized residents of small rural villages.
While her heart is in street reporting, she has taken to computer-assisted reporting, creating databases for journalists. She has also developed an expertise in using Mexico’s young Freedom of Information Act.
As a reporter in Mexico City she has investigated health and social issues for the Mexican edition of Gabriel García Marquez's magazine, Cambio, and was an editor at the business weekly Expansion. In 2010 and 2011, Xanic was part of the ICIJ team that investigated big tobacco’s global lobbying strategies.
Von Bertrab was awarded a George Polk Award along with David Barstow of The New York Times for their 2012 investigation into Wal-Mart's use of bribery in Mexico.
