María Lilly Delgado

Independent Journalist Nicaragua

Santiago LyonMaría Lilly Delgado is a seasoned media and communication expert, journalist and entrepreneur, with more than 25 years of technical experience with multiple media outlets in Nicaragua as a news correspondent, journalist, news director, media consultant and media project director. Maria Lilly Delgado is the former freelance news correspondent for NOTICIERO UNIVISION Network in Managua-Nicaragua, reporting in Spanish and English (bilingual) on the serious political and human rights crisis in the country from April 2018 to mid-2021.

Recently, María Lilly Delgado co-founded with Nicaraguan colleagues the interactive platform Huellas de Impunidad, an independent journalistic project that seeks to contribute to the historical memory of Nicaragua. The interactive digital platform implements investigative journalism and data journalism to make visible through special long-term reports the situation of systematic violation of human rights in Nicaragua intensified because of the state violence since April 2018. “Huellas de Impunidad” aims to collect hundreds of human rights violations such as the right to life, the right to access justice, freedom of expression and the press, among many more, violations of thousands of Nicaraguans which remains in total impunity.

Currently, Maria Lilly Delgado is the SembraMedia´s ambassador in Nicaragua. SembraMedia is an organization that promotes entrepreneurial journalism in the Latin American region.

As a Knight Fellow at Stanford University, class 2013, she was the co-founder and launched the digital platform www.derechoapreguntar.org in alliance with the closed and persecuted Violeta Chamorro Foundation FVBCH. The platform allowed media journalists and citizens to request public information using an open source software. Since febrero 2021,The platform is offline due to the closure of the Violeta B. de Chamorro Foundation as a result of the controversial Foreign Agents Regulation Law approved in Nicaragua which sanctions those who receive financing and donations from abroad.

She holds a B.A. in Journalism from the Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua, and has won multiple journalism awards, including an “Excellence in Journalism Award” granted by the United Nations and FVBCH in the television category. She is a member of the 10th class of the Central American Leadership Initiative (CALI), part of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Network.

María Lilly Delgado directed and produced the television show “Vidas y Confesiones” (Lives and Confessions). “Vidas y Confesiones” documented and broadcasted personalities and communities whose lives and experiences were relevant, extraordinary, controversial or simply different.

María Lilly Delgado worked as news director, news producer and news anchor of Televicentro Canal 2. She directed Channel 2 News Department, managing four different news slots: Morning Edition, Mid-day Edition, Stellar Edition and Late Night Edition. All 4 News editions were considered the Newscast with major credibility and audience between 2001-2004.