Mariana Atencio


Mariana Atencio is a Venezuelan-American bilingual journalist and author who was formerly a national correspondent for MSNBC and NBC News. Atencio is a native of Venezuela and holds a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has also worked as an anchor for Fusion TV and Univision.

Early life and education

Mariana del Carmen Atencio Cervoni was born in Caracas, Venezuela to Alvaro Atencio and Diana Cervoni. She is the oldest of three children.
Atencio has a Bachelor's degree in Communications from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas.
As a junior in college, she participated in the 2007 wave of pro-democracy student protests after former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez shut down RCTV, the country’s oldest television network. She and her fellow students were tear-gassed and water cannons were opened on them. Atencio credits the protests as an influence to become a journalist. Finally, she had to leave Venezuela because of the attacks on freedom of speech and incidents of violence, including being held at gunpoint.
In 2008, she emigrated to the United States after being awarded the Castagno full-merit scholarship from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she graduated with a master's degree.

Career

In 2009, Atencio started her journalism career as a reporter at Impremedia's El Diario/La Prensa in New York City, the oldest Hispanic newspaper in the US. She has also worked as an anchor for the Vme-TV network, the only Hispanic public service television station in the United States.

Univision and Fusion (2011-2016)

Atencio began working as a guest anchor and correspondent for Univision News in 2011. She covered the 2012 presidential election for the network’s morning program Despierta America and its flagship evening newscast Noticiero Univision.
In 2012, she began working as an investigative reporter at Univision. Atencio was one of five reporters who worked on the Peabody Award winning documentary Rapido y Furioso for which they received an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. She also served as a reporter for the network’s Investigative Unit. In 2013 she was part of a five-person reporting team that won Univision's first Peabody Award for "Fast and Furious: Arming the Enemy," an hour-long investigation on the gun-walking scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious.
In 2014, Atencio received a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media for her work on the Univision documentary, "Pressured: Freedom of the Press," which she reported on and wrote.
Atencio became an anchor for the network’s The Morning Show, a two-hour program featuring a mix of hard news, feature stories and live interviews. She anchored The Morning Show on Fusion TV channel until its cancellation in 2014. She was the reporter for Fusion's National Headliner Award-winning segment, "Unearthing the Tomb." Her report entitled, “Mexico Massacres,” received recognition from The National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
She also served as a field correspondent. Atencio led the network’s on-the-ground coverage of the 2014 protests in Venezuela amid growing violence and scarcity, where she also contributed to ABC News. She has covered other notable stories such as the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong, and the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping, where 43 students went missing in Mexico.
In 2015, she was a reporter in McAllen, Texas for ABC News’ virtual town hall with Pope Francis ahead of his first visit to the United States. She interacted with Pope Francis and translated on live television for recent immigrants who wanted to ask the pope questions.
In March 2016, she was part of the anchor-team for Univision and The Washington Post’s debate between Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

MSNBC and NBC News (2016-2020)

Atencio made the crossover from Spanish to English-language network news in September 2016 when she became a correspondent for MSNBC and NBC based in Miami. She was the only Latina correspondent on the cable network.
As a correspondent, Atencio specialized in covering the U.S. Latino community and immigration, and doing live on-air translations from Spanish. She reported on notable stories such as the Central American migrant caravans, the child separation crisis at the border and the ICE raids across several Mississippi chicken plants that led to the arrest of 680 undocumented immigrants.
Atencio’s live interviews with migrant mothers in Reynosa, Mexico during the Trump administration’s family separation policy was nominated for a National Emmy Award.
She also focused on coverage of U.S. Latinos. During the 2020 presidential race, the 2018 midterms and the 2016 presidential campaign, she reported on Hispanic voters across the country. In 2019, she was part of a team of NBC and MSNBC reporters, known as “Road Warriors,” that were awarded the First Amendment Clarity Award for their coverage of the 2018 midterm elections.
Atencio covered major natural disasters including the earthquake in Mexico, as well as the aftermath of Hurricanes Maria, Harvey, Florence, Michael, and Dorian.
She also co-founded GoLike, a multimedia production company, in 2019.

Publications

On June 11, 2019, Harper Collins published Atencio’s first book Perfectly You: Embracing the Power of Being Real, in English and Spanish. The book is self-help and part autobiography.

Personal life

Atencio lives between Miami and New York City.
Atencio has written extensively about her sister Graciela Atencio. In 2014, Graciela was involved in a car accident in New York City. After multiple surgeries, she was able to regain her ability to walk. Mariana and her sister went on the air with the story to promote awareness for kids with disabilities.
Atencio’s father passed away in February 2018 due to complications from pneumonia after contracting the flu. She chronicled his health crisis in the hospital in Caracas and the lack of basic medical supplies in Venezuela as a result of the humanitarian crisis.