Media organizations all over the world are experimenting and innovating visual storytelling for their news coverage. Storybench rounded up five Latin American media sites that are playing with illustration and animation.

Nómada

Founded in August 2014, Nómada is a journalistic outlet from Guatemala that explores the national and international issues affecting the country. Their series “Historias buscan respuestas” – stories searching for answers – consists of animated shorts that chronicle the woes of activists, women, the LGBTQ+ community and indigenous people in Guatemala.

El Deber

An established newspaper in Bolivia, El Deber has been playing around with animation for their digital site. Their project #CarnedeCañon follows the women forced into drug trafficking between Bolivia and Chile. The project was produced alongside Connectas, a non-profit media organization that provides digital tools to journalists to produce stories.

Cultura Colectiva

Cultura Colectiva is one of the largest digital platforms in all of Latin America. Their audience purportedly reaches over 45 million people across the continent with over 40 million monthly views on their 13 different verticals. Their infographics vertical displays informative content in an engaging and digestible manner.

Pictoline

The quirky, engaging comics that Pictoline publishes seek to tell stories in just a few seconds. They describe themselves as a journalistic news site that shares visual content directly to your social feed. The idea began in 2015 and has amassed over 1.7 million followers on Facebook and 789 million on Instagram. Storybench spoke with Pictoline founder Eduardo Salles in 2015.

El Surtidor

Established in 2016, El Surtidor is a Paraguayan media organization that creates “visual journalism from the most unequal region of the world,” according to their site. They recently won the Premio Gabo, an award given for journalistic innovation by Colombia’s Gabriel García Márquez Foundation in honor of the late great Colombian author, for their piece Los #Desterrados del Chaco. The piece, published in October 2017, explores the wildlife conservation, or lack thereof, of El Chaco, a plain between the Amazon and the Andes that forms part of four nations, with Paraguay owning the lion’s share.