Marcela Gaviria is a journalist and filmmaker with Rain Media in New York City. Over the past two decades she has produced over 40 hours of programming for FRONTLINE (PBS), covering the rise of Al Qaeda, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the culture of risk taking on Wall Street, America’s heroin epidemic, and the crackdown on undocumented immigrants under the Trump Administration.
Gaviria has earned every award in broadcast journalism multiple times, including seven Emmys, three Peabody’s, two Dupont Columbia Gold batons and two silver batons, four Writers Guild Awards, three Overseas Press Club Awards, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the prestigious George Polk Award for investigative journalism.
In 2019, Gaviria’s documentary on the detention of immigrant teens accused of gang affiliation, The Gang Crackdown, was awarded the Dupont Columbia Gold Baton, the highest honor in broadcast journalism. Her film Separated: Children at the Border won the prestigious Peabody Award, which honors the best thirty programs on national television. Recently she produced Targeting El Paso, which focused on the children detained in the Clint Detention Center and looked at how El Paso became the Trump administration’s immigration policy testing ground.
Since 9/11, Gaviria has produced some of FRONTLINE’s seminal films on America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including In Search of Al Qaeda (2002); Truth, War an Consequences (2003), Beyond Baghdad (2004), Private Warriors (2005), Gangs of Iraq (2007),The War Briefing (2008), Obama’s War (2009); and The Spy Who Quit (2009). Truth, War and Consequences won a Dupont Columbia Silver Baton and Obama’s War won the Overseas Press Club’s Edward R. Murrow Award.
Gaviria first worked for FRONTLINE in 1994 on the production of Godfather of Cocaine, a film about the drug baron Pablo Escobar. After five years of freelancing from her native Colombia, she returned to FRONTLINE to work on the four part series Drug Wars. That began a 20 year collaboration with veteran FRONTLINE producer/correspondent, Martin Smith, who has been Gaviria’s correspondent on multiple films including Chasing Heroin (2016); The Retirement Gamble (2013), and The Virus: What Went Wrong (2020).
Gaviria is currently working on a two-hour documentary on the American war in Afghanistan to air in the fall of 2022.
Gaviria obtained her BA from Brown University and her MA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She lives in the Catskills with her producing partner and now husband, Martin Smith.
Awards
Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
2015 New Media Award
Firestone and The Warlord (PBS FRONTLINE)
Investigative Reporters and Editors Award
2014 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for Multi-platform – Large
Firestone and The Warlord (PBS FRONTLINE)
Emmy Awards
2015 News and Documentary Emmy Award: Outstanding Investigative Reporting – Long Form
Firestone and The Warlord (PBS FRONTLINE)
2015 News and Documentary Emmy Award: Outstanding Research
Firestone and The Warlord (PBS FRONTLINE)
2014 News and Documentary Emmy Award: Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting – Long Form
The Retirement Gamble (PBS FRONTLINE)
2013 News and Documentary Emmy Award: Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting – Long Form
Money, Power and Wall Street (PBS FRONTLINE)
2008-2009 Emmy Award for Business and Financial Reporting: Outstanding Documentary on a Business Topic
The Madoff Affair (PBS FRONTLINE)
2005 News and Documentary Emmy Award: Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story
The Storm (PBS FRONTLINE)
2000 News and Documentary Emmy Award: Outstanding Background/Analysis of a Single Current Story (Program)
Drug Wars (PBS FRONTLINE)
Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards
2003-2004 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award (Silver Baton)
Truth, War and Consequences (PBS FRONTLINE)
2001-2002 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award (Gold Baton)
Hunting Bin Laden, Looking for Answers, and Saudi Time Bomb (PBS FRONTLINE)
Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels
2014 Festival Selection
Egypt in Crisis (PBS FRONTLINE)
George Foster Peabody Awards
2009 George Foster Peabody Award
The Madoff Affair (PBS FRONTLINE)
2000 George Foster Peabody Award
Drug Wars (PBS FRONTLINE)
George Polk Awards
2012 George Polk Award for Documentary Television Reporting
Money, Power and Wall Street (PBS FRONTLINE)
Overseas Press Club Awards
2015 Edward R. Murrow Award citation for Best Television Interpretation or Documentary on International Affairs
Firestone and the Warlord (PBS FRONTLINE)
2010 Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Television Interpretation or Documentary on International Affairs
Obama’s War (PBS FRONTLINE)
Society of Environmental Journalists Awards for Reporting on the Environment
2011 Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding In-depth Reporting, Large Market
The Spill (PBS FRONTLINE)
Writers Guild of America Awards
2014 Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Script: Television Documentary – Current Events
Egypt in Crisis (PBS FRONTLINE)
2013 Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Script: Television Documentary – Current Events
Money, Power and Wall Street: Episode 1 (PBS FRONTLINE)
2012 Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Script: Television Documentary – Other Than Current Events
WikiSecrets (PBS FRONTLINE)
2010 Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Script: Television Documentary – Current Events
The Madoff Affair (PBS FRONTLINE)