Ali Kamel

Ali Kamel was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 1, 1962. He is a sociologist, speaker, journalist, author, columnist for O Globo, one of the most widely-read Brazilian national newspaper, and Director of the Globo News Department, for Brazil's largest TV network.

He was born to a family of poor immigrants, with a Syrian Muslim father and a Brazilian Catholic mother. He received his basic education from St. Rosa de Lima, a private, Catholic grade and high school; his bachelor's degree in social sciences from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; and also a bachelor's degree in journalism from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, a Jesuit institution.

He is imbued with the traditions of the three monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. His wife, Patricia Kogut, is Jewish, and he regularly attends services with her. The maternal side of his immediate family is Catholic, and the paternal side, Muslim, both of which he experienced in the home. All the foregoing has made him a rare observer of the three religions. His family history has enabled him to have a special perspective of these three monotheistic faiths.

His professional experience in the media has been varied and deep. After receiving his bachelors' degree, he began working in 1982 as an intern at Rádio Jornal do Brasil, where he left three years later as chief of reporting. He worked at the country's main publications and finally went to Veja, the oldest and most prestigious weekly news magazine in Brazil, where he became Deputy Chief in its Rio bureau. At the invitation of the then-director of O Globo, one of the country's three most important newspapers with national circulation, he assumed the city desk. He worked in progressively more responsible positions until being transferred in 1991 as Editorial Director in Brasília, the nation's capital, for three years, from which he was promoted Editor-in-Chief in Rio, being made responsible for the entire paper except op ed.

Six years later, in 2001, he became Executive Director of Journalism for TV Globo, the sister organization. Since then, he works under the leadership of Carlos Henrique Schroder, President of TV Globo News Division. Kamel was responsible for the supervision of four daily, national news programs, including the most watched prime time news in the country, Jornal Nacional; two weekly, prime time, national telemagazines, Globo Repórter on Friday evenings and Fantástico on Sunday evenings. TV Globo is the most popular network in the country and the fourth largest in the world. Its News Department got five nominations for the International Emmy Awards in the last seven years. In July 2009, he was promoted to the post of Director of the Globo News Department, where he administers TV journalism, G1, TV Globo's Internet news service and Globo News, an all-news cable TV.

In addition to the foregoing, Ali Kamel is a frequent speaker and debater for a wide variety of social, political, and cultural topics. He is also a frequent contributor to O Globo's op ed page, writing about media and social and political issues.

He is a bestselling author. His first book, Não Somos Racistas (We're not Racist), about the differences between the United States and Brazil and the respective treatments for racial problems, was released in 2006 and is in its eighth printing. The news magazine Veja considered it one of the ten most important books of the year for a better understanding of Brazil and the world. His second, Sobre o Islã - A afinidade com cristãos e judeus e as origens do desvio terrorista (Islam - Its Kinship with Judaism and Christianity and the Origins of Its Terrorist Deviancy), was released in August 2007 and remained on the nationwide top ten list for ten weeks. His third book, Dicionário Lula (The Lula Dictionary), a scholarly work about Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil since January 2003, is of interest to sophisticated national and international readers of contemporary politics and history.