Johnny Magdaleno

Freelance journalist and consultant

Pichincha Ecuador

Johnny Magdaleno is a writer, photographer, and nonprofit consultant who works in the U.S. and Latin America. His reporting has been published by The Guardian, Newsweek, NPR, Al Jazeera, VICE Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, and others. From 2016-2017 he was the Equitable Cities fellow at Next City, a fellowship designated for journalists of color.

In 2015, Johnny was one of the first frequent contributors to VICE News. He lived in Ethiopia and worked as the publication’s East Africa stringer, where he covered mass protests over the ISIS beheading of Ethiopian Christians, the Garissa University massacre in Kenya, and other international news items that helped gain the publication multiple award nominations. Prior to 2015, he worked as a volunteer English journalist at Phophtaw News Agency, an exiled Burmese news publication along the Thai-Myanmar border, and as a magazine journalist covering the oil industry in Equatorial Guinea.

In 2012, Johnny dropped out of college due to financial issues and moved to Istanbul, Turkey, where he got his first taste of news journalism covering the Gezi Park protests for social media. Since then, his writing has been translated into more than half a dozen languages, and he has given talks in the U.S. and abroad about his work.

“Good stories need some time of forward action, a problem that needs to be solved within the lifecycle of the story.”

As a consultant, Johnny has collaborated with organizations like UNICEF, UNECA, and Jobs to Move America on writing and editing projects. He also works on contract as the development and communications manager for Urban Manufacturing Alliance, where he has written, edited, and researched reports for National League of Cities, Local Progress, the Massachusetts Economic Development and Finance Agency, PolicyLink, the Pratt Center for Community Development, and others.

Johnny was born and raised in Southern California, and speaks English and Spanish. He is currently finishing up his first book.