Deepa Fernandes

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Deepa Fernandes is currently the host of the WBAI radio program "Wakeup Call" and formerly hosted the nationally syndicated Pacifica radio news show "Free Speech Radio News" on the politically independent, anti-war Pacifica Radio Network. Fernandes has worked as a freelance producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, InterWorld Radio and Pacifica Radio.

[edit] Biography

Born in Mumbai, India, Fernandes began her career in journalism in Sydney, Australia working as a daily news reporter. She then moved to Latin America, where she worked on a 26-part radio documentary series on indigenous communities in Ecuador. From there she went to Cuba to work as a daily features producer at Radio Havana Cuba.

Fernandes next moved to New York City, where she went to work as a producer for the flag-ship Pacifica Radio program, Democracy Now!. At Pacifica's WBAI she co-produced Our Americas, a weekly radio program on issues affecting Latin America and the Caribbean, and hosted the weekday morning show, Wakeup Call. She also has been a co-anchor for Pacifica's national daily news program, Free Speech Radio News.

In January 2007, Fernandes spoke with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman about her new book, Targeted: National Security and the Business of Immigration, published by Seven Stories Press. She told Goodman that she "got into secondary inspection rooms around the country, because I had to, because I was coming in the country and I was processed through there."^[1]

Fernandes is an alumna of Columbia Journalism School. Her sister, Sujatha, is an assistant professor of sociology at Queens College in New York City.