Photo by Barry Myers

Marcela Sanchez of the Washington Post speaks to Latin America -- and Latin Americans are listening. In her weekly column "Desde Washington," Sanchez gets the inside scoops from Washington on the policies, legislation and debates that affect Latin Americans in ways large and small.

Anyone who is interested in the issues that affect Latin America will learn something from Sanchez's columns, which are available in both English and Spanish via The Washington Post Writers Group.

The high profile of The Washington Post within the walls of government gives Sanchez unparalleled access to decision-makers and to visiting Latin American dignitaries. She gets news that no one else can.

And she is familiar to television viewers inside and outside of government because of her daily reports on issues that affect Spanish-speaking audiences in the Washington area. Her television reports, done from The Post's newsroom, appear twice a day on the local Univision news broadcast, Noticias 30.

For more than seven years, Sanchez served as Washington correspondent for two of the major daily newspapers in Colombia, El Espectador (June 1998 to August 2000) and El Tiempo (September 1994 to June 1998) as well as Colombia's En Vivo and QAP (January 1997 to December 1999) television newscasts. As Washington correspondent, she reported on U.S. policy and issues of particular interest to Colombia as well as newsworthy events of interest to any international audience.

She has also been a frequent commentator for Worldnet TV of the United States Information Agency (1995 to 2000). As a panelist for news-analysis programs such as Foro Interamericano, she analyzed and discussed current issues relevant to Latin American viewers.

Sanchez joined The Washington Post in the fall of 1997 as a part-time editor in charge of the paper's weekly-Spanish-language soccer report. Her column, "Desde Washington," started in September 2000 and has been published on washingtonpost.com in both English and Spanish. Beginning in August 1993, Sanchez wrote for El Tiempo Latino, the largest Spanish weekly in the Washington metropolitan area. She started as a staff writer and was assistant editor from November 1995 until November 1996, when she became a full-time foreign correspondent for Colombia.

She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the Externado University in Bogota, Colombia and a Master's in Communications and Economics from the University of North Dakota. There she served as director of an interscholastic press association and as a writer for the daily Grand Forks Herald during the 1991-1992 school term.