In 2009, Atencio started her journalism career as a reporter at Impremedia's
El Diario/
La Prensa in New York City. In 2012, she began working as an investigative reporter at
Univision. She also served as a reporter for the network’s Investigative Unit. In 2013 she was part of a five-person reporting team that won Univision's first
Peabody Award for "Fast and Furious: Arming the Enemy," an hour-long investigation on the gun-walking scandal known as
Operation Fast and Furious. Atencio became an anchor for the network’s
The Morning Show, a two-hour program featuring a mix of news, feature stories and live interviews. She anchored
The Morning Show on
Fusion TV channel until its cancellation in 2014. She was the reporter for Fusion's National Headliner Award-winning segment, "
Unearthing the Tomb." Her report entitled, “Mexico Massacres,” received recognition from The National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She has also served as a field correspondent. Atencio led the network’s on-the-ground coverage of the 2014 protests in Venezuela from where she also contributed to
ABC News. She has covered the shooting
death of Michael Brown in
Ferguson, the
Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong, and the
2014 Iguala mass kidnapping, where 43 students went missing in Mexico. In 2015, she was a reporter in
McAllen, Texas for ABC News’ virtual town hall with Pope Francis ahead of his first visit to the United States. She interacted with Pope Francis and translated on live television for recent immigrants who wanted to ask the pope questions. In March 2016, she was part of the anchor-team for Univision and
The Washington Post’s debate between Democratic candidates
Hillary Clinton and
Bernie Sanders.
NBC News (2016-2020) Atencio made the crossover from Spanish to English-language network news in September 2016 when she became a correspondent for NBC. She was the only Latina correspondent on the cable network. Atencio specialized in covering the U.S. Latino community and immigration, and doing live on-air translations from Spanish. She reported on notable stories such as the
Central American migrant caravans, the child separation crisis at the border and the ICE raids across several Mississippi chicken plants that led to the arrest of 680 undocumented immigrants. Atencio's live interviews with migrant mothers during the
Trump administration's family separation policy and her coverage of the border were nominated for two national
Emmy Awards. During the 2020 presidential race, the 2018 midterms and the 2016 presidential campaign, she reported on Hispanic voters across the country. In 2019, she was part of a team of NBC reporters, known as
Road Warriors, who were awarded the First Amendment Clarity Award for their coverage of the 2018 midterm elections. Atencio covered major natural disasters including the
earthquake in Mexico, as well as the aftermath of Hurricanes
Maria,
Harvey,
Florence,
Michael, and
Dorian.
Other work (2020-present) Atencio was a 2021 Henry Crown Fellow at the
Aspen Institute. In November 2021, she was named as an official spokesperson for the future
National Museum of the American Latino in Washington D.C. In 2022, she released the
true crime investigative podcast series
Lost in Panama, which documented the
disappearance of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, two Dutch tourists who went missing on a hiking trail. During the investigation, Atencio discovered more than 50 additional cases of women disappearing in the same area. ==Publications==