About

Portrait of Gabriel Rinaldi in Berlin-Mitte, photographed by Larena Klöckner

Gabriel Rinaldi was born in the Black Forest in 1997 and grew up between Swabian province and Italian Mediterranean. Always passionate about journalism, he started his career at the Schwäbische Zeitung at the age of 16, covering local happenings in the rural town of Trossingen. After graduating from high school, Gabriel studied Political Sciences and Sociology at the Humboldt University of Berlin and King's College London. Subsequently, he pursued a double degree in International Affairs and Economics at the Hertie School, Berlin, and Bocconi University, Milan, as a Heinrich-Böll-Foundation and Germany Integration Foundation scholar. Furthermore, he completed an executive course at the University of Chicago and a journalistic traineeship at the Catholic Journalism School ifp in Munich.

During his time at university, he gained leadership experience by co-leading UnAufgefordert, one of Germany's most influential student newspapers. Apart from that, Gabriel volunteers for various non-profit social or education projects such as Aelius Förderwerk, Jugendpresse Deutschland, and Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg to contribute his vast expertise in media and communications as an instructor and mentor. He also was involved in research on digitalisation in public administration as a research assistant at the Hertie School.

Besides German politics, Gabriel is interested in international affairs and public policy more broadly. He is intrigued by the impact of emerging technologies on policy and society, particularly cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse. He is an Italian and German native speaker and fluent in English and French. During his spare time, he passionately follows his favorite football team, Genoa CFC.

Feel free to connect on LinkedIn and Twitter/X or book a virtual coffee break here.

Work

A newspaper and a tablet show an article about the Metaverse published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and on FAZ.NET, photographed by Gabriel Rinaldi

During his career, Gabriel Rinaldi collaborated with a number of media outlets and contributed with articles, op-eds, interviews, reportages, features, data-driven stories, and background research. So far, he has worked for:

  • DER SPIEGEL
  • Der Tagesspiegel
  • Deutsche Presse-Agentur
  • Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
  • Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  • POLITICO
  • Perspective Daily
  • Süddeutsche Zeitung
  • Südwest Presse
  • Schwäbische Zeitung
  • Tagesspiegel Background Cybersecurity
  • taz, die tageszeitung
  • The Washington Post
  • Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen

For his journalistic work, Gabriel was named Top 30 under 30 in journalism by medium magazin, selected as a winner of the Nova 111 Student List Italy 2022, and awarded journalistic scholarships as Google News Initiative Fellow 2020 at the European Journalism Centre (EJC) and Trainee at the Catholic Journalism School ifp. Furthermore, he was shortlisted for the UMSICHT Science Award 2022 in the Category Journalism as well as the Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism 2022 and the Coburg Media Award in the Category Young Talent. Moreover, he was given an Honorable Mention at the 2022 Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards in the Category Student Journalists. Most recently, he won the first place of the Media Award for Digital Enlightenment 2022 (Medienpreis für digitale Aufklärung) in the Category Written Word.

You can find a selection of his work here.

Gabriel Rinaldi received the Media Award for Digital Enlightenment 2022 for his article on the metaverse published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, photographed by Larena Klöckner

Talks

Gabriel Rinaldi holds a presentation at the medium magazin Top 30 under 30 conference in Frankfurt am Main, photographed by Andreas Varnhorn

Gabriel Rinaldi regularly gives talks about his work as a journalist and teaches students and young media makers about the world of journalism. So far, he has held keynotes, workshops, and seminars on fake news, fact-checking and data journalism. For example, Gabriel led a workshop at YouMeCon 2022, a conference organized by Jugendpresse Deutschland, and instructed students on disinformation for Lie Detectors and Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg. He is also part of the journalistic project Reportagen.fm and a board member at UnAufgefordert, his former student newspaper.

Gabriel also volunteers for social and non-profit research projects — for instance as a mentor — and occasionally comments on topics in his fields of expertise. He appeared in various podcasts to talk about the media industry and was a live guest on Sky TG24 in Italy to discuss the results of the 2021 German federal election.

You can get in touch with him via his social network channels or via email.

Gabriel Rinaldi gives a workshop on data journalism at the Youth Media Convention 2022 in Hamburg, photographed by Joscha F. Westerkamp