Carlos Fernando Chamorro Barrios

During the first Sandinista regime and through 1994, Chamorro was editor in chief of the government newspaper Barricada.

Early life and Sandinista work

Carlos Fernando Chamorro studied at Colegio Centro America. Then, Chamorro attended college at McGill University in Montreal, graduating in 1977. He then returned to Nicaragua intended to study for a master's degree and then work to address poverty in the country. He instead decided to join the revolutionary effort to effect change for nation's poor. Covertly, Chamorro attended small-arms training, studied Marxism and joined the propaganda section of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN),. becoming chief of the Agitation and Propaganda Department.

His father was assassinated the following year, prompting Chamorro to turn to journalism, becoming a reporter at his father's former paper La Prensa. Following the fall of the Somoza regime, Chamorro's mother briefly joined the Sandinista junta, but became disenchanted in less than a year and, with Chamorro's siblings Pedro Joaquín and Cristiana, returned to La Prensa, which she turned into an opposition paper again, but this time opposing the FSLN. This prompted a number of departures from the paper, including Chamorro who became editor in chief of Barricada, the FSLN's newspaper, which had taken over the physical plant of the Somozas regime's paper, Novedades. (Meanwhile his uncle Xavier Chamorro sold his shares of La Prensa to found El Nuevo Diario, which was sympathetic to the FSLN, and Chamorro's sister Claudia joined the FSLN government as ambassador to Costa Rica, while Chamorro's brother Pedro Joaquín left Nicaragua to join the Contras.)

In 1984, Chamorro was in charge of publicity for Daniel Ortega's campaign for President.

In 1990, Chamorro's mother was elected President of Nicaragua, defeating FSLN's Daniel Ortega. Chamorro had opposed his mother's candidacy, feeling it was counter-revolutionary and a sign of the weakness of the conservative party that nominated her. After she won, he remained at Barricada though it was no longer the government newspaper. It continued to be strongly sympathetic to the FSLN and critical of the new government, but also developed new editorial independence: expanding beyond a strictly political project allowed for new reporting projects. This departure from strictly promotional material to including investigations that sometimes embarrassed the FSLN drew ire from some orthodox members and, following the party congress in 1994, the FSLN took back control of the paper. Chamorro and other top editors were fired.