Karol Ilagan is a Filipino journalist and a journalism educator. Since 2008, she has been reporting for and is now managing the Editorial Desk of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ). As head of PCIJ’s Editorial Desk she works with freelance reporters, photographers, artists and editors to help tell important but underreported issues in the Philippines. In 2020, PCIJ’s reporting network has produced illustrated narratives on the crowded correctional system in the country, a series on Covid-19 and vulnerable sectors and the Philippine story for the FinCEN Files. These stories were syndicated to and published by mainstream news organizations in the Philippines.
From 2011 to 2014, Karol led the creation of MoneyPolitics.PCIJ.org, a data journalism project and a first of its kind in the Philippines. She has also done periodic research on public procurement, fiscal transparency and access to information in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
Karol also teaches investigative reporting and data journalism at universities in the Philippines.
