Fernão Lara Mesquita

Mesquita was born into Brazil's most prominent family of journalists; his forebears were strongly anti-communist and anti-fascist and outspokenly opposed to government censorship against themselves, in favour of it when it affected their enemies. His father, Ruy Mesquita, who died in 2013, was a lawyer “with deep liberal convictions” with right wing tendencies who became the publisher of the family's newspaper, O Estado de S.Paulo, after the death in 1996 of his, Ruy's, older brother Júlio de Mesquita Neto.^[7] Júlio has been credited with “almost single-handedly leading the successful battle against censorship” in Brazil;^[8] Ruy, for his part, was deeply involved in the late 20th-century struggle to make Brazil a stable democracy and a world power. In 1967, after the country's military rulers violated human rights and broke their promise to hold elections, Ruy and Júlio became leading voices in the opposition to military rule and the fight against government censorship.^[7]

Fernão's paternal grandfather, Julio Mesquita Filho, and great-grandfather were also prominent journalists for O Estado; both have been described as having played a major role in shaping “the institutions of the Brazilian oligarchy.” In a talk delivered at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2011, Fernão Lara Mesquita pointed out that O Estado “was born when Brazil was still a monarchy,” and that his ancestors, who founded it and, as of 2011, had been publishing it for 136 years, had “fought for the end of slavery and for the republic.” Over the generations, noted Fernão, members of his family had been “fighting all kinds of govts and dictators,” resulting in the arrest of his grandfather on 17 occasions, the appropriation of the newspaper, the invasion of its offices by military forces, and the bombing of those offices by terrorists of both the left and right.^[9]

Fernão Lara Mesquita studied at the Universidade de São Paulo from 1970 to 1974, receiving degrees in philosophy and education.

Mesquita was editorial director of Jornal da Tarde from 1989 to 2003, and editorial director of the opinion page of O Estado de S. Paulo from 1998 to 2003. He was on the board of directors of Grupo Estado from 2003 to 2011. He was president of Greenpeace Brasil ^{[needs independent confirmation]} in 2005-6. Since 2003, he has served on the board of directors of O Estado de São Paulo, in addition to working as a journalist for that newspaper.^{[10][needs independent confirmation]}