Paulo Roberto Severo Pimenta (born 19 March 1965) is a Brazilian journalist, agricultural technician, and politician, who is the current of Secretary of Social Communication under president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

[4] Initially an activist from the left-wing political group Resistência, which included people from the city such as Marcos Rolim as leaders, he became known when he was injured in a shooting by an assailant from Santa Maria.

He was in fact painting a message on the side of his house, "Diretas Urgente para Reitor e Presidente", as was common in that time.

In the municipal elections of 1996, he ran, without success, to be the vice-mayor of the city with the coalition headed by Carlos Renan Kurtz of the PDT.

[5] Pimenta was elected as a state deputy in 1998 and presided over the Legislative Assembly's Planning and Finance Commission.

[4] In 2000, he proposed and presided over the parliamentary inquiry (CPI) that investigated organized crime in Rio Grande do Sul and returned to Santa Maria, when he was elected vice-mayor.

[12] In June 2017, Pimenta and fellow federal deputy Wadih Damous [pt] placed Carla Zambelli under citizen's arrest after she was accused of defamation.

In 2009, Pimenta presented to Congress several bills such as those supporting public student support funds (4945/09),[18] digital citizenship (4805/09),[19] wine making (1.988/03), the Emprego 40 Anos program (3.345/04), criminal liability (411/03), and a proposed constitutional amendment to require a diploma to enter the profession of journalism (386/2009).

[20] On 11 August 2005, Pimenta was the vice-president of the Parliamentary Commission of the inquiry into the Mensalão scandal, which resulted in AP 470, judged by the Supreme Federal Court in 2012.

Regardless, he left the position after presenting a list of people that benefitted from transfers made by businesses owned by Marcos Valério in Minas Gerais, following what was shown to be the precursor to Mensalão that had begun in 1998 among officials in the government of Minas Gerais, a scandal known as the Mensalão tucano.

[23][24] On 29 December 2021, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva confirmed that Pimenta would be, if he was re-elected, the Minister of the Secretary of Social Communication in his administration.

[25] In his inaugural speech he made it a priority to combat fake news and the end of the fencing in of journalists that was prominent during the Jair Bolsonaro administration.