Comment "cabot" to receive a link to the full story!
“We journalists almost never change anything. Our job is not to change the world, but to dream of doing so; in arming ourselves with a bundle of convictions and tying ourselves to them like castaways, dreaming that if we investigate with ruthless rigor, if we listen with infinite patience to reality, if we write as beautifully as possible, we will be able to tell at least one truth and that by doing so there will be fewer lies fluttering in the world.”
The words of Salvadoran journalist Carlos Ernesto Martínez, from El Faro, summarized the spirit of the 2024 Maria Moors Cabot Prizes ceremony, which took place on Oct. 8 at Columbia University, in New York.
Martínez was one of four journalists this year to receive the Cabot Prize Gold Medal, which has recognized, since 1938, “journalists and news organizations for career excellence and coverage of the Western Hemisphere that furthers inter-American understanding.”
Brazilian photojournalist Lalo de Almeida, from Folha de S.Paulo, American journalist John Otis, from NPR and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and American journalist Frances Robles, from The New York Times, also received the Cabot Prize Gold Medal this year.
The think tank and investigative journalism organization InSight Crime and Argentine journalist Laura Zommer, a pioneer in fact checking in Latin America, received special citations for the 2024 Cabot Prize.
“The journalists we are celebrating tonight represent the best in our business,covering some of the most critical issues of the region – using both old fashioned shoe leather and the latest innovations,” said Rosental Alves, Cabot Board chair, and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, which publishes LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
By Carolina de Assis
Image 1: April Renae/Columbia University
Image 2: Chris Taggart