La Prensa’s facilities have been raided and confiscated, its directors imprisoned and its journalists forced into exile. Yet, in the Nicaraguan government’s most recent rebuke of the newspaper, general manager Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro sees evidence that its journalism still resonates in the country.
“Every time we publish a report, a denunciation, uncover an act of corruption or a human rights violation, it's a blow to the dictatorship, a blow that hurts them,” Holmann told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “Every time we refute one of their lies, they squirm.”
On May 3, the 99-year-old newspaper was awarded the 2025 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize during celebrations to mark World Press Freedom Day. Later that day, the Nicaraguan government announced it was withdrawing from UNESCO in response.
UNESCO recognized the efforts of La Prensa to report the truth to the people of Nicaragua in the midst of repression by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship. (Photo: Screenshot)
The regime of President Daniel Ortega and Co-President Rosario Murillo said La Prensa was a "diabolical expression of traitorous anti-patriotic feeling” that represents the "betrayal of our Patriotic Nation" as it “has promoted and supported violence, foreign intervention, hate crimes and cruelty in a way that is anti-cultural and against true values.”
For Holmann, their reaction reaffirms the relevance and merit of the UNESCO prize.
"When they react like this, it's actually an added incentive. It reinforces the merit UNESCO is giving us by recognizing us the way they do," he said.
The prize was formally presented to La Prensa editors Dora Luz Romero and Fabián Medina on May 7 during a ceremony in Brussels, Belgium. Members of the team and executives, including Holmann, logged in via videoconference. The general manager was unable to attend due to immigration complications resulting from his exile.
UNESCO’s announcement of the prize came a few days after Nicaragua emerged as the worst-ranked Latin American country in Reporters Without Borders' (RSF, for its initials in French) 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
Holmann said the award is the most important in the history of not only the newspaper, which was founded on March 2, 1926, and run by the Chamorro family since Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Zelaya acquired it in the 1930s, but for Nicaraguan journalism in general.
The prize, he added, reinforces the efforts of the La Prensa team to continue providing journalism in the most hostile conditions.
"It's also a recognition of all those who were previously at La Prensa, who helped build what La Prensa is today from a philosophical perspective, so to speak, of its principles and values," he said.
The general manager also dedicated the prize to all the Nicaraguan journalists who have had to abandon their families, friends and material possessions and go into exile in order to continue their independent journalism.
"I call them, all these journalists, the apostles of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Why apostles? Because they don't seek anything for themselves. What they do is a sacrifice," he said.
Since its creation in 1997, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize has annually recognized an individual or organization that has made an outstanding contribution to the defense or promotion of press freedom, particularly under conditions of danger, UNESCO said in announcing this year's winner. It is the only United Nations award for journalists.
“La Prensa has made courageous efforts to report the truth to the people of Nicaragua. Like other civil society organizations, La Prensa has faced severe repression. Forced into exile, this newspaper courageously keeps the flame of press freedom alive,” said Yasuomi Sawa, chair of the international jury of media professionals who chose the winner this year.
The rest of the 2025 jury was made up of Jaime Abello Banfi (Colombia), Rebekah Awuah (Ghana), Nima Elbagir (Sudan), Aneta Grosu (Moldova) and Åsne Seierstad (Norway).
The UNESCO director-general lamented the Nicaraguan government's reaction and its withdrawal from the agency. She said this decision will deprive the Nicaraguan population of the benefits of cooperation in areas such as education and culture.
“UNESCO is fully within its mandate when it defends freedom of expression and press freedom around the world,” Azoulay said.
One of the accusations the Ortega-Murillo regime leveled against La Prensa following the announcement of the award is that the publication has promoted and supported U.S. military and political interference in Nicaragua.
Juan Lorenzo Holmann, general manager of La Prensa, denied that the newspaper has supported foreign interference in Nicaragua, as accused by the Nicaraguan government. (Photo: Patricia Lim/Knight Center)
However, Holmann said, this accusation is part of the dictatorship's attempts to distort reality and impose a false narrative. The newspaper, he said, has always opposed foreign interference and defended Nicaragua's sovereignty, and the proof lies in the editions that make up the newspaper's archive, which were confiscated in 2022 along with the rest of the media outlet's facilities.
“Seeing the letter she [Murillo] wrote and how it refers to La Prensa, what do you think she's going to do with the newspaper archive? She's going to destroy it. If she hasn’t already,” Holmann said. “Because in that newspaper archive is La Prensa's defense of the fact that we are not inciting people to sell out the country and that, rather, we defend sovereignty.”
Holmann said Nicaragua's decision to withdraw from UNESCO in response to the La Prensa award is disproportionate and insulting, since the recognition is awarded on the recommendation of an independent jury.
“A panel of experts make up the jury that awards this prize. [...] They analyze [the winner] in depth, and if they had found any areas, not even black, but gray, in our actions, they surely wouldn't have given this recognition,” Holmann said. “Saying what the so-called co-president says in her letter is an insult, a lack of courtesy, truly a lack of education.”
The journalist said the regime's reaction is an example that the censorship it attempts to impose in Nicaragua isn't so much about preventing citizens from expressing themselves, but rather about preventing the narrative they seek to impose from being refuted.
The daily struggle of the La Prensa team, Holmann said, is precisely to combat the reality that the dictatorship wants to impose.
"Why do they want to silence the media? Because the media not only transmit what society feels, but also help discredit and point out the lie they want to construct as their own reality," he said. “And that's what bothers them; it's not so much that I say what I think.”
Holmann admits that among the La Prensa team, almost entirely operating from exile, there is still fear of being attacked. However, they try to use that fear as a driving force to move forward.
“There's always fear. But everyone is the master of their own fear. That is, everyone decides how to deal with that fear. And dealing with fear doesn't mean going up against it and attacking it, but simply knowing how to cope with it and seeing how you can turn that fear into a tool,” Holmann said. “Fear is not an option. Silence cannot be an option.
Knowing that his journalism continues to impact Nicaragua is the main motivation to confront that fear every day, Holmann said. In his social media response to the regime's reaction to the UNESCO award, the journalist said that the repudiation of the dictatorship shows that La Prensa remains "the newspaper of Nicaraguans," as the publication's slogan indicates.
“La Prensa preaches on fertile ground. Fertile ground that accepts that seed and makes it grow and feeds on it. It's not preaching in the desert. And the regime knows it,” Holmann said. “That motto isn't something that comes from us. It's something that comes from Nicaraguan society itself, from Nicaraguans. Why? Because you see, La Prensa, in all stages of these last 99 years, La Prensa has been there at the service of Nicaraguans, for Nicaraguans. It's the newspaper of all Nicaraguans.”
