By Mariana Muñoz
Brazilian journalist and editor Dorrit Harazim won the Recognition of Excellence Award of the Gabriel García Márquez (GGM) Journalism Award, as was announced July 22 by the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for New Ibero-American Journalism (FNPI by its acronym in Spanish).
The Excellence Award is given annually to a journalist or team of journalists who stand out for their independence, integrity and commitment to the "ideals of public service journalism," and who deserve to be honored for lifetime achievement or outstanding contribution to the search for truth and the advancement of journalism, according to the website of the prize.
Harazim was acknowledged for her 50-year journalistic career. She covered historical events such as the war in Vietnam, apartheid in South Africa, the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile and the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. He also covered four presidential elections in the United States and every Olympics since 1980.
Harazim helped found and edit the magazines Veja y Piaui. Veja is the leading weekly news magazine in Brazil, with a circulation of over one million copies, and Piauí specializes in narrative journalism magazine. She also worked for the newspaper Jornal do Brasil, and currently has a column in O Globo newspaper in Rio de Janeiro, where she writes mainly about international politics, the newspaper reported.
The journalist joins the list of previous winners of this award, including Giannina Segnini (Costa Rica), Javier Darío Restrepo (Colombia) and Marcela Turati (Mexico).
The GGM Journalism Award was created with the aim of "encouraging the pursuit of excellence, innovation and ethical integrity" by journalists and media that publish in Spanish or Portuguese in countries of the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula.
In addition to the Excellence Award, the GGM awards prizes in the categories of text, image, coverage and innovation. According to FNPI, the organization received 1,379 entries from 30 countries for the first edition of the award, which was given in 2013. The next year, the foundation received 1,400 entries from 35 countries. They received 1,645 entries this year.
While the winners of these categories are chosen by independent juries, the Excellence Award is decided by the Governing Council of the prize, which chose Harazim by a unanimous decision.
This council is composed of Germán Rey, Monica Gonzalez, Jean-François Fogel, Jon Lee Anderson, Hector Feliciano, Martin Caparros, Sergio Ramirez, Maria Teresa Ronderos, Hector Abad Faciolince Joaquin Estefania and Rosental Alves, director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
They noted Harazim’s ability to “find angles and aspects that other journalists allowed to pass and that transport the reader using meticulous and interesting details.”
The foundation plans for Harazim to receive the award on September 30 during the Festival of the GGM Award in Medellín, Colombia.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
