By Alejandro Martínez
The Foundation for New Ibero-American Journalism, FNPI, and the city of Medellín, Colombia have launched the new Gabriel García Márquez International Journalism Award.
The award, inspired by the journalistic vision of García Márquez and the recent naming of Medellín as the world's most innovative city by the Wall Street Journal, will be given to the best works of journalism in Spanish and Portuguese from the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula. According to the FNPI, it has "the aim of giving out the most important award encouraging the pursuit of excellence, innovation, and ethical consistency."
The call for nominations will open on July 26 and will close on August 26 of this year. For more information, visit the new prize's new website.
Jaime Abello Banfi, general director for FNPI, said in a press release that the competition will be based on "the convergence of an era characterized by major changes in the profession." With that purpose, the award will be divided into five categories: features and reporting, visual journalism, news coverage, innovation, and an excellence award. Entries can be in print, video, photography and audio; content from blogs, microblogs, social networks, graphics, animations and news apps will also be accepted.
Winners will receive a prize of $15,000 while finalists receive $2,500. They will also be invited to a November ceremony in Medellín, where public activities such as conferences, workshops, and expositions will be organized.
"We believe this is a prize that puts in practice the ideals of Gabo," said Abello Banfi. “This has a different focus and it is a prize for journalism that is happening now and that has yet to come. It makes people think of the changes in journalism and these changes are aligned with ethics, innovation, and public service."
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.
