Spanish journalist Judith Torrea, author of the blog Ciudad Juárez, en la Sombra del Narcotráfico (Ciudad Juárez, in the Shadow of Drug Trafficking), won the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom award and was selected to be one of the 2011-12 International Knight Fellows.
Torrea, who has lived in Mexico’s most dangerous city – Ciudad Juárez – since 2009, has been covering drug trafficking, organized crimes, and immigration for 14 years. In April 2010, she won the Ortega y Gasset Prize for Digital Journalism for her blog.
The Reporters without Borders (RSF) award was a category at the “Best of Blogs” competition organized by the German radio station Deutsche Welle . RSF called her site, “a courageous blog about drug cartel activities, government repression and police corruption” in an region where many journalists are forced into exile for their coverage.
As a recipient of an International Knight Fellowship, Torrea will spend a year in residence at Stanford University, where she will receive a stipend and be able to freely attend courses and seminars at the school. She plans to study citizen journalism in areas like Juárez and examine ways to improve drug trafficking coverage in Mexico.
The other fellowship recipient from Latin America is Jorge Imbaquingo, the managing editor for Ecuador’s Diario Hoy newspaper, who plans to work on a platform for digitizing and publicizing corruption records in his country.
The fellowships are funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Lyle and Corrine Nelson International Journalism Fund, and Yahoo! Inc.
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» Knight Center (Blog gives Spanish journalist freedom to report from 'world’s most violent city')
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.
