“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).
The Cabot Prizes recognize careers that contribute to inter-American understanding. (Photo by Chris Taggart)
Brazilian photojournalist Lalo de Almeida has worked for the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo for 30 years. He has received several awards for his coverage of socio-environmental issues in the Amazon, the climate crisis and migration in several countries.
“His images show us not only a world that is worth saving, but also reflect the empathy and profound respect with which he treats the stories and the people he turns his gaze upon,” said the Cabot Board, which awarded him the Gold Medal for “remarkable talent, tenacity, journalistic integrity and courage to keep documenting the destructive forces threatening our environment.”
Almeida was the first Cabot Prize winner to receive his medal and address the audience during the ceremony.
“I take this opportunity to honor my colleagues who live and work as journalists in the Amazon. I hope this award serves as an encouragement for them as well,” Almeida said.
He said the work of photojournalists has become increasingly solitary, with fewer and fewer conversations and feedback from editors and colleagues, also due to shrinking newsrooms.
“After 30 years of dedication, I realized that at times my photographs have managed to communicate with people, causing them to reflect on our relationship with the planet,” he said. “And even if the audience was small, since most of my work is published in a Brazilian newspaper, I believe it is worth it. I would do it all over again. In a way, this award confirms that. And for a photographer who feels insecure about his own work, this recognition is a great motivation to keep photographing.”
Salvadoran journalist Carlos Ernesto Martínez, investigative reporter for El Faro, has 24 years of experience covering migration, torture, human rights violations, organized crime and prison systems in Central America.
The Cabot Board described him as “one of the leading reporters in the Western Hemisphere” and said that he “has brought field experience, courage, and a strong narrative voice to his reporting.” He received the Gold Medal ”in recognition of his firm commitment to the best journalism,” the Board said.
During the ceremony, Martínez talked about his career and the path his country has taken in recent decades, highlighting the promise of democracy in El Salvador with the end of the civil war, and the recent rise of authoritarianism with the arrival of current President Nayib Bukele.
“I became a journalist thanks to the arrival of democracy and my generation emerged very soon after to debut the new freedoms achieved thanks to the sacrifice and blood of so many,” Martínez said. “Three decades after the end of the civil war, we lost our democracy again. My country is governed by a single man who carries his main weapon at the ready: the story of a country that does not exist.”
From the naivety of the young man who believed that journalism could change the world for the better, there was the resignation of the experienced journalist who believes that “lies reign like never before.”
“Billionaire leaders have convinced the world, through their fiefdoms on the Internet, that freedom consists of the right to lie, the right to deceive people into making decisions that harm them. And we journalists preach to the sea findings and discoveries that wreck like paper boats in the midst of the waves of rage and misinformation.”
It is from the awareness of these truths that journalists can move forward, based on the understanding that the journalist's job does not consist of changing the world, but of dreaming of doing so and pursuing that dream, Martínez said.
American journalist John Otis arrived in Panama in 1989 and from there “would go on to dedicate his life to explaining Latin America to his fellow Americans,” the Cabot Board said.
Otis has lived in Bogotá, Colombia, since 1997, and has worked for media outlets including United Press International, the Houston Chronicle and TIME. Over the last decade, he has worked as a correspondent for NPR and as a special contributor to The Wall Street Journal and Americas Quarterly magazine. He has also worked as a consultant for CPJ for 13 years.
The Cabot Board awarded him the Gold Medal for “his outstanding contribution to Inter-American understanding through his excellent journalistic work.”
Otis said he likes that the Cabot Prize is not just about “gringo foreign correspondents.”
“The Cabots shine a very bright light on Latin American journalists. And the truth is we absolutely depend on them to do our work. Sure, the international press comes up with a lot of great stories, scoops and investigations, but there's also a good share of our work that's inspired by reporting first done by our Latin American colleagues,” Otis said.
He said he feels indebted to the community of Latin American journalists and, also for this reason, has worked with CPJ in the region. “Unfortunately, it’s turned out to be a lot more work than I ever bargained for,” he said.
“I would like to say to all of the courageous and unsung journalists, editors, reporters and fixers across Latin America, who may never win any awards, but have helped me and my fellow foreign correspondents along our paths: muchísimas gracias,” he said.
Journalist Frances Robles is a reporter for The New York Times and for more than a quarter of a century “has been an authoritative voice in the Americas, telling us unique, historically significant and insightful stories,” the Cabot Board said. She has covered natural disasters, guerrillas, corruption, migration, democracy and inequality in Latin America, among other topics.
“Of special note, Robles has focused her light on an issue that the Board believes to be among the region’s most pressing today: the growth of political authoritarianism that threatens democracy everywhere,” said the Board, which awarded the Gold Medal for “her moving and laser-focused illumination of the region’s crises and occasional triumphs.”
Robles said that when Marty Baron, her then-editor at the Miami Herald, asked her to move to Managua and become bureau chief, she had to look at the map to find the location of the Nicaraguan capital. Since then, she has visited Bogotá, Port-au-Prince, San Pedro Sula, Caracas and Havana several times, she said.
“My appreciation for the need to bear witness for the freedom to speak up and the right to report the truth on behalf of the disenfranchised grew exponentially. In Nicarágua, I have observed firsthand what happens when those freedoms are lost,” Robles said. “My fellow award winners would agree: this isn't just a beat, this isn't a hobby, it's not a passion. It's a duty and a responsibility.”
Journalists Steven Dudley and Jeremy McDermott, co-founders of InSight Crime, received a special citation for the organization founded in 2010 that specializes in investigations into organized crime in Latin America.
“The organization’s reporting reveals how organized crime and resulting violence have become driving forces in mass migration and environmental degradation, including illegal mining and logging contributing to climate change,” the Cabot Board said.
Dudley highlighted that the Cabot Prize citation is “a team award” and mentioned some of the 40 colleagues who are part of the organization.”
“We created this organization because we saw a need. We felt there was a gap in our understanding of what organized crime was and what it would be. It was and is evolving, arguably more prevalent and pervasive now than when we began,” Dudley said.
McDermott also celebrated his colleagues and highlighted the importance of sources in the work they do at InSight Crime.
“These sources tend to have endured extraordinary suffering and show heroic courage in speaking to us. A journalist is only ever as good as their sources. We believe it is our duty and indeed our privilege to walk the ground and build the stories from the ground, using their voices as primary sources,” McDermott said.
Journalist Laura Zommer “revolutionized journalism, first in Argentina and then throughout Latin America,” the Cabot Board said.
Zommer was director of Chequeado, an Argentine pioneer of fact-checking in Latin America; launched the LatamChequea network, which brings together Latin American fact-checking organizations; and co-founded Factchequeado, a fact-checking initiative aimed at Spanish-speaking audiences in the USA.
The Cabot Board awarded her a special citation “recognizing her as a visionary and a beacon of integrity and innovation in modern journalism in the Americas.”
Zommer said the citation was not just a recognition of her and the Factchequeado team, but of all people committed to developing better solutions to deal with misinformation.
“Those who make money with lies, who discredit their adversaries with deception, who bet on polarization and violence, who profit from the design and opacity of social media algorithms, who use technologies without considering the ethical dilemmas that they entail, they force those of us who do journalism to be more rigorous, more creative, and more daring than ever,” she said.
