By Joseph Vavrus
Robert Cox, the London-born journalist who covered Argentina’s Dirty War when other newspapers wouldn’t, has been made an “Illustrious Citizen of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires,” The Guardian reports. He received the award when visiting the city for the release of the Spanish-language edition of his son’s memoir on the experience.
Cox edited the Buenos Aires Herald, an English-language paper that covered deaths and disappearances of political and ideological opponents of the government during the Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983). At a time when other newspapers were cowed into reporting the official story, Cox would aggressively cover the violence, preventing many clandestine executions and contributing to international condemnation of the government, Time explains. The journalist was arrested and eventually fled the country fearing for his family at the end of 1979.
The English-language edition of the book on the family's exile and their lives during the period: "Dirty Secrets, Dirty War: The Exile of Robert J. Cox (Buenos Aires, Argentina: 1976-1983)," by David Cox, his son, was released in December 2008.
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.
