Journalists from Mexico and Cuba took home Ortega y Gasset journalism awards from Spanish newspaper El País announced on April 6. The 2017 edition was the 34th year of the award. The ceremony will be on May 11 in Madrid, and will crown the best reports in the Spanish language produced last year.
Mexican journalist and author Alma Guillermoprieto was the winner in the Professional Trajectory category. The journalist started in Latin America and is known for her reporting on the Central American wars. She has worked in the editorial offices of The Guardian and The Washington Post. Guillermoprieto also headed Newsweek’s Latin America office and collaborated on publications such as the New Yorker and The New York Times Review of Books. She is the author of “Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution” and ”The Heart that Bleeds: Latin America Now.”
The jury highlighted how the journalist “knew how to convey the complexities of the Latin American reality in general and of her country in particular,” the website said.
Ronny Rojas and Maye Primera, of Univisión Noticias in the U.S., were awarded in the multimedia coverage category for the special “Vacations in No Man’s Sea” (Vacaciones en Aguas de Nadie, in Spanish). According to El País, the work is an investigation into the multimillion-dollar cruise industry, which is one of the least regulated in the country.
Jurors praised both the originality of the theme and the breadth of coverage, “that spans multiple narratives with video, interactive infographics and text,” according to the site.
Mexican site Animal Político received an honorable mention in the category for the special “10 Years of fighting against the Narco” (Diez años de lucha contra el Narco, in Spanish).
Cuban photojournalist Yander Zamora won Best Photography for the image of Air Force One flying over Havana during former U.S. President Barack Obama’s trip to the Cuban capital. The photo was published by Reuters in March 2016).
According to the jury, the image is “pure photojournalism, capable of capturing the moment,” The photograph already won the King of Spain award in January of this year.
The prize for Best History or Investigative Journalism went to Guillem Sánchez, Jesús G. Albalat and María Jesús Ibáñez, from newspaper El Periódico de Catalunya. The journalists produced a series of reports that denounced more than 40 cases of pedophilia in Barcelona schools.
The jury pointed out that the coverage fulfilled one of the most important principles of journalism: that of serving society. “The tenacity and monitoring of the newsroom has made sure that victims of abuse who spent decades in silence tell their stories and connect to each other,” the site said.
Spanish journalists Carles Porta and José Ángel Esteban received special mentions in the category for the series of podcasts “They called him Father” (Le Llamaban Padre, in Spanish). The series featured in the podcast also covered pedophilia.
All the winners were awarded 15,000 euros and a work by the Basque artist Eduardo Chillida. The awards were created in 1984 with the aim of "highlighting the defense of freedoms, independence and rigor as essential virtues of journalism and recognize the works highlighted for their quality," according to the website.
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.
