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Journalists from six Latin American countries recognized with King of Spain International Journalism Awards

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  • February 1, 2018

By Evelyn Moreno

Journalists from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Spain and Portugal, were recipients of the 2018 King of Spain International Journalism Awards.

The awards have been granted annually since 1983, when they were created by Agencia EFE and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID for its acronym in Spanish). Now in its 35th year, the awards have incorporated new categories such as the Most Distinguished Media of the year in Ibero-America.

The winners were selected from 274 works from 19 Latin American countries. The awards aim to distinguish journalism work in Spanish and Portuguese that inform the public on current issues, the environment, disasters, historical reports and more. The winners this year were:

  • Spanish newspaper, El País, which received the new award for the Most Distinguished Media for extending their reach to other Latin American countries.
  • Argentine journalist Juan Roberto Mascardi Vigani won the Ibero-American Award for Journalism for “Farré, ‘el jugador que se había olvidado de hacer goles’” (Farré, “the player who had forgotten to make goals”), which EFE said “goes beyond the sports chronicle.”
  • Spanish journalist Alicia Hernández Sánchez, who lives in Venezuela, received the prize in the press category for an article published in The New York Times regarding the illegal trafficking of gasoline in Venezuela.
  • Costa Rican, Alexánder Rivera González, won the prize in the television category for her report about the effects of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti which aired on Televisora de Costa Rica- Teletica Canal 7.
  • Portuguese journalist, Rute Isabel da Silva Fonseca, won in the radio category for her 37-minute-long podcast on TSF Rádio Noticias about a family who has been making violins for three generations.
  • Colombian, Santiago Saldarriaga Quintero, won in the photography category for an image published in El Tiempo titled “El reto de volver levantarse” (The challenge of getting up again), which illustrated the effects of the landslide and flooding in Mocoa, Colombia.
  • Cuban, Julio Batista Rodríguez, won the prize for environmental journalism and sustainable development for his report, “Las aguas muertes del Havana Club” (The dead waters of the Havana Club). His report, published in Periodismo de Barrio, brings attention to the spills which have left no fish in the Chipriona inlet.
  • Brazilian, Patrícia Toledo de Campos and a team of 20 people, won the digital journalism award for their work, “Un mundo de muros” (A world of walls), published in Folha de S. Paulo. The work was a denunciation of the physical barriers separating people.
  • Spanish writer and columnist, Fernando Aramburu, was awarded the Don Quijote Journalism Award for his article “Estamos hechos de palabras” (We are made of words), which was published in El Mundo.

The awards, given on Feb. 1, consist of a bronze trophy and 6,000 euros (about US $7,500). King of Spain, Don Felipe VI, will present the journalists with the awards during a ceremony in Madrid.

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.

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