By Ingrid Bachmann
Renowned journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro is among the winners of the 2010 Maria Moors Cabot Prize. The annual award recognizes excellence in coverage of Latin American and Carribean issues and is organized by the Journalism School at Columbia University.
According to the organizers, Chamorro’s “personal and professional life has been interwoven with every chapter of Nicaragua’s painful recent history.” Beyond this, they say his work as the director of the TV show “Esta Noche” and the weekly newsletter “Confidencial” is marked by its “truth and fairness" in the context of country's "highly-politicized atmosphere.”
The journalist’s father, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, received the same prize in 1977, six months before he was killed during the Somoza dictatorship, La Prensa explains. “I am obligated to accept it with humility, recognizing that this entails an even bigger commitment to doubly honoring his memory,” Chamorro said, quoted by El Nuevo Diario.
The other 2010 winners are freelance journalist Tyler Bridges; Norman Gall, founder and editor of the Braundel Papers; and Joaquim Ibarz, blogger and correspondent for Spain's La Vanguardia newspaper. The Cabot prize organizers also awarded special citations to the Haitian radio station Signal FM and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360º for their coverage of the January earthquake that struck Haiti.
See biographies of the winners here (PDF file).
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.
