Amid controversy for the decision to award him a prize, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez received the Rodolfo Walsh Prize in the category “Latin American President for Popular Communication," which the Universidad de La Plata awards every year, La Razón reports. See stories in English by Reuters, CNN, the Associated Press, and other sources.
Latin America is missing profitable opportunities to conserve its forests because bureaucracy and excessive paperwork are tying up the process, an 11-country investigation by 18 reporters in the region concludes. The report on carbon emissions trading presents the first product of a new collective investigative reporting project led by Latin American journalists.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has appointed Brazilian journalist Elisabeth Costa as its new secretary general. Costa, whom the IFJ describes as a “veteran campaigner for union rights and press freedom in Latin America,” will be the first woman and non-European to hold the post.
El Diario de Juárez, a major newspaper in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez – one of the world’s most violent cities – won the 2011 award for journalistic excellence, organized by the Mexico branch of PEN International.
The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) has announced the winners of its 2011 awards for best U.S. journalism. The awards will be presented at the annual ASNE convention, April 6-9 in San Diego, Calif.
In its 28 edition, the King of Spain International Journalism Prizes has recognized the work of Argentine Diana Fernández Irusta; Colombians José Enrique Guarnizo, Waldir Ochoa Guzmán and Víctor Hugo Deossa; and Mexican Daniel Aguilar Rodríguez, reported the news agency EFE. The awards are among the most prestigious given to Ibero-American journalists.
Cuban journalist Yoani Sánchez, author of the Generation Y blog, won the “iNetworks” (iRedes) prize for the “courage and impact” of her work, ABC and El Mundo report.
The photojournalist network Nuestra Mirada and Pictures of the Year International (POYi) have partnered to add a Latin American edition to the oldest photojournalism contest in the world.
The 2010 Jaime Brunet International Prize for Promotion of Human Rights has been awarded to the author of the blog Generation Y, Cuban journalist Yoani Sanchez, in recognition of her "valiant attitude" in defense of human rights on the island, reported EFE.
Luis Horacio Nájera, who won asylum in Canada two years ago, was honored last week in Toronto by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, for his reporting in the violent border city Ciudad Juárez. His Mexican colleague Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and three journalists from Cameroon were also awarded prizes, The Toronto Star reports.
Columnist and satirist Laureano Márquez won the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) for his independent commentary while under constant harassment from the government of President Hugo Chávez.
Britain's Rory Peck Trust presented its Martin Adler Prize to freelance news cameraman Arturo Pérez for his distinguished journalistic work in Ciudad Juárez, the epicenter of the violence linked to organized crime in Mexico.