Lalo de Almeida of Brazil, Carlos Ernesto Martínez, of Salvadoran investigative site El Faro, John Otis of NPR and the Committee to Protect Journalists in the U.S. and Frances Robles of The New York Times are this year’s recipients of the 2024 Maria Moors Cabot Prize Gold Medals. Special citations go to InSight Crime and Laura Zommer.
Across Bolivia, El Salvador and Peru, the spread of disinformation has disproportionately impacted marginalized communities amidst sociopolitical conflict in recent years. Local non-governmental organizations in these countries conducted information ecosystem research to understand its impacts.
In an almost untouched coastal jungle region in Honduras, packages of cocaine are thrown into the sea by ships that evade inspection. This real drama is reported in the series “Moskitia: The Honduran Jungle Drowning in Cocaine,” winner of the Ortega y Gasset award.
Directors of El Faro (El Salvador) and Confidencial (Nicaragua) pointed to risk assessment, complete trust between editors and reporters, legal defense and psychological support as fundamental elements to preserve the well-being and safety of their teams in the face of harassment, threats and criminalization.
With their campaigns against independent media, the governments of several Latin American countries are beginning to threaten press freedom. Can Nicolás Maduro and Daniel Ortega's extreme of media blockages and closures be replicated?
Journalists from El Salvador and press freedom organizations fear that, with the re-election of Nayib Bukele as president, harassment against journalists will worsen and reforms could be approved to criminalize their work.
The team at Revista Elementos released the first season of the podcast Misceláneo that tells about the journeys of four Salvadoran journalists and seeks to change the government narrative of criminalization towards their profession.
El Salvador's most acclaimed newspaper relocated its administrative and legal departments to Costa Rica, due to harassment and government surveillance. However, its journalists remain in the country. Co-founder Carlos Dada told LJR how the move allows them to continue doing their investigative work, while expressing concerns over authoritarianism and potential criminalization of journalists.
Attorneys for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University are hopeful that Pegasus manufacturer NSO Group will be held accountable in their lawsuit on behalf of Salvadoran journalists. Reporters from the news site El Faro believe the suit will set an important precedent for the protection of journalists across the globe.
Fifteen journalists from digital outlet El Faro of El Salvador have filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court against NSO Group, the Israeli company that makes the Pegasus spyware. “It is necessary to set a precedent so that the companies that promote this espionage market, as well as the customers that run this program, know that their actions have consequences,” said Julia Gavarrete, one of the journalists from El Faro who filed the lawsuit in U.S. courts.