Daniel Coronell, president of Univision News, receives the IAPA Grand Prize for Freedom of the Press

During the award ceremony, the Colombian journalist was accompanied by members of his family, including his wife and daughter.

“In this era of social media—and populism on the left and right—we live under the impression that many people do not want information but doctrine. That many citizens are eager to hear only the echo of their own prejudices and reject any position that questions them,” Coronell said as he thanked the former IAPA president, Roberto Rock, director of La Silla Rota in Mexico, for the award.

Below is the full text of Daniel Coronell's acceptance speech delivered today in Punta Cana:

Speech by Daniel Coronell at the 2025 Grand Prize for Press Freedom, awarded by the Inter American Press Association

October 18, 2025

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this award, which is as honorable as it is undeserved. I reviewed some of the speeches by the distinguished colleagues who received this immense distinction in recent years and noticed that some dedicated this unforgettable moment to their families, to their coworkers, to those who mentored them in the profession, or to their media outlets.

However, I, who by nature tend to be contrary, want to fervently dedicate this 2025 Grand Prize for Press Freedom... to a bullet.

Yes, to the bullet I escaped a few years ago and that remained

waiting for me thanks to a person who is among us today.

To tell you this story, I must begin by saying that in my 40-year career in Colombia, being a journalist and being threatened have been almost synonymous. Threats are something you receive practically at the same time with your notebook and pen.

That's why many of the reporters of my generation have become accustomed to living with threats to the point of normalizing them.

In recent decades we have seen 169 journalists murdered in Colombia, according to the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FLIP). Many were brought down exercising their trade from the most illustrious Guillermo Cano, an exemplary figure and editor of El Espectador, the oldest newspaper in my country to unknown reporters in faraway regions. There are still more threats than attacks, and we always end up thinking that intimidation won't happen.

This irrational trust in the criminals' lack of promise has placed some of my colleagues in their hands, but it has also allowed many to continue living—or, if you prefer, eking out a living—while they continue to practice journalism. After a while, things calm down until they return in a cycle of long periods of fears and short periods of calm.

Thus, I often calmed my fear and grew accustomed to a life filled with armored cars, bulletproof vests, and bodyguards.

Despite all this, in 2005, a campaign of threats shattered the tranquility of my entire family, took away our sleep (our dreams), our will to live; and even our love for journalism, which my wife and I thought was impervious to anything.

María Cristina and I were prepared to face threats ourselves, but not against our daughter Raquel, our only child at the time, who was only six years old.

For four months, we received phone calls in which, amid the vilest insults, we were told they would return our little girl to us in pieces. We also received defamatory and intimidating emails, obituaries, and funeral wreaths.

Although we reported these events to the authorities, the truth is that no one did anything to investigate what was happening.

The support that the Colombian government denied us was provided by our colleagues. Six journalists from Noticias Uno, the media outlet where we worked, helped me follow the leads. Many of them led nowhere.

We learned, for example, that the wreaths had come from a flower shop near the now-defunct Department of Security Administration, DAS. There, they told us that someone had ordered them from another city and paid for them in cash. That's as far as we got.

But one lead finally led us to a specific person: a former congressman and an ex-convict. He had been in a US prison for drug trafficking. Despite this background—or perhaps because of it—he maintained a close friendship with the then-president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, and his family.

Citing this evidence, I wrote a column called "Discovering the Executioner," which was published two days later and replicated in several media outlets.

A dear colleague and friend, host of the most-listened-to radio news program in the country, called me from Spain, and asked me to come to the headquarters of the network he ran. He told me that a colleague had very serious information.

This person told me that, after reporting the news on the radio, someone called their affiliate radio station in Miami and claimed to know the details of a plot to kill me. The man said he would go to the station and tell everything he knew, as long as his identity was protected.

The man described, step by step, the daily routines of my wife, my daughter, and I. He described the make, models, and colors of the vehicles we used, the roads we traveled on, and finally, he said that my murder was scheduled for that Thursday.

It was going to happen at the entrance to work, at the only possible door, in a swift action that would occur exactly as exited my car. A man, whom he identified by an alias, would shoot me, quickly cross a fence that separated him from the street, and flee with his accomplice on a motorcycle down El Dorado Avenue.

That bullet is the one I want to remember today.

I can't describe the thoughts that raced through my head. My knees were shaking; I could hear my heartbeat. I simultaneously felt an urge to leave and panic about going outside.

On one hand, I felt relieved because I was the target of that bullet, it was not our daughter. I also knew I had to leave Colombia, at least for a few days, to ease the situation.

My friend Jaime Garzon did not have that opportunity. He was killed when going to his job at a radio station in Bogota. Neither did Guzman Quintero Torres, former Noticias Uno correspondent and a journalist of El Pilon de Valledupar who, after denouncing the assassination of women and children by the military, was shot down when he was on his way to a meeting with a source at a hotel. These cases are in the dozens.

That is why we prudently advanced a planned vacation to Buenos Aires, and there I received a call from a person who, on representing an institution, had saved our lives.

This was Carlos Lauría, currently executive director of the Inter-American Press Association, and at that time Director of the American Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), based in New York.

Thanks to CPJ and Carlos, I escaped a fate that seemed inevitable; that the bullet would find me. I was admitted to the Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. We spent an academic year there that– once we got over the initial trauma – was wonderful. Our youngest son Rafael was born in Palo Alto, and upon completing the program, with the help of our fellows, I became a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where we spent another year.

From exile, my wife and I continued to work as journalists for Colombia. Something that is difficult but possible, as Carlos Fernando Chamorro and his team at Confidencial in Nicaragua, or the journalists at El Faro in El Salvador, excellently demonstrate.

The persecution of press freedom comes from both the right and the left, and is sometimes expressed violently, sometimes through judicial harassment, sometimes through economic strangulation, and increasingly by identifying journalists as enemies of the people.

It is worrisome that the United States, which has always been for us Latin American journalists a beacon of respect for the press and tolerance of journalistic scrutiny, is beginning to follow paths so like those of our countries.

During President Donald Trump's administration, we have witnessed repeated attempts to subjugate the press and replace independent reporting with propaganda.

Anyway, when we returned to Colombia, the threats continued, but with less intensity. I led a journalistic investigation that proved that the government bought, through corruption, parliamentary votes to change the Constitution and make possible the reelection of President Álvaro Uribe.

This scandal, known as "Yidispolítica," led to the imprisonment of two ministers, two secretary generals of the Presidency, which we call the chiefs of staff, and three legislators.

Around the same time, thanks to the work of several colleagues, the illegal surveillance carried out by the government, through members of the Supreme Court of Justice, against opposition politicians and me.

Secret agents disguised as flower vendors watched the entrance to our neighborhood, trying to identify sources of information I used for my work. They followed us wherever we went and even installed a hidden listening unit in a laundry van parked in front of the building where we lived.

For years, they did everything they could to criminalize me. The Head of State even said in a press conference that I should be prosecuted. Since they couldn't find anything to convince a judge, they resorted to smear campaigns.

So, not only did I escape a bullet, but I was close to suffering the same fate as José Rubén Zamora, founder of El Periódico in Guatemala, whom a dubious prosecutor's office in that country has kept imprisoned for more than three years. By law, they should release him, but what they're charging him for is his tireless fight against corruption in Guatemala.

Let us sincerely hope that José Ruben Zamora can soon return to freedom and journalism.

At this moment, I'm also thinking of Gustavo Gorriti, founder of IDL-Reporteros in Peru. A few days ago, the mayor of Lima, Rafael López Aliaga, declared that this exemplary colleague should be killed, an open invitation to an attack against him. We must support this investigative journalist who has suffered countless persecutions. The press of this continent must stand by Gustavo Gorriti.

I also want to remember the journalists who work for the Hispanic community in the United States, especially my dear colleagues at Televisa-Univision. They welcomed me as one of them fifteen years ago, and I have spent two happy periods of my professional life in that newsroom.

It is important that we reiterate these principles at this time when our beautiful language has become, for some, a signal for suspicion. All Hispanics have rights, even if not all of them are legally documented.

It is crucial that our people know that the Constitution mandates but also protects them, and that journalism is there to inform them and help them make better decisions.

At the same time, it is important that all voices have a place in our media, even those that may contradict what we think.

It will always be easier to defend the freedom of expression of those with whom we agree. The challenge is to listen carefully and contextualize the points of view of those who think differently.

We are social servants, and we cannot, in the name of democracy, become censors of what we don't like.

Let’s take this moment to pay tribute to the more than 200 journalists murdered in Gaza. In addition to killing them, they wanted to leave the world without information about what is happening there. I will always defend the right to the existence of the State of Israel, which must coexist peacefully with a Palestinian state. Hamas terrorism must be universally condemned, and international justice must try and punish those Israelis responsible for war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza.

Dear colleagues:

In this age of social media—and populisms from both the left and the right—we live under the impression that many people don't want information but rather doctrine. Many citizens yearn to hear only the echo of their own prejudices and reject any position that questions them.

Journalism has a duty to reflect plurality. Until years ago, was an axiom of the profession that has become an unpopular position. We cannot work for applause, nor should we fear insults.

Journalism is not meant to join majority trends. Moreover, in exercising our sacred duty of skepticism, we must challenge them.

Finally, I would like to dedicate a few words to my family.

To María Cristina Uribe, my wife, my colleague, my confidant, my reason for living. May this special day be an opportunity to express my gratitude for all you do for our family and for your selflessness, for having fought illness and pain, for the generosity of leaving behind your successful career to give our children the chance to grow up in a more peaceful environment.

Raquel, the girl who suffered death threats because of her parents' work, the one we feared might be in the path of that bullet, grew up. Her life has been saved several times.

She became the first Hispanic person to preside over her university's newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, a position in which was preceded by, among others, two U.S. presidents. This year she began her journalism career at NBC.

Rafael, our youngest son, that sweet fruit of our exile, who couldn't join us today because he has academic duties, began his university studies a few weeks ago. We all hope that his intelligence and sensitivity will ensure him a successful and happy life.

To the three of them, to the Inter American Press Association, to you, dear friends, and to that bullet that fortunately didn't arrive, I thank you for sharing this extraordinary day together in Punta Cana.