05 September 2018

IAPA praises work of Nicaraguan press on announcing 2018 excellence in journalism awards

Aa
Awards in another 13 categories to be presented during IAPA's 74th General Assembly in Salta, Argentina
$.-

MIAMI, Florida (September 5, 2018)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today announced the presentation of the 2018 Press Freedom Grand Prize to the independent press of Nicaragua for "its professionalism and courage in the face of indiscriminate violence of the Daniel Ortega regime" and at the same time announced the list of winning works in another 13 categories of Excellence in Journalism, one of the press's most prestigious contests in the Western Hemisphere.

The adjudication panel this year awarded the work of media and journalists of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, United States and Venezuela. A large part of the awards were won by native digital media.

Marcel Granier, RCTV, Venezuela, chairman of the IAPA's Awards Committee, declared, "It has been a year of news events of relevance and that is reflected in the subjects of the works that won the awards. In its daily work the hemisphere's press displays an extraordinary quality, which the IAPA contest can highlight in barely one part."

The awards consisting of $2,000 in cash and diplomas will be presented in a special ceremony during the IAPA's General Assembly to be held October 19-22 in Salta, Argentina.

The following are the categories and names of contestants that obtained awards and honorable mentions:

Press Freedom Grand Prize

Award: To the independent press of Nicaragua.

Since April this year the Nicaraguan press has bravely faced pressures, intimidation and harassment, without losing heart and its rigorous denunciation of the violation of human rights and the indiscriminate violence of the Daniel Ortega regime.

1. Cartoon (Award sponsored by El Tiempo, Bogotá, Colombia)

Award: "Trump Tweeting", by Pedro Javier Molina Blandón, Confidencial, Nicaragua.

For combining in this journalistic piece art and humor, on showing Trump tweeting with a Pinocchio long nose on his mobile phone. The editorial cartoons, as well as the editorial words, have an educational purpose, to make readers think about the current political affairs.

Honorable mention: "Ara San Juan", by Pablo Fernando Chumbita, La Voz del Interior, Córdoba, Argentina

2. News coverage on the Internet (Award sponsored by TV Venezuela, Miami, Florida)

Award: "Repression in Venezuela", group work, NTN24 SAS, Colombia

For its good use of the Internet medium on having achieved, through its Website, recording with precision details of four continuous months of student protests and repression in Venezuela in 2017. Despite the censorship imposed on this media outlet – blocked from the Venezuelan public – the NTN24 kept its audience informed with detailed summary-videos of what happened each day.

Honorable mention: "Social protests", group work, La Crónica de Baja California, Mexico

3. News Coverage (Award sponsored by O Estado de S. Paulo, Brazil)

Award: "Protests in Venezuela", group work, El Estímulo, Venezuela

For its extraordinary coverage of the 100 days of protests held in Venezuela in 2017. It uncovered the repression by the regime and exposed its consequences both at a collective level and at an individual level, with particular stories that show the drama of those who survived the attacks by armed and semi-official forces.

Honorable mention: "Coverage of the Mexico City earthquake", group work, Pie de Página, Mexico

4. Alejandro Miró Quesada Garland News Coverage on Mobile (Award sponsored by El Comercio, Lima, Peru)

Award: "Pope Francis in Colombia", group work, El Tiempo, Colombia

For the diversity of its contents, its design and execution. The audience had live access from its mobile phone to the events in all the formats (text, photo, videos, graphics), all in the same place in a complete form. The report includes: account, interview, capsules and condensed contents.

Honorable mention: "Protests in Venezuela", group work, Te lo Cuento News, United States

5. Features (Award sponsored by El Comercio, Quito, Ecuador, and McClatchy Newspapers, Sacramento, California)

Award: "The Baybsitters of Barrio 18", by Bryan Alexander Avelar Rodríguez, Revista Factum, El Salvador

For the excellence in the genre of journalistic features. This reveals – with full command of the genre – a new form of slavery of women; the having to raise by extortion the children of the Salvadoran gangsters, while they are in prison.

1st Honorable mention: "In the San Judas Tadeo neighborhood ... When living is a miracle", by Jesús Peña Sánchez, Semanario, Mexico

2nd Honorable mention: "Seduced into slavery: How a Mexican family became sex traffickers", by Anastasia Moloney, Thomson Reuters Foundation, United States

6. Human Rights and Community Service (Award sponsored by Panamá-América, Panama City, Panama; El Comercio, Lima, Peru; Organización Publicitaria, S.A., San Pedro Sula, Honduras; La Nación, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Award: "Malvinas Cemetery", group work, Clarín.com, Argentina

For its impeccable display of interactive and multimedia platforms at the service of human rights which, moreover, highlights the restoration of the right to identity as key to history. At 36 years from the war this work describes in an explicit and detailed manner how was that process of identification.

1st Honorable mention: "Monitor of the violence", work group, GI, Violence Studies Nucleus USP, Brazilian Public Safety Forum, Brazil

2nd Honorable mention: "Orphans of health", work group, Ipys Venezuela / El Pitazo, Venezuela

7. Photography (Award sponsored by ABC Color, Asunción, Paraguay, and La Prensa Gráfica, San Salvador, El Salvador)

Award: "Battle and hope: Tuberculosis in Lima", Omar Lucas, El País, Spain

For its impactful series of photographs that narrate the ravages of tuberculosis in Lima, Peru, it is the second country in Latin America with most cases of this infectious illness, after Brazil, despite the fact that its population is six times smaller.

1st Honorable mention: "Hurricane María", by Carlos Rivera Giusti, El Vocero de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico

2nd Honorable mention: "2017 protests in Venezuela", Ronaldo Schemidt, Agence France Presse, Mexico

8. Infographics (Award sponsored by Clarín, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Award: "Mystery at sea: The case of the submarine ARA San Juan", group work, Clarín.com, Argentina

For demonstrating that the form is the crux of the matter when the intent is to inform with technical support; taking advantage of the language that is appropriate to it, it includes documentary data, with great esthetic value and social impact. It shows on a real scale the size of the submarine ARA San Juan, which disappeared late last year, the dangers that it faced and its crewmembers.

1st Honorable mention: "52 years on a war footing", group work, eltiempo.com, Colombia

2nd Honorable mention: "To be reborn in Mother Earth, the Temazacal mystery", by Manuel Alejandro Oyervides Ayala, El Sol de México, Mexico

9. Opinion (Award sponsored by El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile)

Award: "The Caparrás tango and the Lenin mummy", by Edgardo Ramón Moreno, La Voz del Interior, Argentina

For its lucid and respectful criticism of a well-known Argentine journalist and novelist, pointing out that in one of his articles he describes the reason for the Argentine failure, pointing out those guilty, without mention of the ideas that motivated them, promoting the debate over the disqualification or mea culpa of the political personages.

1st Honorable mention: "52 years on a war footing", group work, eltiempo.com, Colombia

2nd Honorable mention: "Tremor: Black history of the black market", by Lianet Fleites Claro, Diario de Cuba, Spain

10. Data journalism (Award sponsored by El Diario de Hoy, San Salvador, El Salvador)

Award: "Cost overrun", group work, Convoca, Peru

For the depth and extension in the extensive investigation into the Odebrecht case in various countries with presentation and graphic images, infographics and photos, the advance in legal proceedings, with the use of understandable and friendly language.

1st Honorable mention: "Slave land", group work, eldiario.es, Spain, in alliance with El Faro, El Salvador

2nd Honorable mention: "40 mayors' offices under scrutiny", by Ana Carolina Alpírez, Ojoconmipisto.com, Guatemala

11. In-Depth Journalism (Award sponsored by La República, Lima, Peru)

Award: "The Odebrecht case: Corruption and Overspending in Venezuela", group work, digital magazine Climax, Venezuela

For its important arguments to illustrate with clarity different aspects of the Odebrecht scandal in Venezuelan territory, which differentiate them from what has happened in other countries; its use of irrefutable examples of the delay in and abandonment of works undertaken by the Brazilian construction company that served electoral interests.

Honorable mention: "Narcomapa", group work, Ojo-Publico.com, Peru

12. Roberto Eisenmann Jr. Environmental Journalism (Award sponsored by La Prensa, Panama)

Award: "Narcotala", group work, El Universal, Mexico

For its testimony with a profusion of images and descriptions of how organized crime has reached the forests in Chihuahua state, to cut down century-old trees up to 60 feet tall and resell the wood to launder money, leaving members of the indigenous communities without their lands, murdered, kidnapped and threatened.

Honorable mention: "Series: Livestock farming without limits: The slow disappearance of forests in Central America", by Michelle Carrere, Wilder Pérez, José Arcia, Sebastián, Christopher Mendondza, Mongabay Latam, Peru

13. Pedro Joaquín Chamorro University Journalism (Award sponsored by La Prensa, Managua, Nicaragua)

Award: "Grooming", group work, Punto Converegente, Argentina

For the documentary of the Journalistic Communication degree course of the Argentina Catholic University with the objective of creating awareness of this kind of sexual harassment, through which an adult creates an emotional connection with minors on the Internet to abuse them.

Honorable mention: "The Favorite, sector of war among crooks", by Tatiana Salamanca, Datéate al minuto, Colombia

IAPA AWARDS COMMITTEE

Chairman: Marcel Granier, RCTV, Caracas, Venezuela

Members: Manuel Aguilera, Hispano Post, Miami, Florida; Isabel Amorin, Editora Abril, São Paulo, Brazil; Marco Araúz Grupo, El Comercio, Quito, Ecuador; Marcelo Baldovino, Saeta canal 10, Montevideo, Uruguay; Claudia Benavente, La Razón, La Paz, Bolivia; Alejandra Brambila, Reuters, Mexico City, Mexico; Armando Castilla, Vanguardia, Saltillo, Mexico; Idania Chirinos, NTN24, Bogotá, Colombia; Leonor de Etchevehere, El Diario, Paraná, Argentina; Virginia Fetter, Diario Popular, Pelotas, Brazil; Norberto Frigerio,Publirevistas, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Katherine Haine Citymedia.press, London, Canada; Carlos Jornet, La Voz del Interior, Córdoba, Argentina; Claudia Martínez, Bloomberg, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Osmín Martínez, Diario Las Américas, Miami, Florida; Silvia Miró Quesada, El Comercio, Lima, Peru; Oswaldo Quintana, RCTV, Caracas, Venezuela; Alexandra Villoch, The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida; Gabriela Vivanco, La Hora, Quito, Ecuador.

Share

0