The jury of the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards, meeting this Wednesday at the EL PAÍS headquarters in Madrid, has announced the winners of the 41st edition of the awards, the most prestigious in journalism in Spanish.
The Ortega y Gasset award in the category of best journalistic story or investigation has gone to Moskitia: the Honduran jungle is drowning in cocaineby Bryan Avelar and Juan José Martínez and published in InSightCrime. The three-chapter report tells how the indigenous population of Moskitia, on the border between Honduras and Nicaragua, faces poverty caused by land theft by drug traffickers. The jury highlighted “the completeness of a report that covers cross-cutting themes of our time, such as drug trafficking, the environment or the threat that looms over ancestral cultures.” He added that “it exhaustively describes day-to-day life in a region ravaged by drugs and forgotten by institutions.”
In the category of best multimedia coverage, the award went to City without water, a town against the concrete giantby Jennifer González Posadas and Alejandro Melgoza Rocha and published in N+Focus. The multimedia special describes the struggle of the people of San Sebastián Xoco, who live south of Mexico City, against a large real estate group. In a few years they have been surrounded by office towers and shopping centers that have cornered the population and have appropriated the natural resources of the environment. The jury highlighted that this journalistic work “uses and combines different narrative resources with effectiveness and originality to tell a story that, from a specific case of a small community, offers a complete vision that goes far beyond the management of access to a basic good like water. It also speaks of the unequal struggle between that small community of neighbors and a large business conglomerate and of the courage of those who stand up against a giant to claim an essential means.”
In this category, the jury wanted to give a special mention to The life of Jebreel: diary of an uncomfortable witness to the war in Gaza, of Spanish Radio Television (RTVE). The jury highlighted “the brilliant combination of different narrative tools—especially the integration of video—to tell this story starring local reporter Jebreel Abu Kmail.” He has also highlighted that it is a report that “serves as a tribute to all the journalists who are reporting from the field while risking their lives and that of their families. And, especially, to the more than 100 journalists who have lost their lives so far in this conflict.”
The Ortega y Gasset award for best photography goes to photographer Mohammed Salem for an image in which a woman, Inas Abu Maamar, embraces the lifeless body of her five-year-old niece Saly, wrapped in a shroud, in the hospital. of Nasser of Gaza. The photo was taken on October 17, distributed by Reuters and published in numerous media around the world. The jury noted that it is “an overwhelming image with enormous force about what is happening in Gaza. It is the pain, it is the emptiness and it is the horror of someone who seems to embrace the impossible: recovering the girl's life. And it is not only what she tells, but how she tells it: from sobriety and without even showing a face.
The Ortega y Gasset award for professional career, unanimously, goes to Cristina García Rodero (74 years old, Puertollano, Ciudad Real). The photojournalist, who has dedicated her career to investigating and photographing the popular celebrations and religious and pagan traditions of Spain, is a precursor of her: she was the first Spanish photographer for the Magnum Agency. The jury has highlighted “the valuable work of a pioneer and reference in documentary photography, who continues to be a teacher of photographers today. Cristina García Rodero tells what remains: traditions, folklore or customs in different places around the world. She has portrayed corners where no one had gone decades before the concept of emptied Spain appeared. With more than 50 years of experience, her figure is a vindication of the journalistic genealogy of women.”
This year's jury was made up of Óscar García Maceiras, CEO of Inditex; Mireia Belmonte, Olympic swimming medalist; Daniel Innerarity, philosopher; Najat el Hachmi, writer; Pepa Bueno, director of EL PAÍS; Soledad Alcaide, reader advocate for EL PAÍS; Yolanda Clemente, journalist and member of the newspaper's Editorial Committee, and Pedro Zuazua, member of the PRISA Media Communication team, who served as secretary of the non-voting jury.
![Photo of the Ortega y Gasset Awards jury after the deliberation. From left to right, Mireia Belmonte, Najat el Hachmi, Pepa Bueno, Yolanda Clemente, Daniel Innerarity, Pedro Zuazua and Soledad Alcaide.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/1MooI0YYtFhTtgskLcQPQkZNQno=/414x0/filters:focal(1339x153:1349x163)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/OKW6WUVW5ZAOFFGQBLV4TJ2AZ4.jpg)
For the first time in its 41-year history, the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards will be presented in Barcelona, with the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Council being the place that will host the awards ceremony on April 23. Subsequently, a cocktail will be offered to celebrate the festival of Sant Jordi, patron saint of Catalonia, which also coincides with International Book Day, with the attendance of representatives from the world of culture, politics, economics and journalism. Furthermore, during the days prior to the awards ceremony, EL PAÍS will organize several meetings and activities with the winners, open to Barcelona civil society.
Created in 1984 in memory of the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, the awards highlight the defense of freedoms, independence, rigor and honesty as essential virtues of journalism. Each category has a prize of 15,000 euros and the winners also receive a work by Eduardo Chillida.
#Cristina #García #Rodero #39InSight #Crime39 #39NFocus39 #Mohammed #Salem #Ortega #Gasset #Journalism #Awards