EL PAÍS wins journalism prize for its coverage of Latin American news

EL PAÍS has been awarded the Most Outstanding Media Organization in Ibero-America prize at the 35th annual King of Spain International Journalism Awards.

The ceremony, which is organized by the Spanish news agency EFE and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECID), was attended by Spain’s King Felipe VI.

Prize winners receive €6,000 and a bronze trophy from Spanish sculptor Joaquín Vaquero Turcios

This year, a jury reviewed the efforts of 279 candidates from 19 countries, awarding prizes to journalists from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Cuba, Portugal, Venezuela and Spain.

This was the first year the Ibero-America category was included in the awards. The prize was given to EL PAÍS in recognition of its coverage of Latin American current affairs.

Other winners included Spanish writer and journalist Fernando Aramburu, who won the Don Quixote Prize for Journalism for his essay on the power of language, and which was published in Spanish daily El Mundo.

Argentine Juan Roberto Mascadi Vigani received the Iber-American Prize for Journalism for his article “Farré, el jugador que se había olvidado de hacer goles,” (Farré, the player who had forgotten to score goals), about Argentine soccer player Guillermo Farré, and published in La Voz Interior.

Spaniard Alicia Hernández Sánchez took home the Press Prize for her report in The New York Times on illegal petrol smuggling in Venezuela, and Brazilian Patricia Toledo de Campos won for her work “Un mundo de muros” (A world of walls) in the digital journalism category.

Spaniard Alicia Hernández Sánchez took home the Press Prize for her report in ‘The New York Times’ on illegal petrol smuggling in Venezuela

The Photography Prize went to Colombian photographer Santiago Saldarriaga Quintero for his image “El reto de volver a levantarse,” (The challenge of getting up again), which captured the devastation left by last year’s floods in Colombia.

Costa Rican Alexánder Rivera González won the Television Award for his reports on the effects of Hurricane Matthew and the Radio Prize went to Portugal’s Rute Isabel da Silva Fonseca for a program on a family dedicated to making violins.

The Ibero-American Prize for Environmental Journalism was awarded to Cuban Julio Batista Rodríguez for his report on the contamination caused by the runoff from a rum distillery.

The award for the Don Quixote Prize is €9,000, while the rest of the prize winners – apart from the recipient of the Environmental Journalism Prize – are given €6,000 and a bronze trophy from Spanish sculptor Joaquín Vaquero Turcios.

English version by Melissa Kitson.