EL PAÍS rewards a new generation of young journalists

A hundred young journalists attended the EL PAÍS newsroom on Tuesday for the awards ceremony of the 17th annual EL PAÍS student competition, a contest held in high schools across Spain.

The competition received entries from 14,200 students in 1,600 schools

First place went to the students of IES Padre Feijóo in Asturias for their newspaper The Arbeyal Daily. CPEIPS Luther King in the Canary Islands was awarded second place, while third was won by the IES Barrio de Loranca in Madrid. The prize for the best junior newspaper went to the Rosalía de Castro Institute in Santiago de Compostela for a second year in a row.

This year the EL PAÍS student competition, sponsored by power company Endesa, received entries from 14,200 students in 1,600 schools. Only 10 teams, from eight regions, made it past the judges.

The students have not only transformed into journalists, but also photographers, designers and illustrators. Each of the three schools given prizes for best newspaper received a check for study-related travel – €12,000 for first prize, €9,000 for second and €3,000 for third. They will also all receive €3,000 to buy IT materials. The rest of the winners received a sports camera.

EL PAÍS editor-in-chief Soledad Gallego-Díaz told the young contestants that it was one of her teachers who unintentionally led her to a career in journalism. “I was a nuisance in class and my teacher told me to invent an interview, from that moment on everything fell into place,” she recalled. The editor-in chief encouraged the children to keep “telling things” and to make an effort to corroborate the truth, which “is the essence of journalism.”

I was a nuisance in class and my teacher told me to invent an interview, from that moment on everything fell into place

Editor-in-chief Soledad Gallego-Díaz

This year’s contestants addressed a broad range of themes with the winners standing out for their high degree of professionalism. Students Laura de la Fuente and Gabriela Yordanos Benit for instance, interviewed Alyssa Carson, a 16-year-old training with NASA to become an astronaut. The students from the Instituto Emilio Ferrari de Valladolid were awarded the Endesa Innovation and Technology Prize for their efforts. Their teacher Sara Pampín received the prize from Ángel García Colín, director of institutional relations at PRISA Noticias and Julián Corredera, director of digital communications at Endesa.

English version by Andres Cayuela.