Argentine journalist and writer Martin Caparros was one of the winners of the 40th edition of the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awardswhich recognizes the best works originally published in Spanish the previous year, along with the Salvadoran Julia Gavarrete and the Spanish Xavier Aldekoa and santi palaciosof the media The lighthouse, The vanguard and 5Wrespectively.
Author of emblematic narrative chronicle books, such as Long distance (1992), which changed the way of thinking about the relationship between journalism and literature, and the will (2006), an in-depth portrait of the young revolutionaries of the 1970s, co-written with Eduardo Anguita. Caparrós was distinguished with the lifetime achievement award by a jury that recognized him as a “total journalist” and “one of the greatest exponents of the best Latin American chronicle.”
In almost five decades of experience, this author born in Buenos Aires on May 29, 1957 has worked on radio, television, and the written press, publishing chronicles, reports, and fiction in media such as Clarion, The New York Times and The country.
Created in 1984 in memory of the philosopher Jose Ortega y Gassetthis award highlights the defense of freedoms, independence, rigor and honesty as essential virtues of journalism, with endowments of 15,000 euros for each winner.
The jury this year was made up of writers and journalists Lucia Lijtmaer, Elvira Lindo, Isabel Calderon, Pepa Buenodirector of The country; Luis Gomez and Pedro Zuazua, also with managerial positions in that newspaper; the biologist Miguel Delibes de Castro and the defender of Reader Soledad Alcaidethe organizers informed the international press.
He prize Ortega y Gasset in the category of best journalistic story went to Julia Gavarrete for his interview with a family fleeing El Salvador fearing that some of its members would be convicted of a crime for which they had already been acquitted, published in The lighthouse“a brave medium, which does excellent journalism in a very difficult environment”, highlighted the jury.
In the category of best multimedia coverage, the award went to Xavier Aldekoa for media production ”Congo River”published in The vanguard and built with reports made along the 4,700 kilometers, which go from the source of that river, in the interior of Africa, to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean, passing through four countries –Zambia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo and Angola– and giving an account of the history, idiosyncrasy and tensions in that continent.
“Each piece is in itself a valuable journalistic content, and as a whole they form a transversal travel story in which topics as diverse as the environment or inequality are addressed,” the ruling reads.
While the award for best photography went to santi palaciosfor an image published by the magazine 5W showing the bodies of some of the more than 400 civilians killed in the Ukrainian city of Bucha last April as part of the Russian invasion, scattered on a highway.
The snapshot “captures the horror of everyday life in the middle of a war and conveys the desolation and harshness of the conflict. It also shows the loneliness that surrounds death. It has numerous details that provide information about what happened in Bucha. It is a great photo that has a high informative component”, said the jury.
Fountain: Telam SE
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