The King stated that “independent journalism is essential” and that “it is reflected every day, and it has been demonstrated in an extraordinary way after the succession of the latest crises and their consequences, such as the pandemic or the war for the invasion of Russia in Ukraine”. A message launched during yesterday’s delivery of the King of Spain International Awards for Journalism by the Efe agency, which this year celebrated 40 years of life.
“In the age of information, misinformation is something that is of increasing concern and comes to excessively influence debates, diagnoses, the understanding of facts and decision-making. It is necessary to have a safe and trusted space to obtain verified information, a source that can act as a cushion against so many falsehoods that take advantage of social networks and other digital platforms”, continued the monarch, who presented the awards in the six categories called for, to which 133 candidacies from 17 countries were submitted.
The report Fentanilo: futuro para el narco, muerte para la humanidad, published in the Mexican medium N , received the Narrative Journalism award. After five months of investigation, Víctor Emmanuel Valles Mata and Adrián Tinoco managed to enter a fentanyl laboratory of the Sinaloa cartel and interview minors who work there and local bosses.
In International Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, Spanish journalist Jesús Martínez and photographer Marc Javierre-Kohan, from Frontera Digital, collected the award for J’accuse! The looting of Rosario’s house, a report about the drama of Rosario, who at the age of 98 wants to recover a photo of her husband who died half a century ago, the only one she keeps, after the judicial entourage opened her house by mistake of an eviction
RTVE received the Environmental Journalism award for the report Suelos vivos de El escarabajo verde by Eduardo Laplaza García, Marisol Soto and Francesc Tomas, which focuses on regenerative agriculture. The Mexican Víctor Núñez Jaime collected the Cultural Journalism award for El segundo exilio de Sergio Ramírez, a profile of the Nicaraguan writer published by the Mexican newspaper Milenio after portraying his everyday life in Madrid, where he lives his second exile due to the persecution of the Government of Daniel Ortega.
Colombian Manuel Salvador Saldarriaga received the Photojournalism award with Arriesgar la vida cruzando El Tapón del Darién, a series from El Colombiano de Medellín about images of Haitians crossing the jungle in search of reaching the United States . Finally, the representatives of the Colombian medium Cuestión Pública collected the Journalism prize in the Ibero-American Media for “promoting the exercise of good investigative journalism and independent data”.
