Congo River. A journey from the sources to the mouth of the great river of Africa. That is the title of the series of eight multimedia reports made by Xavier Aldekoa and published in La Vanguardia that today have been recognized at the Ortega y Gasset 2023 awards ceremony that has been held at the CaixaForum in Valencia. The event, led by Aimar Bretos, has had the participation of the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig; and the director of EL PAÍS, Pepa Bueno, among others.
The Aldekoa series of reports, a journey with eight stops along the 4,700 kilometers of this African river, is, according to the jury, “a well-crafted story in which all its multimedia elements integrate perfectly, being, in addition , very homogeneous, of a high quality in text, photos and videos”. “Each piece is in itself a valuable journalistic content and, as a whole, they form a cross-sectional travel story in which topics as diverse as the environment or inequality are addressed,” adds the jury.
Upon receiving the award, the journalist from La Vanguardia stressed that the award-winning work “is a team effort, because dozens of Congolese helped me when I lacked strength or courage.” He also thanked the director of La Vanguardia, Jordi Juan, for his support: “I thank him for believing in a way of doing journalism that requires time and pause; I remember when I told him that I was going to be traveling for two months that he looked at me out of the corner of his eye and He told me “I only ask you one thing, that we don’t have to go looking for you”. He also thanked the newspaper’s infographic and video team for their support.
Ximo Puig has said about Aldekoa that he is “a reporter with the soul of an explorer”. “Aldekoa is a privileged disciple of Manuel Chaves Nogales, Aldekoa is a man concerned with telling the truth.” For her part, Pepa Bueno has assessed that it is “a great example of a necessary journalism, which moves away from the noise and is prepared over a slow fire.” “This is an intellectual work, which I wanted to convey to the readers part of the essence of Africa and used the new narratives to do it, from interactive graphics, images, infographics with a very elegant result”, he added.
The Ortega y Gasset Award in the category of Best Journalistic Story or Investigation goes to A family that owes nothing flees from the Exceptional Regime, by Julia Gavarrete and published in El Faro, El Salvador. The report narrates the flight of a Salvadoran family for fear of being sentenced for a crime of which they have already been acquitted.
The jury has highlighted that it is “a story that exemplifies the total defenselessness of citizens when democratic guarantees disappear.” Likewise, the jury has indicated that the report focuses “on issues that can disappear in major conflicts, such as mental health or equality” and has added the “merit of the journalist to get the family to tell her their story still despite the complicated situation in which they live”. There has also been an impact on the work of El Faro, “a brave medium, which does excellent journalism in a very difficult environment.”
The Ortega y Gasset for Best Photography goes to the photojournalist Santi Palacios, for an image taken in Bucha (Ukraine), after the withdrawal of Russian troops. In it several bodies lie on the road. At least 420 civilians were killed in the Ukrainian city in April 2022.
The jury has indicated that 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”.
The Ortega y Gasset Award for Professional Career goes to Martín Caparrós. The Argentine journalist and writer has dedicated 48 years to the trade, going through radio, television and the written press. He has published chronicles, reports and even literary fiction in Clarín, The New York Times, Internazionale and El País.
The jury has highlighted that Caparrós embodies the figure of the “total journalist, one of the greatest exponents of the best Latin American chronicle”. In the almost five decades of his career, Caparrós has traveled and counted the American continent and Spain like few others, from the big cities to the smallest towns, with a vision that combines a defined literary style and a high intellectuality. These components, added to his talent for detecting stories, have turned hundreds of small stories into universal stories.
This year’s jury was made up of Miguel Delibes, biologist; Lucía Lijtmaer, writer and journalist; Elvira Lindo, writer; Isabel Calderón, journalist; Pepa Bueno, director of El País; Soledad Alcaide, defender of the reader; Luis Gómez, journalist and member of the Editorial Committee, and Pedro Zuazua, director of Communication for El País, who served as secretary of the non-voting jury.
