Congo River A journey from the sources to the mouth of the great river of Africa. This is the title of the series of eight multimedia reports made by Xavier Aldekoa and published in La Vanguardia that were recognized yesterday at the Ortega y Gasset 2023 awards ceremony held at the CaixaForum in Valencia. The event, hosted by Aimar Bretos, was attended by the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig, and the director of El País, Pepa Bueno, among others.
Aldekoa’s series of reports, a journey with eight stops along the 4,700 kilometers of this African river, is, according to the jury, “a well-armed story in which all the multimedia elements are perfectly integrated and are, moreover, very homogeneous, of a high quality in text, photos and videos”. “Each piece is in itself valuable journalistic content and, together, they form a transversal travel story in which topics as diverse as the environment or inequality are addressed”, adds the jury.
When he received the prize, endowed with 15,000 euros, the La Vanguardia journalist emphasized that the award-winning work “is a team effort, because dozens of Congolese people pushed me when I lacked strength or courage”. In addition, he 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 that when I told him that I would be traveling for two months, he looked at me and said: “I only ask one thing, that we don’t have to go looking for you”. He also recalled the “excellent work” of La Vanguardia’s infographic and video team.
Ximo Puig said of 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 about explaining the truths”, he added. For her part, Pepa Bueno assessed that Aldekoa’s award-winning reports are a work that “supposes a great example of necessary journalism, which moves away from the noise and prepares over a slow fire”. “This is an intellectual work, in which he wanted to convey to the readers part of the essence of Africa and used the new narratives to do so, from interactive graphics, images, infographics with a very elegant result” added the director of El País.
The Ortega y Gasset award in the category of best story or journalistic investigation went to Una familia que no debe nada huye del Régimen de Excepción, by Julia Gavarrete and published in El Faro, from El Salvador. The report narrates the escape of a Salvadoran family for fear of being convicted of a crime of which they were already acquitted. The jury emphasized that it is “a story that exemplifies the total helplessness of citizens when democratic guarantees disappear”.
The Ortega y Gasset in the best photograph went to the photojournalist Santi Palacios, for an image taken in Butxa (Ukraine), after the withdrawal of the Russian troops. In the photo several bodies lie on the road. At least 420 civilians were killed in the Ukrainian city in April 2022. The jury pointed out that the snapshot “captures the horror of everyday life in the middle of a war and conveys the desolation and cruelty of the conflict. It also shows the loneliness that surrounds death. It has numerous details that provide information about what happened in Butxa. It’s a great photo that has a high informative component.”
The Ortega y Gasset prize for professional career went to Martín Caparrós. The Argentinian journalist and writer has dedicated 48 years to the profession, through radio, television and the written press. He has published chronicles, reports and even literary fiction in Clarín, The New York Times, Internazionale or El País. This year’s jury was composed of Miguel Delibes, biologist; Lucía Lijtmaer, writer and journalist; Elvira Lindo, writer; Isabel Calderón, journalist; Pepa Bueno, director of El País; Soledad Alcaide, reader advocate; Luis Gómez, journalist and member of the editorial committee, and Pedro Zuazua, communications director of El País, who served as secretary of the non-voting jury.
