Arts & Entertainment

IAPA awards journalistic excellence, honors press victims of Covid-19

Miami, Oct 14 (efe-epa).- The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) on Wednesday presented its 2020 awards, including a special one granted posthumously to the at least 130 journalists and press workers who have died of Covid-19 in the Americas as a result of working “valiantly” amid the pandemic.

Leonor Mulero Pagan, the president of IAPA’s Awards Commission, said that the task of selecting the winners from among about 1,200 works presented in 14 categories for the Journalistic Excellence Awards 2020 was an “honorable” one.

On this occasion, a special award acknowledging health journalism was announced, an issue that IAPA executive director Ricardo Trotti said will be very important at the 2021 awards ceremony, when certainly many works dealing with Covid-19 along with security will be presented.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the award ceremony was held virtually, just like the 76th IAPA General Assembly, which will take place next week from Oct. 21-23 and for which Wednesday’s event was a curtain-raiser.

IAPA president Christopher Barnes paid tribute to the winners of the Press Freedom Grand Prize, journalists and press workers who have died from Covid-19 while carrying out their professional tasks, who – he said – sacrificed their health to continue fulfilling their informative duties at a difficult time for all humanity.

Barnes said that the pandemic had made clear “the need for quality journalism.”

During the ceremony two videos were screened, one devoted to the victims of Covid-19 in which the children and other relatives of some of those who died talk about what journalism meant to their loved ones and the other dealing with the winners of the other 13 categories and the honorable mentions.

After the presentation of the awards, some of the winners participated in three virtual panels devoted to Journalism and Visual Arts, Investigative Journalism and Journalism and Social Criticism.

“The press in the Americas continues to give the best of itself, leading with denouncing social ills, reflecting our daily tragedies and emphasizing the advances in the improvement of our societies,” said Mulero Pagan, the assistant director of opinion for the Ferre-Rangel Group in Puerto Rico.

The prizewinners for Awards in Journalistic Excellence are:

-Cartoons (sponsored by El Tiempo, Colombia)

Winner: “El Peje,” Gilberto Bobadilla de Anda, Eje Central, Mexico.

-News Coverage on the Internet (sponsored by TV Venezuela, de Miami, Florida).

Carros-Fortes: Homes indefesos, Saulo Araujo, Metropoles, Brasil.

-News Coverage (Grupo Opsa, San Pedro Sula, Honduras).

“Tragedia mormones”, Ramon Felipe Verdin Flores, Noel Vizcarra, Reynaldo Esquer, Armando Talavera, El Debate, Mexico.

-News Coverage on Mobile Devices, Premio Alejandro Miro Quesada Garland (El Comercio, Peru).

“Mi casa se inunda”, Redaccion de Red/Accion, Argentina.

-Features (El Comercio, Ecuador, and McClatchy Newspapers, US)

“Dimar, el crimen al que quisieron echarle tierra”, Jose Guarnizo, revista Semana, Colombia.

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