Human Interest

Spanish press awards show journalism is ‘more alive than ever’

Valencia, Spain, May 31 (EFE).- Good journalism is the best antidote to polarization, director of Spanish newspaper El País, Pepa Bueno, said on Tuesday at the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards ceremony, in which Efe photographer Sashenka Gutiérrez was recognized for her moving coverage of a breast cancer survival.

Bueno added that the winners of the awards this year showed that journalism was “more alive and necessary than ever before.”

She said that the journalists had been awarded for seeking and telling the truth “no matter who falls” and were the example of “courageous and passionate” journalism.

This year’s winners included Gutiérrez from Spain’s Efe news agency who won the El Pais award for best photography of the year for her poignant portrait of a breast cancer survivor who underwent a life-saving double mastectomy.

Gutiérrez’s striking photographic study followed Mexican Sandra Monroy as she went through the process of a double mastectomy after she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 36.

“The idea was to document the process as a way for her to say goodbye to her breasts,” Gutiérrez said.

Of the three other the Ortega y Gasset Journalism categories, the prize for best story or journalistic investigation was allocated to the El Pais team for their investigation into pedophilia at the heart of Spain’s Catholic Church; best multimedia coverage was awarded to Nicaraguan newspaper Divergente and the best career prize was posthumously given to journalists David Beriian and Robert Fraile, who were killed working in Burkina Faso last year.

The Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards have been given annually by the esteemed Spanish daily since 1984 in recognition of professionals in the field who have demonstrated a commitment to the defense of freedom, honesty and rigor in their work.EFE

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