The Nicaraguan digital media divergent was awarded this Wednesday, April 6, with the prize Ortega y Gassetthe highest recognition for journalism in Spanish awarded by the newspaper El País.
The news was announced at the headquarters of El País, in Madrid, Spain. “The awards, granted by this newspaper, recognize the best journalistic works in Spanish published throughout 2021 in the categories of Best story or journalistic investigation, Best multimedia coverage, Best photography and Best professional career,” highlights the newspaper.
Related news: Journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, winner of the Ortega y Gasset Prize
Divergents was awarded in the category Better multimedia coveragewith the special «The challenge of the massacre: memory, truth, justice and non-repetition»“which analyzes the situation of repression in Nicaragua under the regime of Daniel Ortega,” adds el País.
Among the parameters for the jury to award the award to the national media outlet, it highlights that journalistic work brings together everything that is required of good journalism: information, different points of view, numerous voices and exhaustive analysis.
«It also presses several keys that would be applicable to other places in the world. It integrates numerous formats, well executed and combined, designed for a plural audience, which allow us to understand the reality that the Central American country is experiencing”, they also highlight that the jury valued the context of repression at the hands of Daniel Ortega’s regime in which the work was carried out journalistic.
Dedicated to the victims of April
For his part, the journalist Maynor Salazar, a member of the Divergents newsroom, said Article 66 that this award is “a recognition of the victims of April —of 2018— who continue to demand justice for all the abuses committed by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.”
He stressed that without the help and willingness of the sources consulted to be able to carry out each of the reports, the work would not have any impact.
“This is an award for journalism in Nicaragua that resists a cruel dictatorship; this is not an award only for Divergents but also for the other colleagues who are in Nicaragua, who continue to report with their nails and also for those who have unfortunately gone into exile », he remarked.
He also expressed that this recognition “is without a doubt quite large. We Nicaraguan journalists continue to carry out our work with great difficulty and despite the fact that anything can happen in this country.
Salazar concluded that this award is a hope for national journalism. «When one begins to do journalism, observes and reads about these awards, there is always the hope of saying one day I am going to do a job that has an impact on society, but that is also recognized, and well that day came and I feel very happy for me and for all the colleagues who were on the team because in the end it is a recognition of the victims’ search for justice».
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In 2021, the Nicaraguan journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorrodirector of Confidencial, received the same award for his professional career.
This recognition comes in the midst of a social and political crisis that Nicaragua is experiencing where the Daniel Ortega regime has attacked independent journalism to prevent it from continuing to report.
So far there are two imprisoned journalists, Miguel Mendoza and Miguel Mora; accused of “treason against the homeland”, more than 100 exiled communicators and one fatality, the reporter Ángel Gahona, who was shot dead when he was covering the beginning of the social protests in 2018.
