The Maria Moors Cabot Prize for Outstanding
Reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean
On Tuesday, October 9, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
will present the 2007 winners of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding
reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean . This is the 69th year that
Columbia has presented this award honoring journalists who have covered the
Western Hemisphere and, through their reporting and editorial work, have
furthered inter-American understanding.
The 2007 winners are: Alfredo Corchado, Mexico bureau chief, the Dallas Morning
News; Gary Marx, foreign correspondent, Chicago Tribune; Maria Teresa Ronderos,
editorial advisor, Semana Magazine (Colombia); and José Vales, Latin
American correspondent, El Universal (Mexico).
“This year, we had an especially lively and competitive field of nominees
for the Cabot Prize,” said Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Journalism
School. “This is welcome and wonderful news for the Americas, a region
which desperately needs the kind of professional, courageous, and enterprising
journalism exemplified by our 2007 winners.”
Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger will present the prizes at a dinner and
ceremony on Tuesday, Oct. 9, on Columbia’s Morningside campus. Each
prize winner will receive a medal and a $5,000 honorarium. News organizations
that employ the winners will receive bronze plaques. The 2007 Cabot winners
are described below. For further description, please visit www.jrn.columbia.edu/events/cabot.
Photos of winners are available upon request; e-mail vb2239@columbia.edu.
Alfredo Corchado, Mexico bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News, covers
a deadly beat that scares off most other journalists—drug-related crime
and violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, now considered one of the world’s
most dangerous places to practice journalism. In this savage climate, Corchado
has refused to back down, instead continuing to produce exclusive stories
about drug dealers, police and government corruption, the epidemic disappearance
of women, and the spread of organized crime among Mexican drug cartels into
Dallas and Houston.
Gary Marx, Latin American correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, has been
one of a small group of U.S. reporters working out of permanent bureaus the
Cuban government allowed to be established there in the late 1990s. In February,
after five years reporting from Havana, Marx was told by the Cuban government
that his press credentials would not be renewed and he must leave the island.
Their reason: His stories were too “negative.” But in the view
of the Cabot Prize Board, Marx’s reporting was devoid of the ideological
side-taking that often taints journalistic stories about Cuba. He was just
telling the story of Cuba to his readers—the good and the bad—and
telling it honestly and skillfully.
Maria Teresa Ronderos, editorial advisor at Semana Magazine of Colombia,
is an exemplar of the highest standards of ethics, professionalism, and dogged
reporting in another of the world’s most dangerous countries to practice
journalism. Reporter, editor, teacher, and defender of press freedom, Ronderos
has been a mentor to many young journalists in Colombia and a key player
in fighting to restore peace and civil society to the country, which has
been ravaged by drug-related violence.
José Vales, Latin American correspondent for El Universal of Mexico,
provides readers in the Americas with a steady diet of stories about important
Latin American issues and scoops about corruption and human rights abuses
from his post in Buenos Aires. In 2000, Vales’ relentless investigative
reporting led to the revelation that a notorious torturer during Argentina’s
dirty war was hiding in plain sight in Mexico, leading to arrest and extradition
to Spain in 2003.
About the Maria Moors Cabot Prize
Founded in 1938 by the late Godfrey Lowell Cabot of Boston as a memorial
to his wife, the Maria Moors Cabot Prize is the oldest international award
in journalism. Since its inception, 252 Cabot Prizes and 56 special citations
have been awarded to journalists from more than 30 countries in the Americas.
The prizes are administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of
Journalism under the guidance of Josh Friedman, director of international
programs at the school.
Recommendations for the winners are made with the advice and approval of
the board of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes. Members of the 2007 Cabot Board
are: Arlene Morgan, chair and associate dean for programs and prizes at the
Journalism School; Josh Friedman, director of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes
and director of international programs at the Journalism School; David Adams,
Latin America correspondent for the St. Petersburg Times; Rosental Calmon
Alves, Knight Chair in Journalism and UNESCO Chair in Communication and director,
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at University of Texas at Austin;
Jose de Cordoba, senior special writer for the Wall Street Journal; John
Dinges, associate professor at the Journalism School and former editorial
director of National Public Radio; Juan Enriquez-Cabot, great-grandson of
Maria Moors Cabot and chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy LLC; Michèle
Montas-Dominique, chief spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and until 2002, editor-in-chief, Radio Haiti-Inter; Jorge Ramos, senior news
anchor for Univision Network; Linda Robinson, contributing editor for U.S.
News & World Report; Edward Schumacher, former CEO and editorial director
of Meximerica Media; and Enrique Zileri, director, Caretas magazine (Peru).
Seven of the eleven members of the Cabot Prize Board have won the Cabot medal.
