LATIN AMERICA:
Journalistic Prize for Making Poverty News

by Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Nov 5 (IPS) - The second "Latin America and the Millennium Development Goals" Journalism Prize, sponsored by the UNDP and IPS, was awarded Thursday in the Chilean capital in a ceremony addressed by the head of the U.N. agency, Helen Clark.

"I know that reporting on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not always sell the most newspapers, attract the biggest audiences or have the most incredible headlines," but these stories do reach those who are in greatest need of a voice in our societies, Clark told the awards ceremony, held in the Sheraton Hotel in Santiago.

Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand (1999-2008) said the rise in unemployment and poverty in the region was threatening compliance with the MDGs, a set of targets in the areas of health, education, gender equality, the environment and the fight against hunger and poverty that were agreed by the world’s governments in 2000, with a 2015 deadline.

Six journalists from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela won prizes in the second edition of the award, organised by the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) and the IPS (Inter Press Service) news agency, with international developments funds from Italy.

First prize, which includes a cash award of 5,000 dollars, went to Mexican reporter Mario Muñoz de Loza, who provided a moving portrayal of poverty in Mexico in a series of articles published by the El Informador newspaper of Guadalajara.

"Tereso es el ejemplo" (Tereso Is Just One Example) is the revealing title of Muñoz's reports, which tell the story of the death of a young indigenous man forsaken by his family and the state.

"This journalistic prize has become a fixture, talked about by thousands of reporters in the region," said IPS regional director for Latin America Joaquín Costanzo at the opening of the event attended by more than 100 guests, which ended with a relaxed lunch.

The guests included representatives of the UNDP from throughout Latin America, delegates of other U.N. agencies with offices in Chile, diplomats, members of civil society and representatives of local and foreign media outlets.

The jury was made up of UNDP regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean Rebeca Grynspan, IPS director general Mario Lubetkin, Mexican journalist Miguel Ángel Granados, Uruguayan writer Mario Delgado Aparaín and Brazilian economist and university professor Luis Gonzaga de Mello.

"A network of several thousand journalists who, as we have seen, are interested in reflecting the question of the MDGs in the media outlets where they work, has taken shape in the region," said Costanzo.

The second prize, worth 2,500 dollars, was awarded to Silvia Regina Bessa, who writes for the Diario de Pernambuco newspaper in Brazil, for her report "Quilombola - Os dereitos negados de um povo" (Quilombolas – A Peoples' Rights Denied).

Bessa's story takes a close look at the situation in Afro-Brazilian communities known as "quilombolas", made up of the descendants of escaped African slaves.

Her article was described by the jury as "a harrowing portrait of poverty, exclusion and discrimination in Brazil, and an outstanding piece of investigative reporting."

Adriana Rivera, a reporter writing for the Revista Siete Días magazine published by the Venezuelan daily El Nacional, won third prize, which included 1,000 dollars.

Her report, "La escolaridad es blanco de la violencia" (Schools Targeted by Violence), depicts the situation in the educational system in Venezuela, where teenagers deal daily with violence, and the efforts made by schools to keep youngsters from dropping out.

"Journalism, or at least many publications, are moving relentlessly and dangerously, and sometimes pathetically, towards superficial coverage based on telephone interviews," said Abel Dante Leguizamón, the Italian-Argentine reporter who took fourth prize for his report "Tartagal, la tragedia" (The Tragedy of Tartagal), published by the Periódico Día a Día newspaper of Córdoba, Argentina.

"I guarantee you that each one of us (the winners of the second edition of the UNDP-IPS prize) are fighters and rowers against the current in the newsroom. Those of us who share this madness of reporting on the spot are treated as nutcases, as people who cut the hours that we are at the computer, who cut the hours of 'control C, control V' – in other words, 'cut and paste' – of news reports," he added.

"Because we are so dangerous, we have to constantly be convincing our bosses, trying to be attractive, dressing nicely, and arriving early in order to leave early to be able to do the things we aren't allowed to do during our work hours," said Leguizamón, to emphatic nods from his fellow prize- winners.

"Newspapers want shiny, colourful images, and poverty is grey," said the reporter, who expressed his gratitude for the "oasis of possibilities represented by IPS, the UNDP, the New Journalism Foundation."

Fifth place was shared by Guadalupe del Rocío Yapud, who writes for the Ecuadorean newspaper Diario La Hora, and María Paz Cuevas, with the Revista Paula, a Chilean variety magazine.

Yapud competed with the report "Cuando se vive con un dólar al día" (Living on a Dollar a Day), described by the jury as "a heart-rending story that sheds light on the miserable conditions under which many of the region's indigenous people live." Cuevas wrote "Heidi y Gretel" (Heidi and Gretel), "a beautifully written and touching account" of two women who were forced to become petty drug dealers to support their nine children.

The articles competing in the second edition of the prize were published between Oct. 1, 2008 and Jun. 30, 2009 in print and on-line media, including the web sites of civil society or community organisations, in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"We received nearly 500 reports, series of articles and interviews in the first edition, and a similar number in this second edition that we are celebrating today," said Costanzo. "All of them were extremely high quality, written with a magnificent combination of beauty of style, rigour in the accuracy and quantity of hard facts, and sensibility and commitment - indispensable for tackling questions that are in many cases dramatic and moving."

The five prize-winning stories and series of articles will be included in a book to be published along with a selection of IPS reports on the MDGs produced during the same period. (FIN/2009)