Premio de Nuevo Periodismo

Winners of the annual Premio Nuevo Periodismo were announced recently in Cartagena, Colombia by La Fundación para un Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, founded in 1994 by Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. In awarding the $25,000 first prize in the radio category, the judges stated: "The dedicated, rigorous work of Mario Mercuri and Sandra Vanesa Robles addressed with great sensitivity and technical prowess the inefficiency of the Mexican judicial system in failing to resolve the 270 murders of women during the past nine years in Ciudad Juárez. 'La Cruz de Juárez' is brave investigative reporting, incorporating multiple sources and clear, direct language to produce a simple, yet moving narrative."

   The ongoing tragedy of the Juárez murders, involving mainly young female employees of U.S.-owned factories, has resonated disturbingly and distinctly on both sides of the border. For Border Stories, Homelands Productions elected to send a binational team, in hope that the different perspectives of each would enrich both sides' understanding of the story and produce fresh, creative approaches to its coverage. In searching for the right collaborators, Homelands senior producer Cecilia Vaisman eventually selected Mario and Vanesa, well-known investigative reporters at the Guadalajara newspaper Público. Neither Mario nor Vanesa had ever attempted radio journalism before, but Cecilia, a former NPR producer, has conducted Spanish-language radio documentary training in countries from her native Argentina to Puerto Rico. Their joint field research in Juárez and El Paso resulted in a radio piece by Cecilia for NPR's LatinoUSA; a four-part newspaper series in the Público by all three; and Mario and Vanesa's documentaries of five, twelve, and twenty minutes' duration for Radio Universidad de Guadalajara, which won the Premio Nuevo Periodismo. In Mario Mercuri's own words: "Les debemos al Homelands que hayan confiado en dos personas que nunca habían hecho con una radio nada más complicado que cambiarla de emisora." [We owe it to Homelands for their confidence in two people who had never done more with radio than change stations.]

We are proud of our colleagues -- both of whom were eloquent presenters at our recent Transborder Journalism Conference in Tijuana -- and especially grateful to the Ford Foundation whose funding made this series possible.

Listen to La Cruz de Juárez 

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