This Monday, the Vocento headquarters in Madrid where the prizes were awarded abc of this 2023 has been filled by the claim of journalism as a profession at the service of society, and of the truth. Also of the context in which this trade takes place today, made precarious by the crisis that the media are experiencing and immersed in a reality that is produced and changes at an accelerated pace due to technology, and in which disinformation and hoaxes are replicated more and more frequently and in multiple spaces. The interventions of two of the winners were addressed to these themes. “We learn to ask before we learn to speak, pointing at things. We ask to know, we ask to know the truth. This profession, although it may not seem like it, was invented to fight hoaxes,” said EL PAÍS journalist Manuel Jabois, awarded this year with the Mariano de Cavia for his article ‘My life without WhatsApp’, published in the supplement Ideas on May 15, 2022.
A line that the journalist and columnist of the newspaper also followed abc Pedro García Cuartango, distinguished with Luca de Tena for his long career in the world of journalism: “[El periodismo] It has a lot to do with finding the truth, it’s about saying what you don’t want to be said.” The profession, he underlined, “is essential in the defense of pluralism”, and “unfortunately an unprecedented crisis threatens the survival of the press”. Mainly due to declining advertising and declining kiosk sales. Printed newspapers are sold less and less.
Flavia Álvarez-Pedrosa Pruvost, Flavita Banana, cartoonist of this newspaper who received the Mingote for her cartoon published on July 18, spoke about the paper —on which she still draws— the past, present and future 2022. She, the the first cartoonist to receive the Mingote award, she celebrated growing up “with the internet and feminism”. “The past has not been very favorable for us. I am the first woman to win the Mingote award in 50 years,” she recalled. The present, she stated, he doesn’t “much like” either, and the future, she said, “involves changes, changes that have come to stay.” “Everyone here loves paper, digital is essential, the future implies change and something more necessary than evolving”.
The King, who presided over the awards ceremony, called for all the “complex sources, uses and consequences of this phenomenon” to be addressed “with prudence”, in order to fully exploit “the unstoppable innovative progress it represents, and at the same time at the same time mitigate the risks it can generate.”The way of reading current events, of approaching, interpreting and understanding them, has changed considerably”, underlined Felipe VI, who assured that “what must not change” must be valued. “The dissemination of reality, its contextualization and the way of exposing current events according to criteria of rigor, truthfulness and public interest. And in this complex task, the role of journalism continues to be essential in its contribution to a free society”, he has declared.
Thus, the Head of State highlighted the type of opinion “in such a digitized society” and recalled that “without independent journalism, there are no free opinions”. “And although times have changed the methods for its transmission, the background of good journalism, its ability to act as a quality filter for the benefit of society, will always be the same,” he said. Felipe VI said that “it is essential to safeguard that courageous journalism with the ability to attract, monitor, denounce, describe”. Which, he said, is done by this year’s winners, chosen by a jury chaired by Santiago Muñoz Machado, director of the RAE, and made up of the director of abc, Giuliano Quiros; the director of EL PAÍS, Pepa Bueno; Director of The world, Joaquin Manso; Director of The mail, José Miguel Santamaria; Director of The avant-gardeJordi Juan; and the director of the ideal, Eduardo Peralta.
The winners
The Asturian cartoonist Flavia Álvarez-Pedrosa Pruvost, known as Flavita Banana, is the author of several books and has spent several years publishing cartoons in different media such as Fashion, The jump AND Mongolia; ANDIn 2018 he joined EL PAÍS. You won the Mingote Award for your illustration of a person sitting at an office desk saying, “I can’t wait to go on vacation to spend the day looking at my favorite screens!”. The cartoonist, with her award-winning work, intends to criticize new technologies and the way we spend our free time. The artist is known for putting a mirror in front of society through witty and feminist humour, which is usually presented through everyday scenes.
Manuel Jabois began his career at Pontevedra newspaper, practice local journalism, which he always claimed. It is there that he made himself known with his blog and his prose full of irony and humor, a style that he has not abandoned. entered at The world Recommended by David Gistau. In 2015 he moved to EL PAÍS, where he writes columns, chronicles, reports and interviews. In the text for which he was awarded, he reflects on how digital conversation has stealthily replaced face-to-face meetings: “I discovered that by writing to us almost every day, I didn’t miss it. And, living next door, she hadn’t seen him for six months. Suddenly I was in close contact with many people with whom I spoke almost daily, in groups or individually; We had so many contacts that I didn’t miss meeting them, even though we lived in the same city.”
Pedro García Cuartango has been linked to newspapers for more than four decades. He became interim director of The world for a year, after decades, and which continues at the foot of the journalistic canyon with its articles in the newspaper abc since his arrival in 2017. Cuartango has worked in titles such as Five days, diary 16 AND Sun, whose founding team he was part of and of which he held the position of deputy director. Cuartango said: “I think what they reward is that almost half a century of work that I have spent in a newsroom. There are people who deserve it more than me and who are unknown, hundreds of journalists deserve this award, but the awards are also the result of chance and luck and I am very grateful that they gave it to me”.