Winners of 69th Annual Maria Moors Cabot Prize for Outstanding Reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean – Honored on October 9 at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Award Ceremony

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; Michí¨le 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.

About the Graduate School of Journalism

For almost a century, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has been preparing journalists in a program that stresses academic rigor, ethics, journalistic inquiry, and professional practice. Founded by Joseph Pulitzer in 1912, the school offers master of science, master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees. www.journalism.columbia.edu.

About Columbia University

A leading academic and research university, Columbia continually seeks to advance the frontiers of knowledge and to foster a campus community deeply engaged in understanding and addressing the complex global issues of our time. Columbia’s extensive public service initiatives, cultural collaborations and community partnerships enrich campus life. They help define the University’s underlying values and mission to educate students to be both leading scholars and informed, engaged citizens. Founded in 1754 as King’s College, Columbia University in the City of New York is the fifth oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. For more information, visit www.columbia.edu.

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