Lilia Saúl and Ginna Morelo
A joint effort of the daily El Tiempo (Colombia) and El Universal (of Mexico) received on Thursday May 5 the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award in the category of best media coverage. Desaparecidos (Missing) is a multimedia research led by Ginna Morelo in Colombia and Lilia Saul in Mexico, denouncing the serious problem of missing persons in both countries. The jury highlighted “the wealth of information, narrative technique and graphics solutions included in this work on a social drama like disappearances”. The awards, presented in a work by the artist Eduardo Chillida highlight the best Latin American journalism and seek to highlight the defense of freedom, independence, rigor and virtues of this profession. In Colombia there have been 25,000 disappearances in almost 50 years. In Mexico, in eight years, since statistics are recorded, they are approaching 26,000. “Since I started traveling to Mexico, in 2010, I was struck by the parallel of what had happened to the Colombian reality,” Cohn said. So I went according to Lilia Saul on how to shape a joint investigation.
“This is a work that makes visible a very serious problem, as it is the impunity across states. So we went and discover the stories behind the phenomenon, “says Lilia Saul. The work was conducted between March 2015 and September 2016, with data units of the two newspapers, and involved about 20 people, of which five are journalists who were in charge of analyzing information, writing and reporting . The media coverage includes interactive maps of both countries, which may show as a whole more than 100,000 data, which are all missing; interviews, documentary videos, photographs and of course, stories. Apart from the media coverage prepared for printed editions and two videos of the realities in Iguala (Mexico) and Buenaventura (Colombia), where the missing bodies were buried in the hills and the sea. This material has also aired on TV El Tiempo. Saul and Morelo feel privileged to have led and formed part of the team of committed Colombian and Mexicans, who won the award. “The awards are beautiful moments in the race, but beyond that, what keeps you going is to see the face of people who have need for life,” says Ginna Morelo. “The commitment is great and El Universal will continue exploring the theme in more angles,” says Lilia Saul. To see the project go to El Universal Data in Mexico and to Interactive TIEMPO Data of Colombia. You can also read how stories and multimedia work for El Tiempo de Colombia and for El Universal in Mexico were made.
