The Board of Directors of the Columbia University Journalism School’s Maria Moores Cabot Award condemned the criminalization experienced by independent journalism in Latin America.

In its statement, the council specifically mentioned cases Gustavo Gorriti in Peru and Jose Ruben Zamora in Guatemala, as well as the Venezuelan investigative media outlet Armando.info.

Gorriti is a journalist and founder of IDL Reporteros. non-profit investigative journalism in Peru and distinguished itself for its investigations of alleged political corruption related to the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. He received the Maria Moores Cabot Gold Medal in 1992 and served on the award’s board.

In the case of the journalist and founder newspaper Guatemala’s Jose Ruben Zamora notes that “international human rights and press freedom organizations they condemned [el caso de Zamora] like revenge for reporting on government corruption.”

Zamora, who was awarded today Recognition of outstanding achievements by the Gabo Prize 2024, He has been in prison for almost two years, despite his conviction for money laundering being overturned and accusations made against various organizations of wrongdoing in his case.

Zamora won the Cabot Prize in 1995. In 2022, the prize’s board of directors said his arrest appeared to be part of a trend of worsening human rights conditions in Guatemala.

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Board too He mentioned the persecution of the Armando.info team in Venezuela. Prosecutor Tarek William Saab accused the media of accepting bribes and being involved in an alleged corruption plot. Just days before a documentary produced by the Armando.Info team aired on American public television about corruption and persecution of journalists in the country.

In 2019, this product received a special mention from the Cabot Prize, whose board felt that The accusation against the team is “clumsy and absurd.”

Below is the full statement:

As we gather at Columbia University to select this year’s winners of the world’s oldest international journalism award and discuss press freedom in the Western Hemisphere, the board of directors of the Maria Moores Cabot Prize condemns the criminalization of independent journalism in Latin America. In particular, we want to highlight the prosecution of Gustavo Gorriti of Peru, Jose Ruben Zamora of Guatemala, Maria Moores Cabot Gold Medal winners, and the Venezuelan investigative reporting team Armando.info, winner of the Cabot Special Award. Mention

Gorriti, one of the former members of this council (2014–2022), is the subject of a smear campaign and criminal investigation in Peru. His crime? Practice independent investigative journalism in the public interest by exposing corrupt politicians. These same politicians are now making unsubstantiated accusations and demanding that Gorriti reveal his sources, with an implicit threat of imprisonment if he does not. The Peruvian state must not allow its judicial system to be used against independent investigative journalism.

Meanwhile, Zamora has been jailed in Guatemala for nearly two years in a case that international human rights and press freedom organizations have denounced as retaliation for reporting on government corruption.

And in Venezuela, the Prosecutor General’s Office just announced a clumsy and pointless investigation, accusing the Armando.info team of having ties to a businessman whom journalists accused of corruption. The announcement came days before PBS Frontline aired a documentary produced in collaboration with Armando.info about corruption and the cost of independent journalism in Venezuela.

This advice is in solidarity with our medalists. Journalism is not a crime.