Cabot Prize Awards Dinner 2008

By Sandra Larriva Henaine '08, Mexico

The 70th Annual Maria Moors Cabot Prizes were awarded at a ceremony and dinner on Oct. 16 in the rotunda of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library.

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger presented Cabot gold medals for outstanding reporting on the Americas to Carmen Aristegui, anchor, CNN en Español and Reforma newspaper (Mexico); Santiago-based Michael Smith, senior writer, Bloomberg Markets magazine; Sam Quinones, general assignment reporter, Los Angeles Times; and Gustavo Sierra, international news desk editor, Clarín newspaper (Argentina).

The oldest international awards in journalism, the Cabot Prizes honor journalists who have covered the Western Hemisphere and, through their reporting and editorial work, have furthered inter-American understanding.

"The work we recognize tonight,” said Bollinger in a reference to the often-risky job of the journalist in the Americas, “is truly impressive and moving because of all the obstacles that journalists have to overcome in order to perform their role."

Aristegui was celebrated for giving voice to Mexicans who would otherwise not be heard because they criticize the country’s most powerful institutions, said Bollinger, emphasizing Mexico’s status as the most dangerous place in the Americas to practice journalism.

Quinones, who reported from Mexico for a decade and now covers immigration-related stories and gangs for the Los Angeles Times, was recognized for his contribution to a better understanding of life in Mexico and the special challenges of crime, drugs, poverty and racial integration that the underprivileged Latino communities face in the U.S.

Sierra, a foreign correspondent who reported on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars for the Buenos Aires-based daily newspaper Clarín, was recognized “for his in-depth reporting, thorough investigation, novelty and energetic enterprise,” Bollinger said. Sierra’s reports from the Middle East, both in print and broadcast, ultimately came together as a book.

Smith’s reports from Latin America “illuminate the effects of globalization, never forgetting the people left behind in the wake of the region’s current economic boom,” said Bollinger. Smith chronicled U.S. imports which had been produced by slave labor in South America and the use of immigrants to test new drugs in the U.S.

All four awardees received a medal, a $5,000 honorarium and a bronze plaque for their news organizations.