Miguel Ángel Bastenier wins the María Moors Cabot Prize for Journalism 2012

EL PAÍS columnist Miguel Ángel Bastenier has been honored by Columbia University in New York with the Maria Moors Cabot Prize. The jury recognised his outstanding contribution to inter-American understanding in the latest edition of the world’s oldest international journalism awards.

The jury, composed of journalists and academics specializing in Latin America, highlighted Bastenier’s commitment to "practicing quality journalism in the Americas and teaching others how to do it with the same independence and love of profession his own work displays "

Since its creation in 1938, the Maria Moors Cabot Prize has recognized distinguished public service journalism that has helped to foster greater inter-American understanding. They were created by the late Godfrey Lowell Cabot of Boston, in memory of his wife.

The Moors Cabot is one of the most prestigious awards for Latin American journalism and, in recent years, winners have included Joaquin Ibarz, La Vanguardia, Anthony de Palma, a correspondent for The New York Times, Maria Teresa Ronderos, from Semana magazine, Colombia, and La Nacion, Costa Rica. The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism also awards the annual Pulitzer Prizes.

About Miguel Angel Bastenier

Miguel Ángel Bastenier graduated in History from the Universidad Central de Barcelona in 1975, in Law from the same university in 1962 and in journalism from the Official School of Journalism in Madrid in 1961.

He was editor of the newspaper Telexprés (Barcelona) between 1977 and 1979, and deputy editor of El Periodico de Catalunya from 1979 to 1982. He joined El Pais as deputy news editor in June 1982 and, in December 1993, he took charge of the newspaper’s International Relations, a post he held until 2006. Since then he has worked as a columnist and editorial writer for El País.

Since 1988 he has lectured in International Journalism at the El País School of Journalism and he also teaches at the School of Journalism at the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, Cartagena, Colombia.

It has been a contributor to Le Monde, Libération, The European, El Espectador, Bogota and numerous newspapers in Latin America. He is the author of La guerra de siempre (1999) and Palestina-Israel: La casa de la guerra (2002), both on the Arab-Israeli Journalism conflict. On the subject of journalism he has written El blanco móvil (2001) and Cómo se escribe un periódico (2009 .)

Further information on the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes.