Photojournalist Nuno André Ferreira distinguished in the King of Spain awards

King Felipe VI delivered today in Madrid the international prizes King of Spain of Journalism, and the photographic reporter Nuno André Ferreira was distinguished in the category of photography.

Nuno André Ferreira won with the photograph ‘O Presidente Marcelo’, captured in Santa Comba Dão, in the district of Viseu, in which Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa stands in solidarity with a farmer, inconsolable, victims of the fires.

According to the statement issued when the winners were announced, last January, the jury “valued the emotional factor and the human component that allows us to guess a tragedy, without needing to see the devastated area.”

Promoted by the Spanish news agency EFE and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid), the King of Spain International Journalism Awards distinguished in this year’s edition the work of journalists and media from Spain, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina , Brazil, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Portugal in the categories of press, radio, television, photography, digital journalism and environmental journalism and sustainable development.

In his speech at the ceremony, the King of Spain defended the recovery of “the essence of good journalism” as a formula for transmitting credible reports to citizens, preserving rigour and impartiality and fighting the spread of false news.

Congratulating the winners for “their quality, sensitivity and well-doing“, the head of state stressed that their work reveals the excellence of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking journalism in all its facets and supports and stressed that “the exercise of a free press “contributes daily to” building more informed, fairer and more democratic societies. ”

The distinguished works deal with themes such as the fight against corruption and organized crime, the phenomenon of migration or the memory of the victims of Francoism.

Felipe VI called for “the spirit of the best classical journalism” to be “redeemed” and reinforced “what has more to do with the core of the profession: humanistic formation, critical ability, the intelligence of knowing how to ask and the ability to see things differently. ”

“Good journalism is what favours the development of a critical spirit in individuals and societies, that sense that enables us to distinguish and discriminate between the immeasurable amount of data, information and opinions,” he said.

In the opinion of Felipe VI, it is necessary to focus on journalism that “does not generate doubts, offers solid reports, and gives assurances to the citizens that what is being said is sufficiently proven.”

In a context such as the present one, marked by the diffusion of disinformation, the head of state reaffirmed that “the best journalism” should strive to fight false news, “not only for an elementary ethical question but also because the distortion of reality distorts unjustly the opinion of the people “.

The King of Spain also highlighted the impact that the new technologies had on the journalistic profession but considered it pertinent “to find the necessary symbiosis between the technological update and the preservation of traditional journalistic values” such as truth, rigour and impartiality.

In addition to the mastery of multimedia tools, Felipe VI expressed the need to “continue teaching and disseminating the values, strategies and essential principles of journalism” so that the professionals of the various media continue to fulfil their social function.

At a time when the EFE’s 80th anniversary was being marked, the king assured that this public medium is “synonymous with quality, professional, impartial and rigorous journalism” that made it the fourth world agency and the first in the Castilian language, with its network of 3,000 professionals in more than 120 countries.

The King also gave a few words of recognition to the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid), which last year marked 30 years of solidarity activity and which, according to the monarch, “are so proud of the Spaniards.“