Ricardo Hernandez won first place for a report showing "the less promoted face" of the resort. He evokes the slums where those at the bottom of the "economic pyramid" of the city, which welcomes millions of tourists every year, live.
The jury highlighted the "impeccable narration" of the "testimonies that show exclusion and what is not seen in Cancun," reported Griselda Triana, widow of Javier Valdez, one of the journalists who gave his name to the prize, at the award ceremony.
"The only thing we talk about and promote about Cancun are its beaches, its tourism, but we avoid, prevent, dismiss the flow of information about what happens beyond," Hernandez told AFP.
The journalist said he was punished for the report. "I was fired from the newspaper where I worked because it affected the image of Cancun," he said.
Young tourists, mostly American, in the Mexican resort of Cancun, March 17, 2023 © Elizabeth Ruiz / AFP / Archives
Second place was awarded to a group of journalists, Wendy Selene Perez, Paula Monaco, Luis Brito and Maria Ruiz, for an article about the trial of a former official of the National Commission for the Search of the Disappeared (CNB) accused of transmitting 45,000 DNA profiles of missing persons and their families to a private company. Some 100,000 people are missing in Mexico, due to kidnappings and murders often linked to drug trafficking.
The Breach-Valdez Prize honours the memory and work of Javier Valdez - who was AFP's correspondent in Sinaloa (north-west) - and Miroslava Breach, murdered for their reporting and investigations. AFP was part of the jury.
Mexico is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world to work as a journalist, according to Reporters Without Borders, which has recorded more than 150 journalists killed since 2000.
© 2023 AFP