Maria Moors Cabot Prizes


The Maria Moors Cabot Prizes are the oldest international awards in the field of journalism. They are presented each fall by the Trustees of Columbia University to journalists in the Western hemisphere who are viewed as having made a significant contributions to upholding freedom of the press in the Americas and Inter-American understanding. Since 2003 the prize can be awarded to an organization instead of an individual.

Award

The American Boston industrialist and philanthropist Godfrey Lowell Cabot, who founded the Cabot Corporation and was also a major benefactor of both MIT and Harvard, where the general science library is named in his honor, established the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes in 1938 in memory of his wife.
The prizes have been awarded annually since 1939 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York on recommendation of the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism and the Cabot Prize Board, which is composed of journalists and educators.
The awards board consists of the following persons:
Tracy Wilkinson, from Los Angeles Times where she covered the Iraq War, among others.
Carlos Dada, Salvadoran journalist, founder and director of El Faro. He won the Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 2011.
John Dinges, The Godfrey Lowell Cabot Professor of Journalism at Columbia University is an author and journalist specializing in Latin America. He received a Maria Moors Cabot Prizes medal in 1992.
Juan Enriquez Cabot, Authority on economic and political impacts of life sciences. Best-selling author; speaker; investor/co-founder in multiple start up companies; board member for both private and public companies/non-profits. Former founding Director of Life Sciences Project at Harvard Business School.
June Carolyn Erlick, editor-in-chief of ReVista, the Harvard Review of Latin America.
Gustavo Gorritti, Peruvian journalist, the founder of lDL Reporteros. He is a recipient of a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University and a winner of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 1992 and the FNPI Gabriel García Marquez award. Expert in Peruvian internal war and anti corruption investigation.
Carlos Lauría, Americas Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Julia Preston, national correspondent for The New York Times. Preston received a Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 1997.
María Teresa Ronderos, Serves as Director of VerdadAbierta.com. Ronderos is an editorial advisor to Semana. She received the King of Spain Ibero-American Award in 1997 and received a Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 2007.
Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

Recipients

Three to four medalists from the United States, Latin America, and Canada are selected each year. Prize winners receive the Cabot medal and a $5,000 honorarium, plus travel expenses to New York City and hotel accommodations for the presentation ceremony.
As of 2014, 273 Cabot gold medals and 56 special citations have been awarded to journalists from more than 30 countries in the Americas.
YearHonoreesCountry
2012Teodoro Petkoff
2012Miguel Ángel Bastenier
2012Juan Forero
2012David Luhnow
2012El Universo
2011Arizona Daily Star
2011El Diario de Juárez
2011Ríodoce
2011Carlos Dada
2011Jean-Michel Leprince
2010Tyler Bridges
2010Carlos Fernando Chamorro
2010Norman Gall
2010Joaquim Ibarz
2010Signal FM radio station
2010CNN and Anderson Cooper 360°
2009Anthony DePalma
2009Christopher Hawley
2009Merval Pereira
2009Yoani Sánchez
2008Carmen Aristegui Flores
2008Sam Quiñones
2008Gustavo Sierra
2008Michael Smith
2007Alfredo Corchado
2007José Vales
2007María Teresa Ronderos
2007Gary T. Marx
2006Mario Vargas Llosa
2006Ginger Thompson
2006José Hamilton Ribeiro
2006Matt Moffet
2005Miriam Leitão
2005Tim Padgett
2005Mabel Rehnfeldt
2005S. Lynne Walker
2005La Nación
2004Gerardo Reyes
2004Daniel Santoro
2004Elena Poniatowska
2004Joel Millman
2004Alberto Ibargüen
2003João Antônio Barros
2003Raúl Kraiselburd
2003Mac Margolis
2003Michael Reid
2003Sociedad de Periodistas Manuel Márquez Sterling
2002David C. Adams
2002Sergio Luis Carreras
2002Michèle Montas
2002Robert J. Rivard
2001Monica Gonzalez
2001Jorge Ramos
2001Clóvis Rossi
2001Sebastian R. Rotella
2000Eloy O. Aguilar
2000Paul Knox
2000Francisco Santos
2000Ricardo Uceda
2000Lloyd Williams
1999James McClatchy
1999Raúl Rivero
1999Linda Robinson
1999Juan Tamayo
1999Jorge Zepeda Patterson
1998Jesús Blancornelas
1998Edmundo Cruz Vílchez
1998Andrés Oppenheimer
1998William Lawrence Rohter, Jr.
1997Gerardo Bedoya
1997José de Córdoba
1997Jorge Fontevecchia
1997Julia Preston
1997Enrique Santos Castillo
1997Hernando Santos Castillo
1996Dudley Althaus
1996Ramón Garza García
1996Timothy Jay Johnson
1996Eduardo Ulibarri
1995Roberto Eisenmann
1995Douglas Farah
1995Canute James
1995Geri Smith
1995José Zamora Marroquín
1994James Brooke
1994Mauricio Funes
1994Susan Meiselas
1994Oscar Serrat
1993Pamela Constable
1993Manuel de Dios
1993Edward Seaton
1993Patricia Verdugo
1992Danilo Arbilla
1992Sam Dillon
1992John Dinges
1992Gustavo Gorriti
1991Ricardo Arnt
1991Gilberto Dimenstein
1991Otavio Frias Filho
1991Eduardo Gallardo
1991Alejandro Junco de la Vega
1990Richard Boudreaux
1990Huascar Cajias Kauffman
1990Elsie Etheart
1990Alma Guillermoprieto
1990Carlos Lins da Silva
1990Lucia Newman
1989Felipe López Caballero
1989Humberto Rubín Schvartzman
1989Juan M. Vazquez
1989Arturo Villar
1988Nicholas Clark Asheshov
1988Roberto Civita
1988Stephen Kinzer
1988Hermenegildo Sábat
1987Luis Camacho
1987Guillermo Cano Isaza
1987Raúl Echavarría Barrientos
1987Guy Gugliotta
1987Luis Levy
1987Roberto Muller
1987Paulo Sotero
1986Dario Arizmendi
1986Alfonso Chardy
1986Hugh O'Shaughnessy
1986Julio Rajneri
1986Guillermo Sánchez Borbón
1986Gavin Scott
1985Shirley Christian
1985Dery Dyer
1985Richard Dyer
1985William H. Heath
1985Rafael Herrera
1985Andrew Morrison
1985Aldo Zuccolillo
1984William Buzenberg
1984Kenneth Gordon
1984John Hoagland
1984Harold Hoyte
1984Alister Hughes
1984Cynthia Hughes
1984Frank Manitzas
1983Jack Fendell
1983Emilio Filippi
1983Everett Martin
1983Marcel Neidergang
1982Frances Grant
1982William R. Long
1982Daniel Samper
1981Karen DeYoung
1981Marlise Simons
1981Stanley Swinton
1981Jacobo Timerman
1980Richard T. Baker
1980Guido Fernández
1980Penny Lernoux
1980Alan Riding
1980Bill Stewart
1979Leslie Ashenheim
1979Jerry Hannifin
1979Andrew Heiskell
1979Jeremiah O'Leary
1979Juan Zuleta Ferrer
1978Joseph Benham
1978Carlos Castelo Branco
1978Robert Cox
1978Carl Migdail
1977Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal
1977Jonathan Kandell
1977Joseph A. Taylor
1977Anita von Kahler Gumpert
1976Robert U. Brown
1976Bernard Diederich
1976Germán Ornes
1976Jorge Remonda-Ruibal
1975Walter Everett
1975Norman Ingrey
1975David Kraiselburd
1975Sam Summerlin
1975Enrique Zileri Gibson
1974Donald Bohning
1974William Montalbano
1974Fernando Pedreira
1973David F. Belnap
1973Donald Casey
1973Diana Julio de Massot
1972Pedro Beltrán
1972Tom Steithorst
1972Arturo Uslar Pietri
1971Juan Carlos Colombres
1971Georgie Anne Geyer
1971Julio Scherer García
1970Alberto Dines
1970John Goshko
1970John Harbron
1969Alceu Amoroso Lima
1969Edward W. Barrett
1969George Beebe
1969Luis Gabriel Cano
1968Robert Bellerez
1968Alberto Gainza Paz
1968Guillermo Gutiérrez
1968Argentina Hills
1968José Joaquin Salcedo
1967Peter Aldor
1967James S. Copley
1967James Goodsell
1967M.F. Nascimento Brito
1967Ramón J. Velásquez
1966Alberto Cellario
1966Agustín Edwards Eastman
1966Paul Kidd
1965Gesford Fine
1965Roberto Marinho
1965Victoria Ocampo
1965Paul Sanders
1964Hugo Fernández Artucio
1964Bertram Johansson
1964Enrique Nores
1964Virginia Prewett
1963Germán Arciniegas
1963William Barlow
1963Jorge Fernández
1963Juan de Onis
1963Juan Valmaggia
1962Raúl Fontaina
1962John R. Herbert
1962Rodolfo Junco de la Vega
1962John Shively Knight
1961Alejandro Carrión
1961Fernando Gómez Martínez
1961Albert Nevins
1961Rómulo O'Farrill
1961John T. O'Rourke
1960James Canel
1960José Dutriz, Jr.
1960Rodolfo Luque
1960William M. Pepper, Jr.
1960Eduardo Santos
1959Ricardo Castro Beeche
1959Clement Hellyer
1959Juan A. Ramírez
1959Tad Szulc
1959Hernane Tavares de Sá
1958Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta
1958Eduardo Cardenas
1958Jesús Hernández Chapellín
1958Miguel Angel Quevedo
1957Paulo Bittencourt
1957Luis Franzini
1957Harry W. Frantz
1957John Shively Knight
1957Miguel Lanz Duret
1957Carlos Mantilla
1957Roberto Marinho
1957Guillermo Martínez Márquez
1957Herbert Moses
1957John T. O'Rourke
1957René Silva Espejo
1957James Geddes Stahlman
1957Tom Wallace
1956Carl W. Ackerman
1956Jesús Alvarez del Castillo
1956Roberto García Peña
1956Herbert Matthews
1956David Torino
1955Pedro Beltrán
1955Breno Caldas
1955John Oliver LaGorce
1955Roberto Noble
1955A. T. Steele
1954Gabriel Cano
1954Sidney Fletcher
1954Danton Jobim
1954Carlos Ramirez MacGregor
1954Lloyd Statton
1953Crede Clahoun
1953Carlos Lacerda
1953Ismael Pérez Castro
1953Arturo Schaerer
1952Antonio Arias Bernal
1952Austregésilo de Athayde
1952Jorge Délano Frederick
1952Jules Dubois
1952Juan B. Fernández
1951Elmano Cardim
1951Julio Garzón
1951Ramón León
1951Francisco María Núñez
1950John Brogan
1950María Constanza Huergo
1950Jesús María Pellín
1950Joshua Powers
1950Ángel Ramos
1949Milton Bracker
1949Eduardo Rodriguez Larreta
1949José Santiago Castillo
1948Manuel Cineros Sánchez
1948Joseph L. Jones
1948Orlando Ribeiro Dantas
1948Alfredo Silva-Carballo
1947Carlos Aramayo
1947Alberto Lleras Camargo
1947David Vela
1946Grant Dexter
1946Lee Hills
1946Miguel Lanz Duret
1945Assis Chateaubriand
1945Luis Teófilo Nuñez
1945Tom Wallace
1944Carlos Mantilla Ortega
1944Albert McGeachy
1944Jorge Pinto
1943Pedro Cue
1943Rodrigo de Llano
1943Edward Tomlinson
1942Lorenzo Batlle Pacheco
1942Luis Mitre
1941Paulo Bittencourt
1941Sylvia de Arruda Botelho Bittencourt
1941Carlos Dávila
1941José Ignacio Rivero
1940Agustín Edwards Mac Clure
1940James Irving Miller
1940Enrique Santos Montejo
1940Rafael Heliodoro Valle
1939Luis Miró Quesada de la Guerra
1939José Santos Gollan

Ceremony

The winners of the award are announced between May and July, and the prizes are presented by the President of Columbia University each fall at a ceremony in the rotunda of Low Memorial Library.

Yoani Sánchez case

In 2009, 34-year-old Cuban writer Yoani Sánchez became the first blogger to win the Maria Moors Cabot Prize. The award was given for her blog Generación Y, which contained much criticism of the Cuban regime. Sánchez was denied an exit visa to travel to New York to receive her prize.