Wilfredo Miranda and Carlos Herrera, Ortega y Gasset Award for the best multimedia coverage: "In Nicaragua, journalism is a high-risk profession"

What was going to be four separate reports ended up being the award-winning work for best multimedia coverage at the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards, which will be presented this Tuesday in Valencia.

published by the Nicaraguan media outlet

is a web special that reflects the repression and horror that Nicaragua is experiencing under the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega.

Two of the authors of the work, Wilfredo Miranda and Carlos Herrera, remember how, for a year, they collected information, collected voices and thought of formats to deal with very different aspects of the current situation in the country, which they had to abandon almost a year ago.

“It's not certain that we could do this job today,” says Miranda.

"Now silence reigns even more," he relates with regret because, like them, more than a hundred journalists live today in exile, persecuted by the Ortega regime.

"In Nicaragua, journalism is a high-risk profession," says Miranda, who, like his partner, personally suffered persecution from Ortega, accused through a law that gives the president the ability to decide what is true and what is not, created to persecute journalists.

Added to this difficulty is the fact that there are no other sources of information than the official ones, but politicians, judges and prosecutors "either are in jail, or in exile, or they are afraid."

More information

The 2022 Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards gala, live

Miranda and Herrera work in exile, but they do not give up their efforts to do journalism.

Although without reproaches, they admit that the repression "has been normalized" in Nicaragua, a country that, perhaps, should attract the attention of more media outlets "and the Academy," says Miranda.

"If there is no freedom of the press, there is no freedom of thought and no journalist serves as a prisoner or martyr," she says.

Currently, in Nicaragua there are three journalists and a director of a newspaper in prison, as well as three “confiscated” newsrooms.

Two of the members of 'Divergentes', Wilfredo Miranda and Carlos Herrera, this Monday in Valencia.Ana Escobar

Both know by heart each of the 12 parts into which the special is divided.

They were part of his deed, planning and elaboration.

Except for the analyses, the reports, information and chronicles are not signed, they are anonymous.

“It is important to preserve the safety of reporters,” explains Wilfredo Miranda, arguing that this anonymity forces them to work even more rigorously than is required of a journalist who signs their information, but, according to him, “anonymity It has become something substantial.”

Both Miranda and Herrera speak firmly of Nicaragua, of the murders, of the horror with which those who still remain in the country live.

“There is impotence, rage and pain.

We live in a state of terror,” recalls Herrera.

Her talk has no cracks.

They know they are transmitters of the history of their country and they trust that their work will serve to preserve memory, that one day justice will be done and, furthermore, that it will not be repeated.

Even so, they are not optimistic about a better future in the medium term.

"The only way out that I see is Daniel Ortega's biological clock."

photo gallery

The 2022 Ortega y Gasset Awards ceremony, in images

Miranda and Herrera have dedicated the award to Nicaraguan journalists who are still trying to do their jobs and to those in prison who are suffering torture.

Both members of

trust that the recognition will serve to make the world aware of the repression that is being experienced in Nicaragua and the continuous violation of human rights.