IRP Fellow Eva Sanchis wins NAHJ Award
By IRP Staff, June 11, 2009
A series of stories by an International Reporting Project (IRP) Fellow on illegal logging in Honduras has won the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' 2008 Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Latin American Reporting.
The award was presented at the NAHJ's annual "Noche de Triunfos"gala dinner in Washington D.C. to Eva Sanchis, who reported from Honduras in 2006 as an IRP Fellow. Sanchis's stories ran in El Diario/La Prensa, a New York-based Spanish-language paper where she is the metro editor.
As an IRP Fellow, Sanchis spent five weeks in Honduras reporting on Honduran groups who oppose the illegal exportation of lumber, mainly to the United States, by the logging companies. The resulting series, "War in the Honduran forests/Guerra en los bosques de Honduras," was cited by the NAHJ judges as an "impressive package on such a critical issue facing Honduras . . . well-researched, with striking photography and strong graphics. The U.S. mainstream press has long ignored the plight of murdered Honduran environmentalists who died fighting to stop the illegal lumber trade."