En Común journalist selected as finalist for Mexico’s prestigious National Science Journalism Award
We are excited to announce that environmental journalist Mariana Recamier has been selected as a finalist in the Audio & Podcast category of Mexico’s prestigious National Science Journalism Award for her special report that aired on our radio program En Común.
Mariana’s report, which we broadcast during Season Six of En Común, described the work of brigades of Nahuatl residents in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve who have been trained by university researchers to conduct environmental testing. Their findings forced a municipal government to repair a sewage leak that was polluting a river. Once the repair was made, wildlife returned to the area.
It is an honor to receive international recognition for En Comun’s reporting, which is having a direct impact on conservation efforts in Mexico and empowering Indigenous communities through science. We are especially pleased that our work was singled out by the National Science Journalism Award, which seeks to promote, encourage, and recognize journalism specializing in science, health, and the environment.
En Común reaches hundreds of thousands of listeners in underserved communities throughout Mexico and Latin America with fact-based science, health, climate and environmental programming. The weekly program offers carefully researched content that is aired by the most important radio networks and institutions in the region, which guarantees its reach to diverse audiences in the Western Hemisphere.
The National Science Journalism Awards received a total of 97 entries—a record number in the award’s history. There were three categories (text, audio/podcast, and video/multimedia) for reporting on issues related to science, public health, the environment, climate change, biodiversity, and sustainability.
The jury, composed of three media professionals for each category, evaluated the entries for journalistic and scientific rigor, depth of research, narrative quality, originality, and approach, as well as social relevance and journalistic ethics.
The winning entry by science journalist José Roberto González Espinosa, La fiesta del agua [The Water Festival], tells the story of an alliance of scientists and environmentalists who managed to bring water back to a dry river in the Sonoran Desert. The report explores what it meant for local residents in San Luis Rio Colorado and Mexicali to experience the restoration of the final kilometers of what has become the most heavily exploited river basin in the world.
Tijuana journalist Estephanía Báez wins Emmy Award for coverage during InquireFirst program
Huge congratulations to Tijuana journalist Estephanía Báez, who was honored with an Emmy Award on June 27, 2026, for a series of immigration reports based on her reporting during a week-long reporting trip to El Paso and San Diego in June 2025 that was organized and led by InquireFirst.
Estephanía, a binational reporter for XEWT Televisa NMAS Tijuana, won in the category of Border Issues. The title of her entry was Seven Days at the Border: A look into CBP operations in California and Texas. Her in-depth reports reached millions of viewers in Baja California, Southern California and the Imperial Valley.
The Emmy Awards ceremony was hosted by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Pacific Southwest Chapter in San Diego. It recognized outstanding achievements in television, journalism and media in the San Diego-Baja California region, Bakersfield, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria (California) and Las Vegas. Hundreds of entries were submitted across categories ranging from breaking news to Indigenous storytelling and public service.
Estephanía credited InquireFirst with giving her a unique opportunity to conduct immigration reporting by providing high-level access to in-depth information on an issue of vital concern to her viewers in the Baja California-Southern California region.
“Your organization is a platform that enriches not only one’s professional life but also one’s personal life. I will never forget that trip,” Estephanía said. “Thanks for everything.”
awards
Mexican reporting team wins national prize for coverage during InquireFirst program
Iván Carrillo receives 2025 award for Excellence in Science Communications from National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
Iván Carrillo, the co-founder of two InquireFirst journalism programs on science, health and the environment, is a 2025 recipient of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Award for Excellence…
Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) recognizes InquireFirst project for Outstanding Explanatory Reporting
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Covering Climate Now awards Historias Sin Fronteras project for Food & Agriculture coverage
In July 2024, Covering Climate Now recognized our Historias Sin Frontera multimedia project as a winner in the Food & Agriculture category of its annual climate journalism awards.
Panama journalist wins national prize for coverage during InquireFirst program
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InquireFirst wins Fetisov Journalism Award for environmental reporting at ceremony in Istanbul
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Voces Emergentes Ecuador team wins 2024 national journalism award
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Historias Sin Fronteras project wins gold medal in state journalism award
At the U.S.-Mexico border our Historias Sin Fronteras cross-border paleontology project titled Unearthed: The peaceful past of “the most violent city in the world” was awarded a gold medal (First…
Mexican journalist Enrique Cordero wins Premios TAL international award for Special Report on immigration
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Historias Sin Fronteras project a finalist in National Journalism Award
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Logan Foundation extends support of InquireFirst programs for Latin American journalists through 2028
We’re proud to announce that The Reva & David Logan Foundation is continuing its long-standing support of our programs for Latin American journalists.
A grant awarded to InquireFirst by the Logan Foundation from 2026 until 2028 on the occasion of our 10th anniversary will allow us to expand the work we’re doing to support and strengthen journalism in our hemisphere.
The Logan Foundation said it aims “to help advance InquireFirst’s role in maintaining a robust journalism ecosystem in Latin America through programs that promote cross-border investigations and help advance the careers and skills of early-career journalists.”
Over the next two years, support from the Logan Foundation will help us continue our wide-ranging regional reporting programs that since 2023 have offered full scholarships to 107 Latin American journalists from 14 countries to travel to the United States for week-long reporting trips.
These trips, which provide unprecedented access to U.S. officials and NGOs, offer Latin American journalists the opportunity to conduct nuanced reporting on complex policy issues and the human drama of immigration.
Journalists who participated in the trips organized by InquireFirst from 2023-2026 traveled to San Diego, Tucson, Big Bend, El Paso, the Rio Grande Valley, New York City and Miami. Six additional reporting trips to the U.S.-Mexico border and cities in the interior of the United States are planned for 2026-27.
In May 2026, the InquireFirst team traveled to Quito to conduct an in-person program on safety protocols for journalists from throughout Ecuador.
With the support of the Logan Foundation in 2025, InquireFirst conducted a virtual training program for Ecuadorian editors and reporters to help them develop safety protocols to protect themselves, their sources, their digital material, and their mental health as they report amid increasing violence. We followed up on that program, instructed by security experts from the United States, Latin America and Europe, with our in-person program in Quito in May.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that Ecuador is going through an unprecedented security crisis, driven by organized crime, institutional weakening and growing social conflict. Our programs on security protocols carried an important message. At a time when many journalists across Latin America face heightened threats, harassment and uncertainty, Ecuadoran journalists were reminded that they are not alone. The international journalism community stands with them.
En Común returns for sixth season of environmental programing
We’re back on the air with a sixth season of En Común: conocimento en voz viva, our Spanish-language science, environmental and health radio program tailored for rural and Indigenous communities in Mexico and reported primarily by Indigenous journalists.
Thanks to the generous support of the Golden Globe Foundation, we are airing 20 in-depth, meticulously reported episodes on subjects ranging from the impact of climate change on rural communities to ocean conservation to protection of Mexico’s rich biodiversity.
The radio program shares the voices of Indigenous people while our reporters – many of them Indigenous journalists working for the first time with an international media organization – record the cultural traditions of people in their communities that help care for the environment.
En Común co-founder and executive producer Iván Carrillo and InquireFirst Executive Director Lynne Walker have formed alliances with Mexico’s regional and national radio networks that make it possible for the weekly program to reach millions of listeners in communities stretching from Baja California to Chiapas.
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SYMPOSIUMS
InquireFirst meets with Ecuadorian journalists in Quito to discuss security protocols
World Conference of Science Journalism 2023
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Making a difference Zika workshop focuses on international collaboration
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