We are proud 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.
You can listen to her report here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/10cVYefPVOq89bsT0RATOX…
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.