Advertisement

Columbia’s Cabot Prize honors Cuban blogger Sanchez

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Cuban blogger Yoanie Sanchez has won Columbia University’s Cabot Prize for her postings from the island she calls home.

The Cabot Prize, which recognizes reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean, gave Sanchez the gold medal for her work on her blog, Generación Y.

Advertisement

She was the only digital reporter of the four journalists recognized by this year’s prize.

‘Generación Y does not repeat the battle of words which Cuba and the U.S. have hurled back and forth for five decades. Instead, it is a pitch-perfect mix of personal observation and tough analysis, which conveys better than anybody else what daily life — with all its frustrations and hopes — is like for Cubans living their lives on the island today,’ says the press release, which you can see here.

You can read Sanchez writing about the prize here on her blog, Generacion Y.

‘I think I will use the prestige and protection that the Cabot Prize brings with it to continue to grow the Cuban blogosphere. The alternative journey that unites us every week has reached a point where it must become an authentic blogger academy. As I don’t plan to wait to be allowed to open a school of digital journalism in order to realize this project, I will begin it [without] bureaucratic and legal formality. The distinction that I have received today can contribute to the birth of a new kind of instruction here, one without ideological conditions, and without those ugly costumes which at one time made me distance myself from the academic world,’ writes Sánchez.

Sanchez has won a number of prizes for her blog from Cuba, where, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, only government officials and people with links to the Communist Party have Web access. The CPJ lists Cuba as one of the world’s 10 worst countries for bloggers, and blogs such as those written by Sanchez are hosted outside the country.

The judges recognized Sanchez’s blogging efforts against the backdrop of poor resources and a difficult political climate:

Advertisement

‘Sanchez, a 34-year-old philologist, pursues her craft with ingenuity, scarce resources and an enormous amount of guts — buying a few minutes here and there on one of the few Internet-connected computers available to Cubans in Havana, quickly downloading and e-mailing her written and video comments to devoted supporters who post the blog in 15 languages. She has a loyal following of thousands around the world.’

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Advertisement