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New York – Laura Zommer, CEO and Co-founder of Factchequeado, has been honored as one of two 2024 recipients of the Special Citation of the María Moors Cabot Prizes by the Columbia University Committee. This marks the first time that a leader from the fact-checking and misinformation-fighting world has been selected.
The María Moors Cabot Prizes are the oldest international journalism awards. These awards recognize journalists and news organizations with distinguished careers that have significantly contributed to inter-American understanding.
“At a time when truth and facts are under siege by misinformation, Laura Zommer leads the fight for transparency and fact-checking using technology and digital journalism tools. Zommer saw the future. When she joined Chequeado.com in Argentina in 2012, fact-checking was almost unknown in Latin America,” said the jury members. They added: “These remarkable contributions have rightfully earned Laura Zommer a special citation from the María Moors Cabot Prize board, recognizing her as a visionary and a beacon of integrity and innovation in modern journalism in the Americas.”
Laura Zommer’s complete speech: "We are creating new ways to do high-quality journalism."
“Thank you very much to all of you for being here today celebrating journalism and the value of facts. Special thanks to Columbia University and the jury for this prestigious award. In addition to being happy (and - I confess - nervous), I feel truly grateful and honored to receive the María Moors Cabot Special Citation today.
I couldn’t have made it this far without the generosity, talent and trust of so many people. My family has always been my rock: my son, Fermín, and my husband, Nico, are my constant sources of wisdom and strength. To Clara Jiménez Cruz, co-founder of Factchequeado — thank you for sharing this journey with me. Together, we are building Factchequeado into the most significant effort against disinformation in Spanish in the US. We already have 112 allies in 23 states and Puerto Rico, and we are just getting started.
As the co-founder and CEO of Factchequeado, I represent a diverse and dedicated team that works extremely hard to ensure that Latino and Hispanic communities living in the U.S. have access to reliable, verified information, in the channels where they prefer to consume news and discuss politics.
This is more than an award for me or Factchequeado —it is for all of us who are committed to developing better solutions to address disinformation around the world. To my colleagues with the International Fact-Checking Network, especially those who confront governments that systematically lie, know that this recognition is yours, too.
Those who make money with lies, those who discredit their adversaries with deception, those who bet on polarization and violence, those who profit from the design and opacity of social media algorithms, those who use technology without considering the ethical dilemmas that they entail, they force those of us who do journalism to be more rigorous, more creative and more daring than ever.
To have an impact, so the facts and truth win and are not lost in the noise and fireworks on our cell phones, we not only have to do the journalism that we are trained to do, but also design new ways of listening to and informing our communities, as well as innovate how we fund our work.
Factchequeado began with a simple yet profound vision: to close the information gap for more than 42 million Spanish-speaking Latinos in the U.S., who are disproportionately vulnerable to dis- and misinformation. This vision is rooted in the work I did for more than a decade at Chequeado, collaborating with more than 40 fact-checking media organizations across Latin America in the LatamChequea network. As a journalist, lawyer, and teacher, my work has always been driven by passion, collaboration and transparency. There is also a powerful curiosity that fuels me, a curiosity to learn, to improve, and to help others do the same.
What inspires me the most is that we’re not just reacting to disinformation—we’re creating new ways of doing high-quality journalism, pushing boundaries, and experimenting with news workflows and tools that allow us to stay ahead of disinformation. What we do not only strengthens journalism, but also plays a part in defending democracy by empowering communities.
Growing up as the child of immigrant parents in Buenos Aires, I learned early on about the challenges and values of being multicultural, always asking: "How can we improve the places where we choose to live?" When the journalism I did in traditional media didn’t satisfy my aspirations, I had the courage to ask "why not?" and the persistence to make change happen. That’s who I am today.
The power of community and relationships is something I’ve valued since the beginning of my career, and it’s become the foundation of Factchequeado and the collaborative journalism we believe in. Even though these communities are being blamed for all the ills of the United States, they are connected, and they are strong. The strength of these communities is why I’m confident that we can - and will - continue to make a real impact in the fight against disinformation.
To combat dis- and misinformation effectively we not only need to focus on factual corrections, but also connections. If you know someone who lives in the United States and consumes information in Spanish, please tell them about Factchequeado. If you can support our work in any way, please, reach out to me and my team. We share enormous challenges and significant opportunities. Let’s live up to those challenges and make the very best of every opportunity.
Thank you, once again, for this incredible honor.”
Zommer’s speech in Spanish is available here.
Cabot Prizes: All the Awardees
The 2024 María Moors Cabot Prize gold medalists are: Lalo de Almeida, documentary photographer; Carlos Ernesto Martínez of El Faro; John Otis of NPR; and Frances Robles of The New York Times, along with the Special Citation to InSight Crime.
The award ceremony took place at The Italian Academy of Columbia University on Wednesday, October 8, 2024.
Primera fecha de publicación de este artículo: 09/10/2024
