Clara Jiménez Cruz, co-founder of Maldita.es, shortlisted to receive the “One Young” global award for young journalist of the year

Jiménez Cruz was selected for her work directing Maldita.es, a fact-checking organization based in Spain and recognized internationally for its strategy in community creation and its journalistic innovation. Within the list of nominees there are also journalists who work for media outlets such as Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, El Espectador, Teen Vogue, Vice or lead their own projects. 

This award is given for the first time in 2020 with the aim of recognizing 5 journalists between 18 and 35 years old worldwide with promising careers and who inspire others through their work, changing the way journalism is done and empowering other people by giving them a voice.

The jury that selected the 15 participants is made up of journalists: Afua Hirsch, Christiane Arp, Don Lemon, Ilia Calderón, James Chau and the co-founder of Twitter and Medium, Biz Stone. 

The One Young Award is awarded by the One Young World organization made up of more than 190 businesses, non-governmental and educational organizations around the world; Audi, BMW, BNP Paribas, Chanel, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Facebook, GE, Goldman Sachs, Google, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, L’Oréal, McKinsey, Novartis, Pepsico, Reckitt Benckiser, Siemens, Unilever or Verizon, among others. 

The One Young World organization organizes the One Young World Summit every year with delegates from more than 190 countries, including politicians, businessmen and leaders in different fields such as Justin Trudeau, Paul Polman and Meghan Markle. This event will take place in April 2021 in Munich, Germany. If selected among the 5 finalists, Jiménez Cruz will attend the event as part of the prize.  

These are the profiles of those selected by the organization’s jury: 

• Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, Kuwait: Emmy-nominated journalist and producer. His most recent work was as a Senior Presenter for AJ+ on documentaries focused on social justice and human rights.

• Ben Hunte, UK: He is the BBC’s first LGBT correspondent, working on sexuality and gender issues. Prior to that he launched the BBC’s first children’s program and digital service in Africa. 

• Hamoud Al-Mousa, Syria: He is a journalist, human rights defender and activist. He is founder of the organization Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently , which exposes the atrocities committed by the Bashar Al-Assad regime and ISIS in Syria.

• Anna Babinets, Ukraine: She is editor-in-chief of SLIDSTVO.INFO, an agency that produces documentaries and print texts on large-scale corruption and major crimes in Ukraine. 

• Juan Rincón, Colombia: He is the opinion editor of the newspaper El Espectador. He is also co-founder of several projects such as La Pulla, Las Igualadas and La Porque Verdad.   

• Kiki Mordi, Nigeria: It is an activity for gender equality and LGBT rights in Nigeria. She has worked for the BBC in Africa and as a data researcher for the Special Investigative Panel for the Nigerian National Human Rights Commission on Sexual Violence.

• Larry Madowo, Kenya: He is the Business Editor for BBC Africa. He has produced over 6 business programs for the BBC in English, French and Swahili.

• Lindsay Peoples Wagner, United States: She is the editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. Before that she was an editor at The Cut and New York Magazine. She was part of the list of leaders under 30 years old by Forbes magazine.

• Neha Dixit, India: She is a freelance investigative journalist covering politics, gender, and social justice in South Asia.

• Nelufar Hedayat, United Kingdom: She was the host of the third season of the Morgan Freeman series “Story of God” for Nat Geo and was also the host of the Netflix series “The Traffickers”.

• Paola Ramos, United States: She is an Emmy winner, host and correspondent for VICE and VICE News. She received the “Latinas Unidas” award from Harvard University.

• Paul Caruana Galizia, Malta: He is editor of Tortoise. He also established the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation alongside his brothers and his father in the search for justice for the murder of his journalist mother.

• Sara Wesslin, Finland: She is a journalist and presenter from the Skolt Sámi ethnic group. She secured funding from her country’s Ministry of Education to create a resource center for Sámi languages.
  
• Yusuf Omar, South Africa: He is an international correspondent. He was a social media reporter for CNN and is the founder of Hashtag Our Stories.