SEPI Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales

• The Extraordinary Award for EFE’s 75th anniversary was awarded to the news agency’s former Chairperson, Mr. Luis María Anson
• The exhibition 'EFE'75. Historia de la primera agencia global en español' assembles together in Madrid more than 400 photographs, 200 artifacts, 100 documents, and around 30 videos for showing the historical path followed by the news agency itself and by Spain

The thirty-first series of the King of Spain International Journalism Awards and the tenth Award Don Quixote, awarded today at the Casa del Lector de Madrid by His Majesty Juan Carlos I of Spain, have acknowledged the work carried out by journalists from Spain and Latin America, who have written articles and made reportages with a human and denounce interest. The ceremony during which these awards – which are called every year by AGENCIA EFE and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) - are granted coincided this year with the inauguration of the exhibition commemorating EFE’s 75th anniversary.

Journalists from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Spain, the US, Mexico, and Nicaragua have been distinguished with these awards. The ceremony in which they were awarded was also attended by Queen Sofía, the Government’s Vice President, Ms. Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, and the Secretary-General for Latin America, Ms., Rebeca Grynspan, among other authorities, as well as by well known persons from the corporate, diplomatic and journalistic world, and by representatives from the cultural and the show business worlds.

The Spaniards Mr. José María Irujo (the Press) and Mr. Pedro Armestre (Photography); the Brazilians Ms. Renata Borges Colomno and Mr. Fábio Almeida (Radio); Ms. Lourdes Torres, from the US station Univisión (TV); the Argentine Mr Fernando Guillermo Irigaray (Digital Journalism), and the Nicaraguan Mr. Octavio Enríquez (Environmental Journalism) received the awards in their six main categories.

The jury reviewed 176 works from nineteen countries in the different award categories. Each of these awards is endowed with 6,000 Euros and a bronze sculpture made by the artist Mr. Joaquín Vaquero Turcios.

The Award Don Quixote for Journalism, which is sponsored by TRAGSA (Grupo SEPI) and endowed with 9,000 Euros, was granted to the Spaniard Ms. Martina Bastos. While the Colombian Mr. Juan Carlos Iragorri and the Mexican Mr. Jesús Peña Sánchez were awarded consolation prizes of the Television and Don Quixote awards, respectively.

When he talked about those who had won the awards, the King defended the need of a “rigorous and serious” journalism, highlighting that the work of the quality press “is not only a key factor for informing citizens, but it also contributes to strengthening coexistence and democracy” in Society at large.

Don Juan Carlos praised these awards as “a key reference for the Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking journalism”, and added that “they combine quality and universality, and that “they make possible to acknowledge the excellent work from the best journalism’s professionals”.

On his part, EFE’s Chairperson, Mr. José Antonio Vera, pointed out this news agency’s commitment with information, which has turned it into “a world referent” when reaching this year its 75th anniversary. About the awards, Mr. Vera highlighted that they are already regarded “by many of our colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic as the “Pulitzers” of Latin journalism”.

The Deputy Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Mr. Jesús Manuel Gracia, who chaired the jury, stressed the importance which free communication media have, because without them “our free and democratic society could not exist”.

Extraordinary Award for EFE’s 75th anniversary

The culmination of the ceremony was the granting of the Extraordinary Award for EFE’s 75th anniversary by the former Chairperson of this news agency, Mr. Luis María Anson, for his role in the promotion of this Company and its international homologation, to the point that it is now the fourth in the world and the first in Spanish. With regard to Mr. de Anson, the King stated that the then Chairperson of Agencia EFE during Spanish political transition to Democracy “led its modernization and promoted its international scope”.

EFE'75: History of the first global news agency in Spanish

The handing over of the awards took place before the inauguration, by the Kings, of the exhibition which commemorates the 75th anniversary of Agencia EFE. For this reason, King Juan Carlos I praised EFE’s long background, which has contributed to “organizing information in Spain and which has made known in the rest of the world the evolution and transformation experienced by the country”.

With the title 'EFE'75: The history of the first global news agency in Spanish” ', Agencia EFE offers through its photographs and teletypes a way for seeing all which took place in Spain during those years, told by this communication medium.

The exhibition has been set up at the Casa del Lector of the Centro de Creación Contemporánea Matadero Madrid, where it will stay until mid-January 2015. With this initiative, Agencia EFE has managed to assemble more than 400 photographs, 200 artifacts, 100 documents, and around 30 videos, which allow showing the historical path about the evolution experienced by this communication medium, which has taken place simultaneously with that of the country in which it was born 75 years ago.

Organized along decades, the exhibition explains EFE’s technological evolution, while telling at the same time how its journalists told each of the most significant events lived through by Spaniards during the last 75 years, in their own country and in the world. In order to achieve this goal, use is made of last-generation appliances, especially of the augmented reality technology, which has been applied to the exhibition by researchers from the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia.

Thus, visitors can interact with their tables and mobile appliances through photographs, documents, and artifacts which are on exhibit for reaching to emblematic videos, historical recordings, or images galleries.

The exhibition also has an area devoted to the future of journalism, communication, and news agencies, and another one focused on photography, with a selection of the cameras used by the news agency’ journalists during this time. It will be also possible to visit one of the chemical laboratories in which negatives were developed and copies were made. And finally, a room called 'Biblioteca gráfica de EFE', (EFE’s graphical library), with a selection of books and photographs from the news agency which won awards during these 75 years.

About EFE

EFE is a multimedia news agency in which collaborate more than 3,000 professionals with 60 nationalities. It is the first news agency in Spanish, and the fourth in the world in terms of international presence, with edition desks in English, with editing desks in English, Portuguese, Arabic, Catalonian, Galician, and with offices in 180 cities from 120 countries.

Agencia EFE and Grupo SEPI

AGENCIA EFE belongs to Grupo SEPI, a corporate holding which includes a total of 16 state-owned companies in which it has direct, majority shareholding participations, with a workforce of more than 75,000 professionals in 2012; it also includes the Spanish state-owned television and radio corporation, Corporación Radiotelevisión Española, which is attached to SEPI, and one public foundation. Equally, SEPI has direct minority shareholdings in a further nine companies, and indirect shareholdings in more than one hundred companies.