William González Guevara, awarded for his report on Rubén Darío's forgeries in ABC Cultural

A formidable report by William González Guevara on the forgery of Rubén Darío's manuscripts in Nicaragua , which graced the cover of ABC Cultural on May 4, 2024, won the Francisco Valdés Journalism Award for the best report published in Spain by a student. The young journalist, of Nicaraguan origin and based in Spain, was doing an internship at our newspaper when he wrote this report, entitled "The Greatest Forgery in the History of Poetry," which forced renowned universities such as Harvard and Arizona, where the forgery ended up, to modify the indexes of their archives.

In his acceptance speech during a ceremony held in Don Benito, William González Guevara briefly recounted the six months of painstaking, "millimetric" work that enabled him to compile the evidence and testimony that made the award-winning report possible. He confessed that he received "enormous direct intimidation from the dictatorship. And," he added, "I won't deny it: I was afraid and wanted to faint while I was writing." For this reason, he took special care to protect his sources, "because one false step or one miscalculated line (unbelievable as it may seem) would mean jail, torture, or death for them."

As he stated, "After a year, I realized that the Ortega dictatorship's insistence on killing our story was due to the fact that we had broken with yet another avenue of money laundering for the current Nicaraguan government." This brilliant young journalist's speech was also a defense of speech and freedom: "If there's one thing that defines this scoop, it's that it has served to inconvenience a dictatorship. Autocrats fear the power of speech. Simply because they can't control it. Despite the pressure coming from Central America, I continued working. I poured my heart into this story."

The fact that he landed the cover of ABC Cultural as an intern moved him to express his deep gratitude to ABC and its director, Julián Quirós . And also, as it could not be otherwise, to vindicate the dignity of those who begin their careers in journalism with faith in the importance of the profession: "Intern is a very sad, orphaned, and desolate word. It knows no laws, but it does know inequalities (one million apprentices were paid nothing last year). The word intern is agonizing. You say it, and as soon as it comes out of your mouth, you don't know if you're deceiving the State, the mutilated Intern Statute, or the thousands of scoundrels scattered throughout Spain who have taken advantage (and continue to take advantage) of the apprentices' enthusiasm. Therefore, I dedicate this award to them. I dedicate it to myself. We are not journalistic crumbs programmed to write SEO articles to increase traffic to the newspaper's website. "I refuse to respect this idea they're imposing on us. We're also useful for uncovering fraud, producing quality investigative reporting, or conducting rigorous interviews," he concluded.

Among the winners of this 26th edition were Lorenzo Milá (Santiago Castelo Award, in memory of the deputy editor of ABC) and Luis Miguel Fuentes, columnist for 'El Independiente', for an article honoring Victoria Prego. The Francisco Valdés Award was established in 1998 in memory of the illustrious writer born in this Extremaduran town. This year, the award was presented alongside another recognition, the Santiago Castelo Award, which recognizes "professional experience, personal quality, commitment to journalism, and the defense of freedoms."