Lloyd Williams
LLOYD WILLIAMS, Senior Associate Editor of The Gleaner, has been awarded the prestigious Maria Moors Cabot Prize bestowed annually by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York.
He is being honoured for investigative reporting of the drug trade and crime.
The Cabot awards, in their 62nd year, honour journalists who have "demonstrated compassion and commitment to freedom of the press and inter-American understanding," Columbia said in a statement yesterday.
Reacting to the announcement, Wyvolyn Gager, Editor-in-Chief, said, "The Gleaner is honoured that Lloyd should be recognised at this level for his outstanding work."
This is the third time that The Gleaner has been honoured with a Cabot award. First, in 1954, the then Managing Director S.G. Fletcher, was hailed for making The Gleaner "the outstanding exponent of Intra-American interests and friendship among all the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations in this hemisphere" and for his "creation of this new role for Jamaica in Inter-American relationships."
And in 1979, The Gleaner was presented with a citation by the Cabot Prize Committee for "its fearless reporting and its high standard of journalism." The citation was accepted by the Hon. Leslie Ashenheim, who was then Honorary Chairman of The Gleaner.
Mr. Williams is one of three journalists to be presented with medals at the Cabot Prize ceremony at Columbia's Manhattan campus on September 27.
Also being honoured are Eloy Aguilar, Mexico bureau chief of the Associated Press; Paul Knox, international affairs reporter for The Globe and Mail, Canada; and Ricardo Uceda Perez, chief of the investigative unit of El Comercio in Peru. A special citation will be given to Francisco Santos, columnist for El Tiempo, Colombia.
Mr. Williams began his journalism career with an initial eight-year stint at The Gleaner from 1960 and again between 1977 and 1983. In between he was involved in radio news editing, public relations and freelance reporting, before returning to The Gleaner in November 1999.
He has won two major Caribbean media awards as "Best Investigative Journalist" in 1983 and "Investigative Reporter of the Year" in 1986, bestowed by the CPBA and the CBU.
Aguilar has headed AP bureau's in Mexico City since 1979, co-ordinating news and photo coverage of Mexico and Central America.
Knox has written and edited for The Globe and Mail since 1978, and is also a Spanish-language commentator for Radio Canada International.
Uceda, of Peru's El Com-ercio, has worked on investigations into alleged election fraud, the disappearance and murder of a teacher and nine students, and surgical sterilisations performed on pregnant women without their knowledge.
