New Delhi: The Wire‘s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan and Mexican journalist Marcela Turati have been named the winners of the 24th El Mundo International Journalism Awards.El Mundo is one of Spain’s largest newspapers.The jury selected Varadarajan in the Press Freedom category and Turati in recognition of Outstanding Journalistic Work. They will receive the awards at a ceremony in February 2027.Upon receiving the news, Varadarajan told El Mundo, “This will provide a shot in the arm to The Wire and to independent journalism in India.”In addition to El Mundo director Joaquín Manso, the jury for the awards consisted of former foreign minister Ana Palacio, Corriere della Sera journalist Sara Gandolfi, Reuters’ Spain director Aislinn Laing, Telecinco director of news Carlos Franganillo, political scientist José Ignacio Torreblanca, journalist Felipe Sahagún, correspondent Xavier Colás, and El Mundo deputy editor Silvia Román.The International Journalism Awards were established in 2002, inspired by the killing of two El Mundo journalists – José Luis López de Lacalle, who was shot dead in May 2000, and reporter Julio Fuentes, who was killed in November 2001 in an ambush on a convoy of journalists during the war in Afghanistan.El Mundo writes in its report that the award to Varadarajan and Turati, “recognises courageous journalism, practised where pressure makes it all the more necessary, by two professionals from distant continents whose struggle for freedom and democracy concerns us all.”El Mundo director Manso is quoted as having said that the press freedom award for Varadarajan “recognises one of Asia’s great traditions of free journalism in India.”Describing Varadarajan’s career, Manso said:“Varadarajan has faced lawsuits, police investigations and accusations for scrutinising abuses of power by Modi’s government. And when a new generation of Indians, the Cockroaches, also began rebelling against the conformism of the official media, they found in Varadarajan a journalist who had already spent a decade defending the space of freedom that made that dissent possible.“His career is a reminder that India’s strength as a democracy – the world’s largest – also depends on those who make those in power uncomfortable being able to continue doing so.”Turati has built her career working for Mexican and international media, and her two major works are the books Fuego Cruzado which was the first major attempt to tell the story of Mexico’s drug war through the experiences of its victims, and San Fernando: Última Parada, which took it further.Her work has repeatedly documented the dangers faced by journalists in Mexico and the consequences of a system in which crimes against journalists frequently go unpunished.Manso noted how Turati is an example of committed journalism that “repairs injustices where the state is absent.”He added, “The price of pursuing that truth was that the Mexican government itself illegally spied on her in order to discover her sources and movements.”Note: Information for this piece was taken from El Mundo reports, originally in Spanish, and translated with the help of Google Translate.