Jiménez Cruz was selected for her work leading Maldita.es, a Spain-based fact-checking organization internationally recognized for its community-building strategy and journalistic innovation. The list of nominees also includes journalists working for media outlets such as Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, El Espectador, Teen Vogue, and Vice, as well as others leading their own independent projects.
This award is being presented for the first time in 2020 with the aim of recognizing five journalists aged 18 to 35 worldwide who have promising careers and inspire others through their work—changing the way journalism is practiced and empowering 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 Twitter and Medium co-founder Biz Stone.
The One Young award is presented by the organization One Young World, which is made up of more than 190 businesses, non-governmental organizations, and educational institutions worldwide, including 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, and Verizon, among others.
Each year, One Young World organizes the One Young World Summit with delegates from more than 190 countries, including politicians, business leaders, and prominent figures from various fields such as Justin Trudeau, Paul Polman, and Meghan Markle. The event will be held in April 2021 in Munich, Germany. If selected among the five finalists, Jiménez Cruz will attend the event as part of the award.
These are the profiles of those selected by the organization’s jury:
-
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin (Kuwait): An Emmy-nominated journalist and producer. His most recent work was as Senior Presenter for AJ+, focusing on documentaries about social justice and human rights.
-
Ben Hunte (United Kingdom): The BBC’s first LGBT correspondent, covering issues related to sexuality and gender. Previously, he launched the BBC’s first children’s program and digital service in Africa.
-
Hamoud Al-Mousa (Syria): A journalist, human rights advocate, and activist. He is the founder of the organization Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which exposes atrocities committed by the Bashar al-Assad regime and ISIS in Syria.
-
Anna Babinets (Ukraine): Editor-in-chief of SLIDSTVO.INFO, an agency producing documentaries and investigative reports on large-scale corruption and major crimes in Ukraine.
-
Juan Rincón (Colombia): Opinion editor at El Espectador. He is also co-founder of several projects including La Pulla, Las Igualadas, and La Puesverdad.
-
Kiki Mordi (Nigeria): An activist for gender equality and LGBT rights in Nigeria. She has worked for the BBC in Africa and as a data investigator for the Special Independent Investigative Panel of the Nigerian National Human Rights Commission on Sexual Violence.
-
Larry Madowo (Kenya): Business Editor for BBC Africa. He has produced more than six business programs for the BBC in English, French, and Swahili.
-
Lindsay Peoples Wagner (United States): Editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. Previously, she was an editor at The Cut and New York Magazine. She was named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list.
-
Neha Dixit (India): An independent investigative journalist covering politics, gender, and social justice in South Asia.
-
Nelufar Hedayat (United Kingdom): Presenter of the third season of Morgan Freeman’s series Story of God for National Geographic and host of the Netflix series The Traffickers.
-
Paola Ramos (United States): Emmy Award winner, presenter, and correspondent for VICE and VICE News. She received the “Latinas Unidas” award from Harvard University.
-
Paul Caruana Galizia (Malta): Editor at Tortoise. He also established the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation with his siblings and father in pursuit of justice for the murder of his journalist mother.
-
Sara Wesslin (Finland): A journalist and presenter of Skolt Sámi ethnicity. She secured funding from her country’s Ministry of Education to create a resource center for Sámi languages.
-
Yusuf Omar (South Africa): An international correspondent. He was a social media reporter for CNN and is the founder of Hashtag Our Stories.