Queen Letizia handed out the Luis Carandell Prizes for Parliamentary Journalism during the 13th edition of its awards.
The prizes are handed out by the Spanish Senate and present awards for two categories: Parliament and Territories. Each of the categories has a prize budget of 4000€, which will be equally split in case of multiple winners.
During the ceremony, which took place on 27 January, Her Majesty was accompanied by the President of the Senate, the Minister of Territorial Policy and members of parliamentary committees.
This year’s prize recipients were announced in June 2021, following a consultation with the Senate and upon hearing the opinions of the judging panel. The winners are Antonio del Rey Muñoz for the Parliamentary Category and Joaquín Anastasio González, Loreto Gutiérrez Prats y a Silvia Mascareño Díaz for the Territorial Category.
The awards ceremony was conducted by Diana Arias, an RTVE journalist in charge of presenting Parlamento, a programme that discusses legislative activity in the Spanish Parliament.
Following the reception of their prizes from the hands of Queen Letizia, the winners gave speeches, thanking the panel for the acknowledgement of their work and pledging their best to keep political coverage in journalism fair and honest.
To conclude the event, Her Majesty held a meeting with the prize recipients, their families and people taking part in the ceremony.
The awards are hosted by the Senate and aim to recognise both visual and written journalists whose work keeps in mind “divulgation interest, the originality of the work, gender perspective, as well as the work towards democracy, parliamentary debates, information plurality and the territorial dimension fo the Senate,” according to the awards’ statute.
Queen Letizia was a journalist before becoming a royal; in that role, she hosted the country’s most viewed newscast (RTVE1 at 8 pm), as well as covered the war in Iraq and the Prestige tragedy. One of her last jobs was serving as a reporter for the 2003 Prince of Asturias Awards, where the press got the only picture of the couple that exists from before they announced their engagement.
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