Leila Guerriero and Jorge Fernández Díaz were awarded: "A faction seeks to domesticate journalism."
In a packed hall at the National Library , the National Academy of Journalism celebrated Journalist's Day with a ceremony marked by emotion, memory, and a staunch defense of the profession. There, Leila Guerriero and Jorge Fernández Díaz received the Pen of Honor , an award that recognizes careers committed to free speech and democratic coexistence. At the same ceremony, Jorge Lanata 's daughters—Bárbara and Lola, visibly moved—received the diploma recognizing him as an Honorary Member.
Jorge Fernández Díaz, awarded the 2025 Pen of Honor by the National Academy of Journalism at the National Library. Photo by Maxi Failla.
These are not easy times for this profession, and Fernández Díaz, who was awarded the Pen of Honor 2025 , took care of this present, offering a speech with poise and serenity that was also a lesson.
He thanked Joaquín Morales Solá, president of the Academy , La Nación and Radio Mitre—his professional homes, he said—and his colleagues, “that chosen family that forms the very soul of the profession.” But the tone soon shifted to a forceful warning: “ Journalism is in the sights of power. Once again. Only today it is harassed by hate engineers who use networks and services, and soon they will use artificial intelligence to discredit journalists.”
The defense of journalism as a form of resistance became the central theme of his message. “They attack us because we are dangerous. Because we can pierce the veil of deception . If we didn't say uncomfortable things, democracy wouldn't be possible. Only monologue, hegemony, and self-censorship would exist.”
For this reason, he acknowledged the efforts of the " journalistic infantry, who often resort to multiple jobs because they are poorly paid , but who travel the territory daily and bring us very valuable information from the very bowels of the impregnable palace."
And he went further: he denounced that "a faction seeks to domesticate journalism, branding journalists as enemies of the people," in what he described as a "state decision with criminal implications."
One faction seeks to domesticate journalism, branding journalists as enemies of the people.
"They want to instill the stupid idea that journalism is in the process of extinction," he warned. "No, journalism—in a country where the Republican opposition looks the other way and is defecting from its principles —is the last stand of liberal democracy and the last barrier against the big lie."
The writer and journalist, who recently won the Nadal Novel Prize for his work El secreto de Marcial (Alfaguara), also revived the bohemian atmosphere of the newsrooms of the last century, where he learned his trade in the company of “unknown editors who recited Dante and Cervantes” and where he forged “a vocation for life.”
The Jorge Luis Borges Room at the National Library was packed during the ceremony. Photo: Maxi Failla.
The passion, he said, is still alive, but requires self-criticism: “ Some colleagues are joining dirty campaigns , repeating slogans dictated by mandarins with wallets. Our audience cannot be our tyrant. If we lose moral authority, we lose everything .”
He also quoted Arturo Pérez-Reverte: "When you're carrying a notebook and a pen, the mayor should be afraid of you." For Fernández Díaz, this old saying sums up the essential role of journalists: to challenge those in power without fear, even at the cost of making them uncomfortable.
Jorge Lanata's daughters—Bárbara and Lola—received the diploma recognizing him as an Honorary Academician. Photo: Maxi Failla.
After the ceremony, when asked by Clarín about current challenges, he was blunt about technological advancement: “What's going to happen with AI, we don't know. What we do know is that every time they said something was going to disappear, it didn't. Now they're saying journalism is going to disappear. It's not going to happen .”
“I don’t know if I’ve done much for freedom of expression,” Guerriero had begun the act, “I just tried and I’m trying to tell stories without reductionism, to narrate making space for nuances and contradictions , and to be as consistent as I can with an idea that I’ve held since I started working, and that idea is that it’s not about getting there first, or getting there faster, but about getting there better.”
Leila Guerriero, the 2024 recipient, is joined by Joaquín Morales Solá, president of the National Academy of Journalism. Photo: Maxi Failla.
Leila Guerriero, the 2024 recipient of the award , was born in Junín, Buenos Aires province. She began writing journalistic texts with her unique pen in 1991 for Página 30 magazine. Since then, she has published numerous stories that profoundly shake the boundaries of the known. Her most recent book, La llamada (The Call ), received the Critics' Award at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair.
At the ceremony, she gave a sober and heartfelt speech. She recalled her beginnings and thanked those who helped her find her voice: Lanata, she said, gave her her first job , and Fernández Díaz was the first to tell her "whatever you need, whenever you need it" when she left the newspaper La Nación .
Journalists Norma Morandini, Daniel Santoro, and Miguel Wiñazki, along with Clarín's Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Ricardo Roa, among those attending the National Academy of Journalism's Journalist Day event. Photo: Maxi Failla.
But she recalled that Lanata also did what mentors do: he saw in Leila the great journalist she is today. She explained it this way: “I found it significant that this recognition was linked to the man who saw a journalist in me before I realized I was one , and to the man who, being a journalist with many more years of experience than I, was willing to lend a hand at a very difficult time .”
If I'm here, it's because others paved the way for me, and many like me in Latin America, Central America, and Spain, to work against the emergency.
Guerriero also paid tribute to those who came before her : “But if I'm here it's because others paved the way for me and many like me in Latin America, Central America and Spain, to be able to work against urgency, to be able to claim the need to have the necessary time to write a chronicle or a profile over the course of months, to be able to oppose the rush, the clicks, the tyranny of what they call the audiences and that many of us continue to call 'the readers'.”
Among them, he mentioned Rodolfo Walsh, Tomás Eloy Martínez, and María Moreno , and singled out Martín Caparrós , a name that drew loud applause. "What he has achieved with his work as a journalist and leading workshops in various Spanish-speaking countries, supporting the work of colleagues from several generations, was and is immense," he recalled.
Jorge Fernández Díaz, recipient of the 2025 Pen of Honor from the National Academy of Journalism, greets Ricardo Kirschbaum, editor-in-chief of Clarín. Photo by Maxi Failla.
With this award, Guerriero and Fernández Díaz join a distinguished list of journalists honored by the Academy, which includes Tomás Eloy Martínez, Magdalena Ruiz Guiñazú, Carlos Pagni, and Graciela Mochkofsky, among others.
In an interview with Clarín , the author of unforgettable books such as Los suicidas del fin del mundo said: “The genre I write is narrative journalism, not the everyday kind, but I think we have to stop, try to think better, not let ourselves be stunned by the sound and fury , as far as possible, because I understand that personal attacks are very strong.”
Joaquín Morales Solá, president of the National Academy of Journalism, at the Journalist's Day event at the National Library. Photo by Maxi Failla.
Among those present were Ricardo Kirschbaum , General Editor of Clarín ; the Deputy General Editor of Clarín , Ricardo Roa ; Claudio Jacquelin , Deputy General Secretary of the newspaper La Nación; former judge Ricardo Gil Lavedra , president of the Public College of Lawyers of the Federal Capital; Roberto Guareschi , General Secretary of the Editorial Office of Clarín between 1990 and 2003; journalists Alfredo Leuco, Daniel Santoro, Silvia Naishtat , Silvia Fesquet, Clarín columnist Eduardo Van der Kooy , Norma Morandini, Miguel Wiñazki , producer Andrea Rodríguez and artist Sarah Stewart Brown , ex-partners of Jorge Lanata; former minister Graciela Fernández Meijide.
Also present at the event were representatives Silvana Giudici, Facundo Suárez Lastra, and Facundo Manes ; the president of FOPEA, Paula Moreno ; the president of Poder Ciudadano, Martín D'Alessandro ; and the head of ADEPA, Martín Etchevers , among many others.
The event closed with a quote projected on the screen that summed up its spirit: "Only through open discussion and unhindered information is it possible to seek answers to major collective problems." In times of polarization and digital noise, the ceremony left one certainty: there are still journalists who believe that telling the truth is an act of courage.
Clarin
