A unique collaboration of Europe’s Lighthouse Reports, Juárez’s La Verdad and El Paso Matters won first place in the video category in the IRE Awards, one of the most highly regarded international prizes for investigative reporting.
The award recognized the collaboration’s 2024 investigation and video reconstruction of a fire that killed 40 people a year earlier at a migrant detention center in Juárez.
Judges for the award, presented by Investigative Reporters and Editors, called the work a “gripping and graphic reconstruction of the moments leading up to a fire that broke out inside the locked cell of a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, killing 40 men and injuring dozens of others. The reporting team created a stunning visual and audio investigation of events, using 3D models, an examination of 16 hours of CCTV footage from inside the detention center which was leaked by a source, and thousands of pages of official documents with interviews and forensics reports. Firsthand accounts from survivors convey the human toll of the tragedy, and innovative techniques uncover new facts that were referenced by the Mexican Senate in its own investigation of the incident.”
The collaborative competed in IRE’S Division 1, for the largest news organizations around the world. The New York Times was the other finalist for the award, for an investigation of war crimes in Sudan.
Editor Cindy Ramirez was El Paso Matters’ contributor to the project.
La Verdad is an independent online news organization in Juárez that El Paso Matters has collaborated with since 2020. Lighthouse Reports, based in The Netherlands, “pioneers collaborative journalism and works with the world’s leading media to deliver deeply reported, public interest investigations.”
Investigation
Misplaced fire extinguishers. No sprinkler system. A key missing in plain sight. How a Juárez migrant detention center fire turned into a death trap.
Never-before seen video, documents and interviews detail how a March 2023 Juárez migrant detention center fire turned so fatal in this investigation by El Paso Matters, La Verdad and Lighthouse Reports.
El Paso Matters is the leading provider of in-depth and investigative reporting in El Paso.
“This work is a testament to the power of both strong local journalism and international collaboration in telling important stories,” said Robert Moore, founder and CEO of El Paso Matters. “This work was the result of the skill and courage of journalists at three news organizations dedicated to tackling difficult stories that otherwise would go untold.
“I’m particularly proud of Cindy, because I’ve had the pleasure of watching her grow as a journalist for three decades. Her passion for this work is unmatched,” Moore said.
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