MEXICO CITY – Mexican journalist Miguel Angel Granados Chapa is to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Ibero-American New Journalism Foundation, led by Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Granados Chapa, who has more than 40 years of experience in the profession, will receive the prize from the hands of “Gabo” on Sept. 1 in the northern city of Monterrey, the foundation, known as FNPI, said Wednesday in a statement.

The selection was a unanimous decision of the prize council, headed by Garcia Marquez and Lorenzo Zambrano, CEO of Mexican cement giant Cemex, the co-sponsor of the award.

The council includes Mexicans Alma Guillermoprieto and Carlos Monsivais, Brazilians Geraldo Vieira Filho and Rosental Alves, Argentines Horacio Verbitsky and Tomas Eloy Martinez, Colombian German Rey, France’s Jean-François Fogel, Spaniard Joaquin Estefania, Nicaraguan Sergio Ramirez and American Susan Meiselas.

Granados Chapa, the jury said, “has pursued a professional practice of excellence in the fields of radio, television and – especially – written journalism that has led him to acquire immense prestige and (a huge) audience in his country.”

“His credibility has made him one of the most influential voices in the Mexican political conscience,” it added.

Granados Chapa, 68, has served in leadership positions at the daily Excelsior, Proceso education, television’s Channel 11, Radio Educacion, the daily La Jornada and Revista Mira magazine. EFE