NEW YORK – The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism announced the names of the winners of the 2012 Maria Moors Cabot Prizes for Outstanding Reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean.

“With journalism under financial, governmental and even physical assault in significant parts of the Americas, the large number of prize nominees this year and the outstanding quality of our winners speaks to the courage and resiliency of the region’s press,” Columbia Journalism School Dean Nicholas Lemann said.

This year’s winners include Teodoro Petkoff, editor of Venezuelan daily Tal Cual; Miguel Angel Bastenier, columnist-editor of Spanish newspaper El Pais; David Luhnow, Latin American bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal; and Juan Forero, South America correspondent for the Washington Post and National Public Radio.

The Columbia Journalism School also announced a special citation for Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo.

The award winners each will receive a gold medal and a $5,000 cash prize at a gala dinner to be held on Oct. 24 on the Columbia campus in New York.

Begun in 1938, the Maria Moors Cabot award is the oldest international journalism prize and recognizes professionals whose reporting and editorial work have fostered better understanding in the Americas. EFE