ACCEPTANCE SPEECH - GIANNINA SEGNINI

MARIA MOORS CABOT PRIZES CEREMONY. OCTOBER 15TH, 2014

I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to President Bollinger, Dean Coll and
Mara Teresa Ronderos, chair of the Board of Judges for their efforts to support and
empower independent journalism in the Americas with this award.

I accept this honor at a time when Latin America continues to face an invisible and
not very sexy war to cover: deep social polarization, sprouting from and nurtured by
the highest levels of inequality in the world.

Latin America, the most unequal region of the planet, has 68 million people living in
extreme poverty, but allows half a million of its individuals, with a combined fortune
of seven trillion dollars, to avoid paying all their taxes.

Although income inequality in Latin America has declined during the last decade,
disparities are still overwhelming from any point of view: The richest 10 percent of
households get an average 37 percent of the total per capita income, while the poorest
10 percent get only 1.5 percent.

According to Oxfam, this years expected annual income for the 113 Latin American
billionaires is equal to the public budget of El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua
combined.

When wealthy elites distribute political power among themselves and set the rules for
them to comply, as they do in many countries in Latin America, democracy is
weakened. With those levels of power, its easy to raise the magic wand and legalize
every act: legal corruption, legal monopolies or legal tax evasion.

Tax havens and tax avoidance are legal but totally unfair. They place the burden on
the shoulders of middle classes and poor people.

I decided to bring up this challenge tonight to remind us of the importance of our
profession as defenders of the public interest in the modern world. Gray areas like
this one are affecting millions of people, but no auditor or prosecutor will dig into
them, because they are all completely legal.

Investigative journalism could play a determinant role uncovering, with the use of
data analysis, the complex offshore networks where flows of untaxed capitals are
legally hidden, thanks to the help of ingenious lawyers and accountants.

This example also brings to mind all the colleagues and students I have worked with
in the last twenty years and who are not afraid of challenging power, even though
many times they lack all the necessary support or the means.

I treasure Milagros Salazars passion in Peru, investigating corruption in the fishing
business; the determination and courage displayed by Paulina Quintao when facing
government secrecy in Timor-Leste; and Cesar Batizs tenacity when digging into
multi-million energy investments in Venezuela.

Today, more than ever before, journalism needs more training and an economic and a
technological support to meet the big challenges our weak democracies face.

Lets start by working together and by developing teamwork with other disciplines in
order to open those doors.

Investigative journalism has never been just a profession to me, but rather my own
salvation. During these two decades, it has always fit with my explorer nature, with
my fascination with the truth and individual freedom and with my deep rejection of
injustice.

Last, but not least, I would like to state my deep appreciation and gratitude to the
judges and to the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University for this
honor; to Alejandro Urbina, who was my editor, to the newspaper La Nacin in Costa
Rica and to all my former coworkers there, especially Ernesto Rivera. I am also
deeply grateful with all my readers in Costa Rica, where I worked as an investigative
journalist for the last 20 years. If it werent for them, I wouldnt be here tonight.

I want to especially thank my parents, my amazing family, and my three children,
Carolina, Fiorella, and Santiago, who have been and will forever be my main source
of motivation and inspiration.

Buenas noches