The Montserrat Roig awards recognize the career of Ignasi Aragay

BarcelonaThe nonconformist and committed voice of Montserrat Roig resonated metaphorically among the curtains of the Saló de Cent at Barcelona City Hall during the celebration of the awards that bear her name and serve as a tribute to this fundamental writer. The deputy director of ARA, Ignasi Aragay, has been recognized with the career achievement award. The jury highlighted his profile as a “creative, discreet, well-read, and hardworking person, with a great social disposition. He is a good professional and a good person, as well as a teacher and mentor to journalists from one of the country's reference newspapers”. He received the award ex aequo with journalism professor Xavier Giró, one of the theorists of so-called peace journalism, in which aseptic neutrality is rejected.

In an event where concern for the current state of things, in life and in communication, was frequently expressed, Aragay declared himself an optimist: “The profession has a great future and is more necessary than ever. At the newspaper, there are many young people who are fantastic, very good, and dedicated. The situation is extremely difficult for journalism, but I have a lot of hope and I believe we will move forward”. In the newsroom, colleagues followed the broadcast on Betevé to see a surprised Aragay, unaware of the conspiracy that made him believe he was only going to the event to collect the award on behalf of someone else.

Born in Barcelona 60 years ago, Aragay is one of the founding members of ARA. Previously, he worked for two decades at the newspaper AVUI, including the last eight years as head of the Culture and Entertainment section. He is the author of the books Anoc a l'arbre, Diccionari Montaigne, El lector obsedit, the book of conversations Què pensa Salvador Cardús and Elogi de la modernitat (a selection of forty-one articles written by Oriol Bohigas between 1951 and 2013). In addition, he wrote the story El món us espera, an epistolary book dedicated to his children.

Beyond these awards for a career, other recognitions have been presented. In the social journalism category, Verificat was awarded for its fact-checking on migrations titled Lies fuel hatred and the report Hate in search of chaos, by Albert Alexandre and Jesús Rodríguez, from Directa, in the press section, and The new other Catalans by Iu Andrés (SER) in the audio and podcast category. In the social communication chapter, the cooperative Quepo SCCL was distinguished for the campaign “It won’t get anywhere”, the cultural association El Parlante for the project “I write to you from Barcelona” and the 30 minuts report on the euthanasia of an ALS patient broadcast by TV3 and titled The good death.

Raquel Gil, fifth deputy mayor, glossed the figure of Montserrat Roig, as the awards also serve as a tribute to this missed figure. “She was the author of insubordinate chronicles about stories that often remain on the margins. Her commitment was unassailable and she never knelt before anyone”. Gil mentioned the recent disturbances the city has experienced and also demanded “that everyone, but especially the youth, has access to good, rigorous journalism, which is the only thing that will be able to make them critical and free in the face of algorithm manipulation”.