Mario Osava, IPS Correspondent in Brazil, has been awarded the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Media Award 2009. This award is made every eighteen months to recognize long-term journalistic contributions to analysis and public debate about Latin America in the United States and in Latin America, as well as breakthrough journalism.

The 2009 Media Award Committee was chaired by Christy Thornton (North American Congress on Latin America). Committee members included Peter Kornbluh (National Security Archive/George Washington University); Fred Moehn (Stony Brook University); and Blanche Petrich (La Jornada, Mexico).

Osava has been IPS correspondent since 1978. When he first joined the agency he worked from Lisbon, and since 1980 he has been based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He specialises in news on the environment, economic integration and social issues. Osava has been in charge of covering two international United Nations conferences for IPS: the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and the Habitat Summit in Istanbul in 1996. He also covered the World Social Forums in Porto Alegre in 2001 and 2003 and in Belem in 2009.

Osava was born in Brazil in 1945, the son of two Japanese immigrants. He studied Journalism in Sao Paulo and, before beginning work as a journalist, he taught Portuguese, worked in adult literacy, filmmaking and community organisation in the ‘favelas’ (Brazilian slums). He has lived in Cuba, Chile, Belgium, Portugal and Angola. He worked as a journalist in Angola and as a writer for the magazine Cuadernos del Tercer Mundo and O Globo newspaper.

Recent recipients of the award:

Gustavo Gorriti of Caretas, Lima, Peru (1998)
Patricia Verdugo Aguirre of Conama, Chile and Diario 16, Spain (2000)
Guillermo Gonzalez Uribe of Numero, Bogota (2001)
Eduardo Anguita, freelance journalist, Buenos Aires (2003)
Julio Scherer, journalist, Mexico (2004)
Maria Ester Gilio (2006)
Hollman Morris of Morris Producciones y Comunicaciones, Colombia (2007)

The award will be presented in the Special Recognition and Awards Ceremony of the Association’s XXVIII International Congress, Thursday, June 11, 2009, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Read Osava’s reports at “Letter from Brazil”

Report BIODIVERSIDAD: Expedicion en busca de quelonios amazonicos (Spanish)