Journalists Alfonso Armada and Íñigo Domínguez, joint winners of the 29th Miguel Delibes National Journalism Award, sponsored by Unicaja, have championed the figure of the author of 'The Path' in turbulent times for society and journalism, during the award ceremony held on Tuesday at the Teatro Zorrilla in Valladolid.
The award, organised by the Valladolid Press Association, celebrates the proper use of the Spanish language in the media, and for the first time has been shared by two journalists, who drew on extracts from Delibes’s work to support their speech before a packed auditorium.
Specifically, Armada took as her starting point an excerpt from 'Las Ratas', which prompted her to make a plea for peace and humanity “so that the wind may be favourable and harmony and compassion may take root here and beyond”, whilst acknowledging that he would have liked to have met Delibes in person and worked with him, as he evaded “the dictatorship’s far from subtle scythe”.
For his part, El País’s Rome correspondent, Íñigo Domínguez, expressed his admiration for Miguel Delibes’s work and praised the Valladolid-born novelist, noting that “when you have to write something quickly, on the run, well and in a way that is understood, that is when your survival instinct turns to safe havens”.
Delibes the journalist and a tribute to Ramón García
The gala, hosted by journalist Miguel Castañeda and María Aparicio, a fourth-year journalism student at the University of Valladolid (UVa), also served to highlight a lesser-known aspect of Miguel Delibes: his role as a journalist and editor of El Norte de Castilla.
The president of the Valladolid Press Association (APV), Fernando Sanz, recalled how the author of ‘El Hereje’ evaded censorship and reflected on the climate of political polarisation.
María Ramos, Unicaja’s head of Stakeholder Relations and Protocol for Central and Northern Spain, emphasised that the winning entries represent “a form of journalism which, when practised with depth and talent, remains essential for understanding the world in which we live”.
The gala concluded with a tribute to Ramón García Domínguez (1943–2025), a member of the APV, journalist, playwright and biographer of Miguel Delibes, organised in collaboration with the Miguel Delibes Foundation.
Fellow travellers
The 29th Miguel Delibes National Journalism Award, with a prize of €6,000, is sponsored by Unicaja and supported by the Valladolid Provincial Council, the Alimentos de Valladolid brand (associated with the Provincial Council), Valladolid Town Hall, the University of Valladolid (UVa) and the Miguel de Cervantes European University (UEMC).
This year, the Palausa Group, a leading car distributor in north-western Spain, the Eurostars hotel group and the Cármicas Poniente group have also joined as sponsors.
Winners
The jury of the 29th Miguel Delibes National Journalism Award decided, for the first time, to award this prize jointly to journalists Alfonso Armada and Íñigo Domínguez for their works ‘Poema de la fuerza y de la compasión’ and ‘Malditas palabras bien dichas’, published in the magazine Frontera on 30 July 2025 and the daily newspaper El País on 20 September 2025, respectively.
The jury noted that both authors, journalists of recognised standing, address the same topical issue in their works – the situation in Palestine – “from two perspectives, in two styles and using two different languages, demonstrating great mastery in the use of language and a command of and innovation within journalistic genres”.
More than enough reasons to receive the Miguel Delibes National Journalism Award, which celebrates the fine use of the Spanish language in the media and comes with a prize of 6,000 euros, for which various works from television and the written press (print and digital) from across Spain, from both specialist and generalist media, were submitted.
Armada and Domínguez thus join a list of distinguished winners: Fernando Lázaro Carreter (1996), Vicente Verdú (1997), Álex Grijelmo (1998), Jesús Marchamalo (1999), José Jiménez Lozano (2000), Carlos Luis Álvarez ‘Cándido’ (2001), Juan José Millás (2002), Javier Marías (2003), Valentín García Yebra (2004), Andrés Trapiello (2005), María de los Ángeles Sastre (2006), Tomás Hoyas (2007), Antonio Álamo (2008), Luis María Ansón (2009), Joaquín Sánchez Torné (2010), Magí Camps (2011), Isaías Lafuente (2012), Iñaki Gabilondo (2013), Ignacio Camacho (2014), Pepa Fernández (2015), Martín Caparrós (2016), Elena Álvarez Mellado (2017), Mariángeles García (2018), Mar Abad (2019), Lola Pons (2021), Luna Paredes (2022), Mara Torres (2023).
In 2024, the Miguel Delibes National Journalism Award was presented to a collection of works produced by various professionals at Radio Nacional de España (RNE), brought together under the title ‘30 years promoting Spanish on Radio 5’.
