"The story that taught me what journalism is for"

There's a story I still think about, years later. I reported on the discrimination faced by transgender people in Bolivia — the daily barriers to healthcare, employment, identity documents, and basic dignity that most of the country never sees or asks about.

I didn't set out to win anything. I set out to listen to people whose lives are rarely covered with care, and to put their reality on air without flattening it into a headline.

In 2017, the Mesa Nacional de Trabajo (National Human Rights Working Group) recognized the piece with their Honor al Mérito award, for defending human rights through journalism.

I think about that story often, because it taught me something I still carry into every piece I write: the job isn't to describe people from a distance. It's to get close enough that the audience can't look away — and can't pretend not to understand.

Fifteen years into this career, that's still the story I'm proudest of. Not because of the award, but because of what it means to be trusted with someone else's truth, and to get it right.