Markus C. Hurek and Simonetta Caratti honored by Ringier

 
The prizes awarded annually by Ringier within the publishing house go to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany and Ticino this year. This year, for the first time, the Ringier Media Prize, which is awarded on the basis of the entire body of work, does not go to German-speaking Switzerland; the winners are Markus C. Hurek from the German political magazine Cicero and Simonetta Caratti from the Ticino newspaper Il caffè della domenica. The jury commented on the decision: "Markus C. Hurek makes a significant contribution to the success of Cicero and has a lot of patience to polish the authors' texts down to the last minute; he is a pillar behind the scenes, not only editing and weighting the texts, but also doing the final check of the headlines and captions." Simonetta Caratti, the jury continued, has been shaping "il caffè della domenica" with depth and her incomparably distinctive writing style for a long time.
74 photographers from nine countries took part in the Ringier Photo Award 2008¬, which honored the best press photo for the third time. The winner was Jan Šibík from the Czech Republic, who works for Reflex magazine, with the photo "Working children at the Stung Meanchey rubble dump in Cambodia". "This is a picture from a series of 12 that I took for a reportage," says Šibík, "I was deeply moved by the work of the children at the garbage dump. They live there with their families and fish plastic, paper and bottles out of the garbage from dawn to dusk, which they might still be able to use. And they do it in all weathers." Second and third place went to the Hungarians Arpád Kurucz ("Forest fire in Greece") and Simon Móricz ("After a storm at the Sziget music festival in Budapest"), who work for the Hungarian daily newspaper Népszabadság.