Alfredo Corchado receives the 2026 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence

Alfredo Corchado, executive editor of the Puente News Collaborative, has been chosen to receive the 2026 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence in recognition of his work directing Puente’s innovative, partnership-driven approach to reporting along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. 

A bilingual journalism nonprofit, the El Paso, Texas-based Puente News Collaborative has connected independent journalists to newsrooms in the U.S. and Mexico since 2021, adding high-quality, fact-based reporting to the region’s local news ecosystem. The Puente network includes more than two dozen publishing partners whose shared reporting goes beyond border security issues to provide a range of critical news stories and features for and about communities in the U.S. and Latin America.

The I.F. Stone Medal is an award administered by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Selection committee member Bernice Yeung said: “In addition to a distinguished career covering the U.S.-Mexico border, Alfredo Corchado’s current work with the Puente News Collaborative is a powerful response to the collapse of local news outlets in communities deeply impacted by increased policing of immigrants and migrants. Puente, with Alfredo at the helm, supports journalists and journalism aimed at combating disinformation and community polarization. He’s emblematic of the journalistic leadership we seek to honor through the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence.”

Funded by the El Paso Community Foundation with seed money from Microsoft, Puente also seeks to help rebuild reporting and newsroom capacity throughout the region and support skills and career development for local journalists.

Notified about his selection for the I.F. Stone Medal, Corchado said: “The I.F. Stone award means so much personally and professionally as it recognizes the work of independent journalism at a time when our profession faces mounting challenges in holding the powerful to account. I accept this award on behalf of the nonprofit Puente News Collaborative and the journalists who work tirelessly to dispel the constant barrage of misinformation and disinformation about the region we call home, the U.S.-Mexico border. I also thank past outstanding winners whose brilliant work inspires me.”

An award-winning journalist and longtime El Paso resident, Corchado’s decision to join the Puente News Collaborative as executive editor followed his four decades of reporting in the United States, starting in public radio on the southern border and then at the Ogden Standard-Examiner in Utah, the El Paso Herald-Post, and The Wall Street Journal in Philadelphia and Dallas. He went on to an award-winning 30-year run as a Latin America and U.S. borderlands correspondent and bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News based in Mexico City.

Recognized as an expert on immigration and U.S.-Mexico relations, Corchado has reported on a wide variety of topics, including the disappearance and murders of women in Ciudad Juárez, the exodus of Mexico’s middle class to the United States, and the impact of government corruption and drug-related violence on Mexico’s national security and border communities.

Journalism shaped by experience

Born in San Luis de Cordero, Durango, Mexico, Corchado grew up in California and Texas. He worked as a migrant farm laborer alongside his parents, an experience that informed his journalism and provided a deep understanding of the complex issues surrounding immigration and cross-border relations that currently permeate U.S. politics.

A 1984 graduate of El Paso Community College and a 1987 graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso, Corchado was a 2009 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Among his numerous awards and honors, he received the 2007 Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University and Colby College’s 2010 Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism. He was a finalist for the Center for Public Integrity award in Washington for his reporting on Ciudad Juárez and the rise of the Zetas, a Mexican paramilitary group. Corchado also served as a 2010 scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington and as a 2010 visiting fellow at the David Rockefeller Center at Harvard. In 2018, he delivered the Joe Alex Morris Jr. Memorial Lecture on international reporting at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

He received the 2009 Gold Nugget Award, an alumni honor for distinguished achievement, from the University of Texas at El Paso; a 2016 Career Achievement Award from the California Chicano News Media Association; and the 2020 Justice Media Trailblazer Award from John Jay College. In 2023, he was inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Hall of Fame.

Corchado is the author of two books: “Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter’s Journey Through a Country’s Descent into Darkness” and “Homelands: Four Friends, Two Countries, and the Fate of the Great Mexican-American Migration.” 

From 2016 to 2017, he was director of the Borderlands Initiative at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. The program is a bilingual reporting program that focuses on immigration, border issues, and Indigenous communities.

Established in 2008, the I.F. Stone Medal honors the life of investigative journalist I.F. Stone and is presented annually to a journalist or journalists whose work captures the spirit of independence, integrity, and courage that characterized I.F. Stone’s Weekly, a politics-focused newsletter published from 1953 to 1971. Corchado will receive the medal during a ceremony at the Nieman Foundation in April. 

An independent committee of journalists chaired by PBS Public Editor Ricardo Sandoval-Palos oversees nominations and selection of the medal winner. As director of the judging panel, Sandoval-Palos supervised award deliberations this year but did not participate in the final vote since he is an occasional story editor for the Puente News Collaborative. Committee members are Jasmine Brown, a senior producer at ABC News’ “World News Tonight with David Muir” and a 2020 Nieman Fellow; Bernice Yeung, managing editor of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism; Michael Riley, an investigative reporter for Bloomberg News and Businessweek magazine; and Phillip W. d. Martin, a 1998 Nieman Fellow who most recently worked as a senior investigative reporter for the GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. 

Myra MacPherson, author of the biography “All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone,” a juror emerita on the selection committee, died on Feb. 2, 2026. 

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard educates leaders in journalism, promotes innovation, and elevates the standards of the profession. More than 1,700 journalists from 100 countries have been awarded Nieman Fellowships since 1938. The foundation also publishes Nieman Reports, an online magazine covering thought leadership in journalism; Nieman Journalism Lab, a website reporting on the future of news, innovation, and best practices in the digital age; and Nieman Storyboard, a website showcasing exceptional narrative journalism and nonfiction storytelling.

Learn more about Alfredo Corchado’s work and the Puente News Collaborative:

Alfredo Corchado online: