The Nieman Foundation at Harvard University announced that the 1984 Louis M. Lyons Award for “conscience and integrity in journalism” was presented on May 24, 1984 to Maria Olivia Monckeberg, a journalist for Analisis, an independent Chilean magazine. In the face of government repression, physical attack and arrest, Monckeberg persisted in her trenchant coverage of Chile’s economy, labor movement and growing political opposition to the Pinochet regime.

As she said in an interview in April: “Journalists in Chile live under a permanent and constant threat of jail, censorship and media closure. I think reporters have a moral obligation to report the truth of this repression and to be witnesses of these human rights violations.”

Juan Pablo Cardenas, the editor of Analisis, who was jailed for 32 days in 1983 and 18 days recently, is facing trial for his editorials critical of the military regime. At the time of Cardenas’s arrest, the government confiscated Analisis from the newsstands. In the past, the magazine has been closed down intermittently.

In voting to present Monckeberg with the Lyons Award, the 1984 Class of Nieman Fellows honors all Latin American journalists who have continued to work with courage and honesty under repressive regimes.