Radio Mitre, Argentina.

As the first international recipient of IWMF’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Ruiz is a prestigious broadcast radio and TV journalist, who also writes for daily newspapers. For more than 20 years, she hosted a leading show, “Magdalena Tempranisimo” in Radio Mitre, a radio station in Buenos Aires.

Ruiz was an eight-time winner of the Martin Fierro award (the Argentine equivalent of the Oscar), and in 1994 was awarded the Martin Fierro de Oro (Gold Martin Fierro Award) for lifetime achievement. She was the recipient of France’s Legion d’Honneur and Italy’s Order of Merit in recognition of her human rights work.

In 1984, with the return of democracy to Argentina, Ruiz was one of ten members of the Comision Nacional por la desaparicion de Personas (National Commission on the Disappearance of People), an organization that had documented reports of people who disappeared during the military dictatorship in Argentina.

In 1998, along with Silvia Di Florio and Walter Goobar, she produced the TV documentary “ESMA, el día del juicio” (ESMA, on judgment day). This production had far-reaching repercussion in Argentina, France, Belgium, Germany and Mexico. In 1999, also with Di Florio and Goobar, she produced “Los archivos de la censura” (The Censorship Files), about films that were forbidden by the existing censorship during totalitarian times in Argentina.

Ruiz is the authors of several books, including a novel, a short story collection and Habia una vez…la vida (Once Upon a Time…Life), a collection of her newspaper columns.

In recent years, Ruiz, along with other journalists who are critical to the government, are under harassment of the Kirchner administration. The government launched several poster campaigns maligning them.

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