José Jasán Nieves Cárdenas, editor-in-chief of the independent digital outlet elTOQUE, received the ICFJ Knight International Journalism Award 2026 this week during the annual gala of the International Center for Journalists held in Washington D.C., in front of hundreds of journalists from the world's most prestigious media outlets.
The award, one of the most prestigious in international journalism and supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, recognized the innovative work of elTOQUE, particularly its informal Cuban market exchange rate monitor—a daily reference for millions on the island—and "La Travesía," a database that documents Cuban migrants who have died or gone missing during their migration journeys.
"For more than six decades, the Cuban regime maintained a monopoly on the narrative about Cuba. It decided what Cubans could know, what the world could hear, and what could not be said. That monopoly has been broken," Nieves stated in her acceptance speech.
"Cuban independent journalism, much of it produced from exile, has taken from the Castro regime and its allies abroad the power to define reality." It went on to predict the end of the dictatorship: "I have no doubts about how this will end. One of the longest-serving dictatorships in the world will witness the dawn of a definitive and historic change."
Nieves, who has been living outside of Cuba since 2019 and leads a transnational editorial office spread across 10 countries, also discussed the unique conditions of journalism in exile: "In exile, everything costs double." She pointed out that companies fear retaliation if they advertise with media outlets like hers, and that the rules of digital platforms can prevent these outlets from generating revenue with their own audiences.
With this recognition, Nieves becomes the second Cuban to receive the ICFJ Knight Award in nearly three decades of the award's history. The first was Yoani Sánchez, honored in 2015 for her blog Generación Y and the founding of 14ymedio.
Sánchez specifically dedicated part of her speech to Sánchez and the director of La Hora de Cuba, Henry Constantín. Sánchez was detained by State Security agents on November 5 and released after nine hours, although she remains under police surveillance. Constantín has been in preventive detention in the maximum-security prison Kilo 7 in Camagüey since September 16.
The recognition comes at a time of intense persecution against elTOQUE. The regime has labeled the publication of the informal exchange rate as "economic and financial terrorism," attempted to fabricate criminal charges against members of the media accusing them of currency trafficking and tax evasion, and disseminated personal data of Nieves on state television. In November 2025, the director himself suffered a repudiation act in Mexico organized by supporters of Castroism.
During the ceremony, Nieves also announced the imminent launch of a new initiative: "Next week we will launch elTOQUE USA, a Spanish-language news initiative aimed at the communities of South Florida. For Cuban Americans, it offers a new way to send remittances back home: every subscription they purchase will help us continue reporting on Cuba."
The speech concluded with a personal dedication that encapsulated the significance of his work: "I dedicate this award to my family, to my wife, my moral Everest. To my two children, who feel profoundly Cuban, even though they do not remember the island we lost."
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