Javier Garza Ramos is a journalist based in Torreón (northern Mexico) where he founded and heads Horizonte Lagunero, a local news platform on radio and social media. He also co-hosts El Noti, one of the most popular news podcasts in México.

For the past 20 years, he has also worked in journalist protection and press freedom issues. As editorial director of El Siglo de Torreón, he led a newsroom that came under fire from drug cartels operating in his city, and developed safety protocols that are now used by newsrooms covering violence in several countries, where he has trained dozens of journalists on safety issues.

He was a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists working on digital security and has led programs on newsroom management at the World Association of News Publishers and the Interamerican Press Association.

Garza serves on the boards of the World Editors Forum, Article19 and Mexico’s National Commission to Prevent Discrimination, and has given conferences on press freedom and media development around the world.

He is the author of “Nine Shots”, an in-depth investigation of a school shooting in his hometown of Torreón in 2020 and co-author of “Reconquering La Laguna, a study on crime prevention and pacification in his hometown”.

In 2022, he received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for journalism in the Americas given by Columbia University. He is a graduate of the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and the University of Texas at Austin.