2025 Don Bolles Medal awarded to Rocío Gallegos

(June 21, 2025) — Investigative Reporters and Editors has awarded the Don Bolles Medal for 2025 to Rocío Gallegos, editorial director and co-founder of La Verdad, an investigative news outlet she helped form in 2018 to fight the censorship and control of information that the Mexican government exerted over local news organizations. 

Gallegos has courageously reported from the U.S.-Mexico border since 1994, exposing government corruption and the impact of narcopolitics, including helping to report the truth behind the murders of two other journalists. She spent her early career at El Diario and co-founded the Juarez Journalists Network in 2011 as a way for local journalists to support and protect each other. That association evolved into La Verdad after it became clear that the government was successfully pressuring established news outlets to suppress stories. 

They publish at great risk — for their own safety and that of their families. But it’s not an option to be silent, she said in Spanish, through an interpreter. 

“It’s very difficult to explain, and it is very difficult to understand, but there is a lot of information that has to be made public,” she said. “Information has to be made public for change to occur — change for our community and for our families, too.”

“We choose to inform,” she said. “We choose to inform regardless of the risk.” 

The Don Bolles Medal recognizes investigative journalists who have exhibited extraordinary courage in standing up against intimidation or efforts to suppress the truth about matters of public importance.

Because of her example, leadership and commitment to the work, IRE selected Gallegos for the 2025 Don Bolles Medal. 

“She represents the often-invisible courage of local journalists covering migration, border violence, and institutional failure. Unlike better-resourced organizations or high-profile journalists, she operates in relative isolation and under continuous threat,” said committee member and previous honoree Pelin Unker. 

The seven-person Don Bolles Medal committee also included three other previous recipients: Roman Badanin, Jeremy Jojola and Eric Meyer. Kaela Malig, John Ferrugia and AmyJo Brown also served. 

“It is an incredible act of character to do this work when so much is personally at risk,” said Brown, the committee’s chair. “And it’s local journalists like Rocio who we need to hold horrible power to account.” 

“In this time of increasing threats and shrinking accountability, her example reminds us what real courage looks like and why we need it more than ever,” said IRE Executive Director Diana Fuentes.

The Don Bolles Medal was created in 2017 in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the Arizona Project, an effort led by IRE to finish the work of Don Bolles. The Arizona Republic investigative reporter was killed in 1976 by a car bomb in retaliation for his reporting.

Bolles' death came a few days before the first national IRE conference in Indianapolis, where the veteran reporter had been scheduled to speak on a panel. At the time, Bolles had been investigating allegations of land fraud involving prominent politicians and individuals with ties to organized crime.

After his murder, nearly 40 journalists from across the country descended on Arizona to complete his investigation. News organizations across the country published their findings.

Their message: Efforts to suppress the truth will be met by even greater efforts from the rest of the journalism community to tell it.