The Berlin Queer Commissioner Alfonso Pantisano (SPD) has been awarded the Diakonie Journalistenpreis Baden-Württemberg in the Text category. The prize honors his December 2025 article published in the Tagesspiegel, “The Suffering of Italian Guest Worker Children.” The 50-year-old recounts the consequences for families when parents wish to work in Germany for a limited period and must entrust their children to grandparents or a boarding school. Pantisano was born in 1975 in Waiblingen near Stuttgart, the son of Italian guest workers from Calabria. “The author succeeds in grippingly tracing the fate of his own family, informing and raising awareness,” the jury stated.
“An Often Overlooked Perspective in German Migration History”
Pantisano himself explained that he wrote the piece “because a story in German and in Italian memory has long been told too little: the story of the children of Italian migrant workers.” With that, he aimed to “make visible an often overlooked perspective of German migration history.”
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The jury selected the winners for this year from 143 submissions across five categories. The prize money totals 9,500 euros, with Pantisano’s award valued at 2,500 euros.
The other prizes went to the following journalists: In the Video category, Kai Diezemann and Thomas Schneider of Südwestrundfunk were recognized for “Fled and what then? 10 years of ‘We can do this’.” In the Audio category, Patrick Batarilo, also a SWR staffer, prevailed with “The Last Time. On Dealing with Death.” For short pieces, SWR journalist Ute Susanne Koboldt won for “Alarm at a Disability School in Heilbronn,” and Susanne Babila of Deutschlandfunk for “25 Years Baby Hatch: ‘I Was Left as a Baby on a Doorstep’.”
The awards are presented annually for outstanding reporting on social issues. Contributions submitted must relate to Baden-Württemberg. The winners will receive their prizes on July 22, 2026, in Stuttgart.
