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behind-the-headlines

#BehindTheHeadlines: Editor’s letter to Danish journalists shot in Ukraine

Stefan Weichert (left) and Emil Filtenborg in front of their car, which they had to flee in when they were shot. Credit: Emil Filtenborg.

In the build up to World News Day 2022, we will be going #BehindTheHeadlines to highlight stories that have had a significant social impact, and to showcase what newsrooms are doing to better tell the story of their journalism.

This story was originally published by WAN-IFRA (on March 3, 2022).

While on assignment for Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, journalist Stefan Weichert and photographer Emil Filtenborg were shot multiple times inside a car last Saturday. They were in Okhtyrka, a city some 50 kilometres from the Russian border to investigate bomb damage at a kindergarten. While near the frontline their car came under fire from close range, with Weichert being shot once in the shoulder and Filtenborg taking three bullets to the legs.

On Wednesday morning, the journalists took to Twitter to update users on their condition. Weichert wrote that he was on his way home to Denmark to undergo surgery, while Filtenborg posted that he was also going home, and thanked people for their messages of support

The experienced duo had moved to Ukraine three years ago, sensing the Ukraine-Russia story was going to escalate, Knud Brix, Editor-in-Chief of Ekstra Bladet, told the World Editors Forum. They are “tough guys” and had been working as stringers, covering a lot from the separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk for Ekstra Bladet, the Daily Beast and other news organisations.

In mid-February, with tensions rising in Ukraine, and a dramatic increase in demand for the services of freelance journalists, the Ekstra Bladet editor had just days before the Russian invasion, and offered them a contract for their work. With the contract came insurance and organisational support.

Both Weichert and Filtenborg were well versed in safety and security, said Brix, indeed probably more cautious than the protocols advised. Their security measures included a safety network of people in Denmark who were kept advised of their movements via secure mails. “I was in daily contact with them, obviously not trying to direct them, because they had good knowledge of the area and risks, just asking the critical questions,” Brix said.

He was tracking their movements last Saturday and was concerned he had not heard from them. He then “got the call every editor dreads”.

In an open letter published in Ekstra Bladet, Brix shared his concern while praising them for their professionalism and courage. (Translated from Danish into English):

Dear Emil and Stefan,

As I write this, you are in an ambulance in a safe country with no cellular connection. So allow me to write an open letter instead.

Saturday afternoon I got the call that every editor dreads.

I actually already had a bit of a stomach ache because you hadn’t replied to my messages for a couple of hours. Since we hired you at Ekstra Bladet, shortly before Putin attacked Ukraine, you have been extremely professional and sent regular updates on your whereabouts every day.

One of your good friends was on the other end of the line – and in his stream of words I understood that you had been shot. The rest of the conversation is a bit of a blur to me.

But I will never forget when I got you on the phone shortly after, Stefan. In a stoic voice, you explained to me that you didn’t know Emil’s condition, but thought you ‘probably both would survive’.

You told me that, as agreed, you had gone to a kindergarten in the town of Okhtyrka to see if it had been hit by cluster bombs. While sitting in your car, you were shot at from a short distance with heavy calibre weapons and both wounded.

You told me in your witty Jutlandic, Stefan, that you ‘slammed the accelerator’ and fled from the hail of bullets in the smoking car.

You will have to tell the rest of the story in detail when you hopefully soon return safely to Denmark.

Journalists should not drench things in pathos. But allow me to say how incredibly proud we are at Ekstra Bladet of your efforts. You are a shining example of how important it is to cover the war.

You are reporters of the highest calibre. Always calm, never self-promoting Instagram correspondents. You’ve been readers’ eyes and ears on the front lines of a horrific piece of world history. You’ve lived permanently in Ukraine for nearly three years, freelancing for Danish and international media, you speak the language, and you understand war like few others do. Throughout the complicated evacuation from the war zone, you have mustered an unimaginable calm, with a dash of Jutlandic humour and biting sarcasm underneath the hell of pain.

On behalf of the readers of Ekstra Bladet I want to thank you for your courage.

Yours sincerely, Knud

PS. I have the herring sandwich and Brøndum schnapps ready, which was your only wish for when you come to Ekstra Bladet.

Weichert and Filtenborg were lucky to have been on contract for Ekstra Bladet, which afforded them the security and insurance offered by the publishing house JP/Politikens Hus. But the incident highlights the potential danger to journalists reporting from the front line without similar safeguards.

WAN-IFRA and the World Editors Forum have called for journalists on the ground to be offered maximum protections. Additionally, they have published a list of freely available resources for news organisations and reporters to cover the conflict safely and securely.

#BehindTheHeadlines: With journalism in Creole, Mensagem de Lisboa is reaching new audiences

Dino d'Santiago and Karyna Gomes in conversation (Photo Credit: Rita Ansone)

In the build up to World News Day 2022, we will be going #BehindTheHeadlines to highlight stories that have had a significant social impact, and to showcase what newsrooms are doing to better tell the story of their journalism.

This story was originally published by WAN-IFRA.

Mensagem de Lisboa, which was launched last year, has made it its mission to listen to the communities it covers, while also giving a voice to those who are rarely heard.

Since December 2021, the community news site has been putting a particular focus on Lisbon’s Creole community by producing journalistic content in their languages. Some 14,000 Guineans and 25,000 Cape Verdeans live in the Lisbon area (excluding their descendants).

Recognising and honouring the Creole community

“As a hyper local news outlet, our main focus is to integrate all communities in town,” said Catarina Carvalho, founder of Mensagem de Lisboa and former editor of Portugal’s Diário de Notícias. “It’s also a story of recognising and honouring a community that has done so much for the city but has never seen any of its languages acknowledged.”

According to Carvalho, publishing professional journalistic content in Creole was an unprecedented initiative in Portuguese media, and brought Mensagem de Lisboa a lot of attention, including several appearances on TV.

“It had a huge impact, so huge that it even affected our traffic,” she said. “Many people were coming to the website to see what we were doing, even if they weren’t Creole speakers.”

Mensagem de Lisboa launched the project with the help of a grant from NewsSpectrum, and partnered with Dino d’Santiago, one of Portugal’s biggest musicians, who also runs Lisboa Criola, a cultural and journalistic project covering the Creole community in Lisbon.

Managing the editorial workflow

In order to produce content in Creole, they brought on board Karyna Gomes, a musician and journalist of Guinean and Cape Verdean descent.

Gomes takes part in editorial meetings and collaborates closely with the small team at Mensagem de Lisboa. She writes her articles in Creole, and translates them into Portuguese. Editorial staff at Mensagem de Lisboa then edit the Portuguese version of the text, and Gomes implements the changes in her original piece in Creole.

Although the NewsSpectrum grant that has financed the project runs out in March, Gomes will likely continue to cover Lisbon’s Creole community until the end of the year.

As part of her coverage, she has written about the origins and importance of Creole in Lisbon, and spoken to a wide range of different people from the community, giving visibility to a group of people whose stories are otherwise rarely told in Portuguese mainstream media.

“Mensagem’s motto is empathy through knowledge,” Carvalho said.

“We understood that this was needed in Lisbon, as there are so many little ‘Lisbons’ that don’t tend to mix. We have this integration mission, so the Creole project fits perfectly into that.”

#BehindTheHeadlines: Investigating death at a sobering station in Wrocław, Poland

25-year-old Ukrainian Dmytro Nikiforenko died in a Polish sobering station (Photo Credit: supplied).

As part of the build up to World News Day 2022, we are showcasing journalism from around the world that has had significant social impact. Here is the backstory of the investigation that won Gazeta Wyborcza reporter Jacek Harłukowicz Poland’s top prize for journalism in 2021.

This article was originally published by WAN-IFRA.

It’s 10.52 PM when Dmytro Nikiforenko, a 25-year-old man from Ukraine, stops moving. Police officers are still sitting on him, one is hitting him on the head, the other is choking him. Other participants visible on the video footage – two more officers, two employees from the sobering station* and a doctor – are just observing, joking and laughing. When they notice there’s no response from their victim, the doctor checks his pulse. The policeman who was beating him, begins CPR.

But Nikiforenko is already dead.

When Jacek Harłukowicz from Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza saw the footage, recorded by a security camera, he was shocked. He had first heard about the death of the Ukrainian in August, 2021. A police informant wrote to him: “Find out what happened on July 30th in the sobering station in Wrocław. The boy is dead. Heads must roll. If you don’t cover this case, it will be swept under the rug.”

It was a tipoff that led to Harlukowicz uncovering the truth of what happened that night. The investigation won him Poland’s Grand Press Award in the Category for News.

Jacek Harłukowicz receiving the most important journalistic prize in Poland (Photo Credit: Sławomir Kamiński).
Jacek Harłukowicz receiving the most important journalistic prize in Poland (Photo Credit: Sławomir Kamiński).

When first alerted to the story, Harłukowicz remembered a similar incident in May 2016 when police officers hit another young man with a stun gun, also in Wrocław. He died a few hours after he was beaten and strangled at the police station.

Harłukowicz began investigating, but nobody knew anything. Other journalists soon found out about the Ukrainian, but no details were given to the public. An employee from the station tried to persuade the journalists that when Nikiforenko was collected by the officers from the city bus, he was drunk, violent and aggressive. They drove him to the station, strapped him up, and after a while he began to struggle to breathe.

But that’s not what happened.

The last hours of Nikiforenko’s life were on record, captured by a security camera. Footage clearly showed that for the whole time he was calm. “The sobering station employees didn’t see anything inappropriate in the recording when I watched it with them,” said Harlukowicz. “Experienced police officers I talked to were terrified that in the 21st century, in a European country, you could be beaten to death just because you were drunk while riding a bus.”

Two years earlier, the Ukrainian Nikiforenko had travelled to Poland in search of a better life. He came from Niemirów, a small town in the Vinnytsia Oblast in central Ukraine. Nikiforenko chose Wrocław, a popular destination for Ukrainians. He had a job and a fiancée; they were planning a wedding.

“It was outstanding how the family members of Dmytro were treated: until I exposed what actually happened during the arrest, they thought that Dmytro was the one attacking the officers. It was all lies,” said Harłukowicz.

When his report was published, it took only a few hours before police officers were suspended. All the biggest newspapers and websites – both in Poland and Ukraine, e.g. Ukrainian BBC – reported on Harłukowicz’ discovery. Ukrainian ambassador Andrij Deszczyca sent a diplomatic note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking for special coverage of the investigation.

“Today, all the people who were responsible for the death of Dmytro – officers, employees from the station and the doctor – are facing charges,” said Harłukowicz. “But I don’t feel satisfied. Nothing will bring this young man back to life, who came to Poland looking for a better future.”

It was not the last case of police brutality in this region: two more men died in August during or shortly after interventions. Both cases are under investigation now.

Harłukowicz was awarded the most important journalistic prize in Poland – the Grand Press Award in the News category.

“It is always a difficult choice, as this category is one of the most popular,” said juror Aleksandra Sobczak when she was presenting the award. “There were a lot of entries, but we chose the most outstanding of them. I remember as one of the jury members said, that it could win in more than one category – it’s not only a great news piece, it is also an investigation, a report and a story of great social impact.”

Three police officers have been fired. They, together with two station employees, will be prosecuted for the abuse and fatal beating of Nikiforenko. The fourth officer will only face abuse charges. The doctor is accused of risking the loss of life, and three other employees of incitement and false representation of medical records.

*A sobering station is a facility designed to accommodate people who are intoxicated.

Joanna Dzikowska is a journalist and reportage editor at Gazeta Wyborcza.