Free Word contest organizers name winners. PHOTOS

The award cer­e­mo­ny took place as part of the round­table dis­cus­sion on the qual­i­ty of jour­nal­is­tic work of the Belaru­sian mass media affect­ed by relo­ca­tion and repres­sions.

The inde­pen­dent media con­test is held year­ly to mark the pro­fes­sion­al skills of media work­ers, encour­age tal­ent­ed jour­nal­ists, and stim­u­late their activ­i­ties to pro­tect the prin­ci­ples of pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­ism and free­dom of speech.

“In 2006, Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau noticed that our jour­nal­ist orga­ni­za­tion did not hold jour­nal­ist con­tests and did not award jour­nal­ist prizes,” said Andrei Bas­tunets, the head of the BAJ, in his wel­com­ing speech. “In 2007, this omis­sion was cor­rect­ed. Mr. Ali­ak­san­drau is now in prison, but his cause lives on. Last year, how­ev­er, the com­pe­ti­tion did not take place for obvi­ous rea­sons: the war began, many news­rooms were relo­cat­ed, and the regime declared inde­pen­dent media ‘extrem­ist’. Besides, BAJ was giv­en the sta­tus of an ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tion’, and it would have been sur­pris­ing if we had giv­en awards to oth­er ‘extrem­ist’ media. But we were sup­port­ed by the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists. Now the con­test is held under their aus­pices.”

Below are the contest results:

Infor­ma­tive gen­res

First place

Dzmit­ry Pankavets, RFE/RL Belarus: “‘Nobody believed that we would stay alive’. Belaru­sian vol­un­teer fight­er Dzia­n­is ‘Kit’ on atroc­i­ties in Bucha”

Second place

Yahor Parfi­a­nen­ka, Novaya Gaze­ta. Evropa: “Mar­i­upol: the city that doesn’t exist”

Third place

Viyale­ta Sauchyts, RFE/RL Belarus, “Scars of Protest. Six pho­to sto­ries of August 2020 protest vic­tims”

Ana­lyt­i­cal gen­res

First place

Dzmit­ry Kosach, Sal­i­dar­nasc: The “Ref­er­en­dum” series (“The very first ref­er­en­dum in Belarus: a cru­el joke of his­to­ry”; “Why Lukashenka’s vic­to­ry at the first ref­er­en­dum was ‘fair’, but ‘mean’”; “The last bat­tle before Lukashenka’s com­plete seizure of pow­er”; “Ref­er­en­dum char­ac­ter­ized by an ‘inde­cent scene’: Lukashen­ka oppos­ing Putin”; “Lukashenka’s ner­vous­ness – Putin’s sat­is­fac­tion. 10 sad and fun­ny moments of the 2020 ref­er­en­dum”

Sec­ond place

Vital Tsy­hank­ou, RFE/RL Belarus: “Lukashen­ka as the guar­an­tor of the sov­er­eign­ty loss”

Трэцяе месца

Third place

Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki, Pozirk: “Lukashen­ka is not ready to for­give his polit­i­cal ene­mies”

Artis­tic and jour­nal­is­tic gen­res

First place

Zmitser Kaza­ke­vich, Bel­sat: “Nev­er ask a pris­on­er ‘How are you?…’ Big talk with Daria Chultso­va on her 38^th day on the out­side”

Sec­ond place

Nas­tas­sia Zelianko­va, Sal­i­dar­nasc: The “Women” series (“Hali­na Makar­a­va. Makayonak’s fav and a woman with a shov­el”; “Zos­ka Veras. A woman from a for­est hut, who became the cen­ter of attrac­tion of the Belaru­sian intel­li­gentsia”; “She encour­aged dis­obe­di­ence to author­i­ties in the Belaru­sian lan­guage”; “Mozart in pet­ti­coats, who bought a gun for Kas­tus Kali­nous­ki”).

Third place

Ali­ak­san­dr Barazen­ka, Dzia­n­is Dudzin­s­ki, Bel­sat: The “Peo­ple of war” series

Jour­nal­is­tic inves­ti­ga­tion

First place

Nasha Niva: “Infil­trates Belaru­sian NGOs under the guise of a lawyer, pass­es on infor­ma­tion to Kse­nia Lebedze­va. Strange activ­i­ties of Man­tas Danelius”

Sec­ond place

Ali­ak­sei Karpe­ka, Kse­nia Viaznikout­sa­va, Vol­ha Alkhi­men­ka, Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Cen­ter: “Lukashenka’s sanc­tioned ‘wal­let’ Shakutsin con­tin­ues busi­ness in the EU despite sanc­tions”

Third place

Siarhei Liapin, Flagsh­tok, “Flagsh­tok found out the name of the infa­mous Telegram chan­nel admin. It is an offi­cial of the Homel region­al exec­u­tive com­mit­tee”

A total of 144 jour­nal­is­tic works were sub­mit­ted to the Free Word 2022 cre­ative con­test.

Read more:

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