Leaked data from the Russian Defense Ministry shook the story loose. A team of investigators found that during the first 21 months of the invasion of Ukraine, nearly 1,000 Russian soldiers were treated at Belarusian hospitals, including war crime suspects. These “secret patients,” as they were known, directly tied Belarus to Moscow’s war effort.
Maria Zholobova, a journalist working at investigative outlet IStories, has long been interested in who is financially benefiting from Russian-occupied regions in Ukraine. So, for a story supported by the Jim Hoge Fellowship, Zholobova turned to customs data and export records, hoping to find something. And she did. She noticed that a company registered to a run-down building on the outskirts of a Russian town had, over the past two years, exported nearly half a million tons of coal labeled as “Russian” but produced in Ukraine’s occupied territory, primarily to Turkey.
Through our Crisis Reporting Forum at IJNet, we hosted live training sessions and discussions throughout the year to help journalists stay on top of major global developments. In our “IJNet Conversations” series launched this year, we reached out to experts and writers in the IJNet network to offer their expertise and advice for journalists on the fundamentals of the trade. Here are recaps of six crisis reporting sessions and recordings of four practical resources for journalists that remain relevant heading into 2025.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), since the war began at least 128 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon, including some targeted by Israeli forces. The killings of journalists, who are civilians under the law, must stop, and Israel must investigate cases of journalists killed by their forces.
The world’s eyes have been on Israel and Gaza since the October 7 attacks by the Hamas militant group that are reported to have killed at least 1,400 people in Israel. It’s believed that Hamas is currently holding another 199 hostage inside Gaza.
Washington Correspondent Dr. Markus Günther won the 2006 Arthur F. Burns Award for “Kriege ohne Sieger (Wars without Winners),” published in Badische Zeitung on August 18, 2006.
