The Croatian Journalists’ Association on May 3 awarded the “Jasna Babic” Award for investigative journalism to freelancer and BIRN contributor Barbara Matejcic for articles published in the weekly Novosti in Croatia and in BIRN Serbia.
Her awarded work examined the circumstances under which photographs from the war in the former Yugoslavia were taken in Brcko in Bosnia in May 1992, documenting acts of execution at close range.
Matejcic’s investigation raises critical questions regarding the circumstances that enabled the creation of these photographs, the roles of their authors, and the factors that made such documentation possible.
“It takes an exceptionally precise eye and a strong journalistic instinct to recognise a deeper, even more horrific story in the photographs that so many people have seen before her,” the jury noted.
“This was achieved by Barbara Matejcic, who first suspected the circumstances of their creation and then investigated how the only professional photographs from the war in the former Yugoslavia that show the act of execution up close were taken in Brcko in May 1992,” they added.
“She also consulted court and media archives, including transcripts from the trial of war criminal Goran Jelisic in The Hague, in which the photographs were used as evidence. As an independent reporter, she conducted work of a scope and depth that would typically require an entire journalistic team at major media outlets.
“In doing so, she addressed the shortcomings of international agencies that published and awarded the photographs without sufficient verification of the circumstances surrounding their creation,” the jury continued.
“Since I am not part of a newsroom, but a freelancer for a long time – and through joint work in the media, you get a reflection of your work – the award comes to me as a substitute for that, as if I get feedback from my colleagues for a while, and I miss that,” Matejcic said.
“In addition, I see the HND Award for Investigative Journalism as a reminder of the importance of defending the right to long-term, complex journalistic work. Because investigative journalism, at its core, is a slow, complex, and uncertain process, it is becoming increasingly difficult to handle,” she said.
“Today, journalism is overworked and underpaid. Journalists in newsrooms don’t have time, I didn’t have it either, and I invested a lot of so-called free and unpaid time on this topic, and investigative journalism requires time, and it is not a luxury, but a necessity, just as investigative journalism is not a luxury, but the foundation of any society that wants to be called democratic,” she continued.
Jasna Babic was an award-winning Croatian journalist who, along with colleagues, established the media outlet Globus in 1990, where she worked as a war reporter.
She devoted much of her career to uncovering scandals, exposing criminals, and reporting on the mafia, murders, war crimes, and political maneuvering within leading political parties.