The Wall Street Journal, 2023
2:39
The reporting team at The Wall Street Journal used all the tools of modern journalism to tell the world how Russian forces deliberately targeted civilians, nearly caused a catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and are systematically using terror, violence and oppression in the war in Ukraine.
The Journal team relied on cell phone video, satellite imagery, security-camera footage and posts on social media and messaging apps to expose how reprisals against Ukrainian civilians steadily grew into a wholesale effort to crush their resistance. The Journal’s reporting has been credited for playing a central role in debunking Russian claims that atrocities against civilians have been staged.
In one particularly powerful video, The Journal documented how Russian forces fired on civilian vehicles as they attempted to flee the country on what became known as the “road of death.” The video earned plaudits from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, which called it “some of the finest investigative journalism on Russia’s invasion.” The “road of death” video was also cited as evidence for a U.S. Senate resolution that designated Russian violence in Ukraine as genocide.
Focusing on the Russian occupation of the nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, Journal reporters spent months telling the stories of workers, trapped inside, who are credited with averting a meltdown despite being subject to violence and torture. As a result of the Journal’s coverage, two dozen of the world’s top nuclear experts wrote a public letter urging the U.S. government to make protecting the Zaporizhzhia plant a diplomatic priority.
The Journal’s exceptional multimedia, investigative coverage of the war has been credited for stiffening Western resolve to support Ukraine, giving the United Nations the information it needed to expand its role and providing international investigators with key evidence for their inquiries into Russian atrocities.