On this World Press Freedom Day, we just finished screening the world premiere of our new documentary “The Killing of a Journalist,” at the Hot Docs festival. The film is about the aftermath of the 2018 murders of our Slovak colleague Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová, which also unraveled one of the European Union's most jaw-dropping corruption scandals, eventually bringing down a government, judges, and the police.
On this day and every day, we remember Ján and others who have lost their lives working in the public service of journalism.
Ján and Martina were planning their wedding when they were killed.
“An attack on a journalist is an attack on all of us.” Demonstration banner, Slovakia, 2018, as seen in the film
In a dark story about an assassination that never should have happened, the film is a good reminder that between robust democracies and brutal autocracies, there are still many countries in what Freedom House calls “the gray zone of hybrid governance,” where ostensibly democratic structures gloss over undemocratic practices.
“Oligarchs had such a power that they even had the chance to create the illusion of a well-functioning liberal democracy. And in 2018, when Kuciak was murdered, we discovered that, you know, there is no bottom.”- Michal Vašečka, sociologist, from the film
And in these countries especially, independent journalism can shine a light on this damaging system of government, giving people the information they need to decide how they want to be governed. In “The Killing of a Journalist,” we see thousands of Slovaks taking to the streets to loudly protest the murder of a journalist and the crime and corruption revealed in their institutions.
"I believe that even if you are desperate and frustrated and you believe that change is not possible, you can see that it is. And we can see it, in this case, that change is possible. And it’s up to us to decide if it’s going to be a good or bad change.” - Pavla Holcová, investigative journalist, from the film
