Every four days, a journalist is killed. In nine out of ten cases, no one is brought to justice. The murders are designed to work twice: first to silence the journalist, then to silence the investigation. For UNESCO’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, we built a campaign on the one idea that defeats that logic.
The headlines ran in newspapers around the world. Each one reframed the murder of a journalist not as an ending but as a beginning: “More than 100 journalists have been killed to make this ad.” “The murder of a journalist is always bad news. Even for those who are behind it.” “Each year, one journalist gets a Pulitzer and one hundred get shot.”
The campaign urged readers to share the investigations of the murdered journalists, to make the murders pointless. The more their work travels, the less the killings achieve. The creative idea is devastating in its simplicity: publishing the truth of what is happening to journalists, in the very medium that is under attack. The newspaper as both the message and the weapon. #TruthNeverDies.
