_{Almudena (bottom) talks with Janet and Stephanie as producer Margherita looks on}

Throughout August, we’re looking back into the archives, selecting episodes that fit a particular theme and providing updates on what has happened since they were first released. This year, we’re exploring how journalists, filmmakers and investigators bear witness to global atrocities.

So, where better to start than with the People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists in The Hague? In this episode, recorded in 2022, we sat down with Almudena Bernabeu, the prosecutor at the tribunal. In September of that year, the Tribunal delivered a judgment holding the governments of Syria, Sri Lanka and Mexico responsible for failing to provide accountability for the killings of journalists in their countries.

Since that judgment, it seems that things have only become more critical when it comes to the safety of journalists. Reporters Without Borders’ most recent annual round-up found that 67 journalists were killed because of their work between 2024 and 2025, making it the deadliest year for the profession since they began keeping records.

A large proportion of those deaths happened in Gaza, where local journalists have often been the only source of information from inside the territory, despite working under incredibly dangerous conditions, with attacks on media infrastructure and almost no safe space from which to report.

Gaza is not the only place where journalists are facing extraordinary risks. In Sudan, since the outbreak of war, reporters have been threatened, detained, displaced and forced into exile, while those who remain continue working despite shortages of equipment, electricity and connectivity. In Ukraine, journalists covering the full-scale invasion are still reporting close to the front lines, facing bombardment, digital attacks, disinformation campaigns and the psychological impact of documenting war.

Stay tuned for the following episodes in the collection, when we look at what it means for journalists to cover the wars in both of those countries.

Almudena says she “got stuck in the 1980s” and recommends The Smiths as a background for writing pleadings and Jazz, especially Ella Fitzgerald, for reading documents. Almudena has also been binge-watching the series News Of A Kidnapping, based on the book of Gabrial Garcia Marquez, and raising the question of the role journalists play in our society.