Novosti columnist Marinko Čulić received the HND Lifetime Achievement Award, Boris Dežulović was chosen by the HND members as the Journalist of the Year, while Tamara Opačić received the Award for Written Journalism
BY: Goran Borković / Novosti
PHOTO: HINA / Daniel KASAP
This year’s awards ceremony of the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) was dominated by the weekly Novosti. The columnist of our weekly newspaper, Marinko Čulić received the HND Lifetime Achievement Award “Otokar Keršovani,” Boris Dežulović was chosen by the HND members as the Journalist of the Year, while Tamara Opačić received the “Marija Jurić Zagorka” Award for Written Journalism.
Čulić’s Arithmetics of Writing
On behalf of Marinko Čulić, the award was received by his wife Nevenka Valjak Čulić, who thanked everyone for the award in his name. “First of all, thank you to all the journalists and editors he worked with in various newsrooms. Marinko’s whole life is journalism,” said Nevenka Valjak Čulić.
The explanation for the award emphasizes that in more than 40 years of his journalistic work, Čulić has persistently and consistently criticized every government, insisting above all on the right to freely express his stance and position. HND points out that some of Čulić’s regular topics include the relations between Croatia and Serbia, politics towards Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) abandonment of social democracy, dismantling of the welfare state, growth of inequality in the country and the world, as well as the lack of political vision among our politicians, which creates a “hellish formula of diminished prospects and hopelessness.”
“Čulić’s ‘arithmetics of writing’ is made up of subtle stylistic mastery that never stifles analyticity, lucid observations, pronounced social sensitivity, and a panoramic view of political and social movements in what is now called the region. As a columnist, Marinko Čulić has never fallen into the seductive trap of being locked into his world of alienation from the field – he follows current political events, talks to their participants, and takes part in editorial boards for the good of his newspaper and in solidarity with his colleagues,” says the statement, which also recalls the famous trial called “Kosti u mikseru” (“Bones in the Mixer”), when the state sued Čulić and Viktor Ivančić, at the time members of the Feral Tribune editorial board, in 1996, over Tuđman’s insistence that, just like the Spanish dictator Franco, he should mix the bones of Ustasha criminals and their victims in the grounds of the former concentration camp Jasenovac, which provoked considerable reactions from the international public and so it remained the only case of application of the Criminal Code according to which public prosecutors could file indictments on their own if they assessed that a journalist insulted the highest state officials.
Marinko Čulić was born in Šibenik in 1951. He started working as a journalist after graduating from the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb in 1977. He started writing for Večernji List. In 1983, he received the Vjesnik Award “Vladimir Kristl.” He was the first secular journalist to receive an interview from the then Archbishop of Zagreb, Franjo Kuharić. As an already respected journalist, editor-in-chief Mirko Galić invited him to the weekly Danas, where Čulić stood out as and gained reputation of a skilled reporter and concise commentator of the political scene at the dawn of the break-up of Yugoslavia.
In an interview in May 1990, the president-elect Franjo Tuđman openly told him that the Croatian people could not be reduced to “such unnatural borders,” announcing what would happen in the coming years. After the political euthanasia of the weekly Danas, Čulić started publishing for Nedjeljna Dalmacija, which also succumbed to the pressure of the authorities at the time, so in 1993 he transferred to Feral Tribune. Čulić’s columnist style is characterized by lucidity and the ability to analytically explain even the most complicated political topics in the simplest journalistic expression, which he summed up in two books, emphasizing the critique of Tuđmanism: “Tuđman – The Anatomy of Unenlightened Absolutism” and “Tuđman – and After Tuđman”. In 2003, he received the HND “Marija Jurić Zagorka” award for his columns in Feral Tribune. Since 2009, he has been writing a column in Novosti entitled “The Arithmetic of Politics.”
Dežulović’s “Fuck off with Vukovar”
Boris Dežulović’s nomination for the Journalist of the Year Award, which is chosen by the members of HND, came from the editorial staff of the N1 Television portal, which he also writes a weekly column for. In addition to Dežulović, the shortlist also included Danka Derifaj from RTL Television, Ilko Čimić from the Index Portal, and TV journalist Jelena Jindra for a series of articles on the H-alter Portal.
Dežulović said that he had two hearings the following day in the dispute initiated against him by Željka Markić, and that he had just come from the prosecutor’s office in Split, where he had given a statement regarding the reported death threats. “The life of a journalist today looks something like this – walking from the State Attorney’s Office to the courts and vice versa, and if you manage to write something in between – great!” said Dežulović.
The explanation for Dežulović’s award states that in his 35 years of working in journalism, he had always held his own position: clear, precise, and well-argued. It also reminds of his engaged texts about the devastation of the Vruja Bay, which led to the mass civil resistance movement for the looting of the common grounds.
“Mere months later, with his comment piece ‘Fuck off with Vukovar,’ he tried to do the impossible: to return a town turned into a mausoleum to its living inhabitants and redirect the state on the track towards normalcy. Veterans’ associations, ruling and right-wing opposition politicians, immediately rose to their feet – and among them a good part of those who, unlike Dežulović, did not even see Vukovar in 1991. And they preached about patriotism, talked about betrayal and attack on something that is holy, and were simply horrified by the ‘shameful publication.’ In the end, when the chase subsided and the bottom line was drawn, it can be rightly said that Dežulović’s text marked the beginning of a desacralized, honest, fact-based public conversation about Vukovar, the war, and its victims, removed of all patheticness. But, even more, about the quasi-patriotic scum that parasitizes on said victim, usurping everyone’s right to call this country their own,” states the explanation of the award.
Tamara Opačić Always on the Side of the Weak
Novosti journalist Tamara Opačić received a professional recognition award for her article on the case of migrant Omer Mahdi, published under the title “They Asked Me to Be Their Informant,” and a series of reports from Banija. Addressing the audience at the crowded Journalists’ House in Zagreb, Tamara Opačić said that she dedicated the award primarily to women from Banija who had been living in containers for two years, waiting for the state to finally help them. On the other hand, said Tamara Opačić, the same state proved to be very effective when it comes to expelling refugees who, as her story has proven, are not safe even when they receive asylum.
“Following the testimonies of Mahdi and his partner, according to which the official decision on granting asylum in Croatia to the 27-year-old Iraqi in the fall of 2018 was subsequently annulled, apparently because he refused the offer from the intelligence service to act as an informant of other immigrants for the Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA), Tamara Opačić, through thorough and detailed work, in compliance with all the rules and procedures of the journalistic profession, came to a series of findings that confirmed their side of the story. In such a context, the text of our fellow journalist Opačić is not only an outstanding example of professional journalistic work, but also a contribution to journalism that will always side with the helpless and the weak in the name of public interest. Tamara Opačić has done everything that a journalist can do to keep the truth important,” it is stated in the explanation.
It is also pointed out that in the report chronicles from Banija after the earthquake, she exposed the scale of failure to reconstruct the houses and settlements destroyed in the earthquake, and that she vividly managed to show how in just a few months the mood of Banija residents had subsided when it came to the pace of reconstruction. However, she also accurately noted that even only a few months after the devastating earthquake, still during the time of hope and optimism, there were those residents from the area who did not rely on state reconstruction.
“Last year on the most emotional topic in the public, Tamara Opačić showed that a field report is the queen of journalism. The author’s style should also be noted as without it there are no reports. Her often discreet, unobtrusive, but polished sentences are enough to show how accurate the observations are, but also to ensure that the report forefront is given to those who should be there – the people,” the explanation emphasizes.
Award to Dimitrijević from Telegram
Andrej Dimitrijević from the Telegram Portal received the “Jasna Babić” Award for Investigative Journalism for a series of articles in which he exposed the shortcomings of Croatian investigators in the case of Gabrijela Žalac and forwarded the results to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which eventually led to the arrest of former minister.
“Dimitrijević’s texts in that set of breaking news were the snowball that started the avalanche, clearly showing that journalism, despite all the challenges it faces today, still has enough strength to fulfil the main goal of our profession – to inform citizens about what is really going on behind the scenes, to detect illegal actions of powerful political strongmen, to disclose crime. And in doing so, step by step, change Croatia for the better,” states the explanation.
Matijanić from Index the Best Online Journalist
The “Marija Jurić Zagorka” Award for Online Journalism went to Vladimir Matijanić from the Index Portal, who was the first to discover and exclusively publish a series of reasoned suspicions that parts of the doctoral dissertation of Vice Mihanović, Croatian Democratic Union’s (HDZ) candidate for mayor of Split in the last local elections, the director of the Split Port Authority, faculty lecturer, and president of the city’s branch of HDZ, were plagiarized. “As a journalist, Matijanić accurately dissected and proved that the doctoral dissertation is simply a farce, while in the parallel reality of politics and the politically poisoned academic community, everything was being done to prove that the dissertation was perfectly fine,” the jury concluded.
Awards given to Šoban, Altarac, Šore, Malbaša, and Yammat.fm
The “Nikša Antonini” Award for Newspaper Photography went to Igor Šoban from the Pixsell agency for the photo of rescuing an old woman from a burning building, and the “Marija Jurić Zagorka” Award for Radio Journalism went to Yammat.fm’s show “Department of Plastic Surgery,” especially for the report “Yammat in Banja – short cuts of a disaster,” recorded by a group of journalists following a team of Sloga volunteers who managed to organise themselves just a few hours after the devastating earthquake. The jury emphasized the editorial and mentoring role of Silvija Šeparović. The “Žarko Kaić” Award for Best TV Segment went to Igor Altarac for the report by Karmen Šore “Fighting for Life,” filmed at the COVID-19 department of the Clinical Hospital Center (KBC) in Split. The “Marija Jurić Zagorka” Award for Television Journalism in ever greater competition went to journalist and reporter Karmen Šore, who spent a day at the COVID-19 department of the Split hospital and witnessed the staff’s tireless struggle, and also to Ana Malbaša for the story “Land Embezzlement on the Island of Brač,” as part of the TV show Provjereno on Nova TV.
“We are here for the truth”
Hrvoje Zovko, the president of HND took this opportunity to warn of the position of journalism as a profession in Croatia today. The number of submissions for these awards is proof, said Zovko, that despite all the difficulties, journalism is still very active and important, and that it is worth fighting for. “We are here for the truth, whatever it may be, and not because of someone’s politics,” Zovko said, reminding everyone of the current situation of journalists covering the war in Ukraine. This year, 149 submissions were received for awards in nine categories. Congratulations to all the winners, especially to our colleagues. After the award ceremony, the crowd was entertained by the group Let3.