2022 Documentary of the Year
Team: Will N. Miller, Ian Urbina, Raphaela Morais, William Ryan Fritch, Sarah Sparkman, Anass Addi, Hussein Gido, Khaled Zakaria, Mansura Akter, Muhamed Wondimu Fentie, Rahmoune Mohammed Amine, Ayat Zahra, Hany Hawasly, Ashira Prem Rechana, Chris Michael, Jess Gormley, Ekaterina Ochagavia, Lindsay Poulton
An overcrowded ship with asylum seekers leaves Libya bound for Europe – triggering a high-stakes showdown between a Doctors Without Borders vessel wanting to escort it to safety and the Libyan Coast Guard fighting to turn it back. As the Libyans issue armed threats, tension grows below deck. With European countries’ responsibilities toward refugees once again in the spotlight, here is an inside view of the desperate hope that is the deadly race for Europe.
Team: Haley Willis, David Botti, Sameen Amin, Drew Jordan, Yousur Al-Hlou, Erik Ljung, Mark Scheler, Nancy Donaldson Gauss, Jonah M. Kessel, Robin Stein, Julie Bosman, Katie G. Nelson, Christoph Koetti, Muyl Xiao, Christiaan Triebert, Stella Cooper, John Ismay, Evan Hill, Neil Macarquhar, Natalie Reneau, Dahlia Kozlowsky, Kitty Bennett, Sheelagh McNeil
The violence in Kenosha, Wis., on the night of Aug. 25, 2020, stunned the nation. How did a 17-year-old end up killing two people in the midst of protests against police brutality? That’s the question we set out to answer.
Our reporting began with visual analysis signature to The Times’ Visual Investigations team. We closely reviewed hours of footage to reconstruct the night minute by minute, and to identify and track key players at the scene. Then we travelled to Kenosha to speak to them, with a clear idea of their movement in the hours leading up to the fatal minutes and the ability to confront them with irrefutable facts. In many cases, we were the first or only news media our subjects spoke to on camera. Most would later be subpoenaed for Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial.
This access allowed us to recount the story from all sides. We interviewed the man who called for armed citizens to converge on Kenosha. We questioned Kenosha County’s sheriff on the seemingly deferential treatment toward openly armed men. Finally, we sat down with protesters and talked to the man who survived being shot.
The resulting piece is a completely new approach to making sense of a news event in video format. We blended narrative tools and visual approaches to give our audience the most comprehensive account of the night. Our story has the factual gravitas of our hallmark Visual Investigations: verifying and dissecting visuals, using custom graphics and maintaining transparency. It also has the emotional punch and visual richness of documentary film: high-production value footage and in-depth interviews. Successfully balancing these two styles was a feat that took months. The end result has since garnered over five and a half million views on YouTube.
Through this piece, the story of Kenosha becomes less about one night and more about all of us: about the ground rules we set together for the America we live in, about the inevitabilities we create and the casualties we’re willing to accept.
