On the 19-th of April Oleksiy Radynskyi, a researcher of ecological warfare and nuclear terrorism at The Reckoning Project, will speak at a symposium in the USA about the connection between media and military. The director will participate in a panel discussion, "Investigating War Crimes," along with John Baker, a public defender and retired Marine, and Ariс Toler, an investigative reporter. The event is hosted by the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.
About
This symposium will offer an opportunity to hear both from first-hand participants and experts on some of the most challenging issues at the intersection of the media and the military including critical information about whistleblowers, war crimes evidence, and mental health. The keynote speaker will be a photojournalist who has been documenting the Israeli-Hamas War. Attendees will leave the day-long event with a well-rounded perspective and some timely knowledge about these important issues that profoundly impact journalists, service members, and veterans.
About the Veterans Clinic
Students in the University of Missouri School of Law Veterans Clinic help veterans and their families secure disability-related benefits. Student work is primarily focused on veterans benefits cases, as well as discharge upgrades.
Since its inception in 2014, the clinic has provided guidance to over 1300 veterans and family members. Each semester, Professor Drake oversees the work of 16 or more students, as they review veterans’ military records and disability files, track down witness statements and work with doctors to secure medical opinions.
The clinic is run like a law firm, providing Mizzou Law students with an experience designed to prepare them for the practice of law while securing retroactive monetary benefits for our nation’s veterans. To date, the clinic has recovered in excess of 12.5 million dollars for its clients.
About the Reynolds Journalism Institute
The Donald W. Reynolds Institute (RJI) was launched in 2004 with a grant of $31 million from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. In conjunction with the centennial celebration of the Missouri School of Journalism, RJI’s headquarters were opened in September 2008.
Our 50,000 square-foot facility on the University of Missouri campus has state-of-the-art resources to test and implement new technologies, experiment with new approaches to producing, designing and delivering news, information and advertising – and to host conferences, training and workshops for journalists. RJI’s work crosses diverse specialties within journalism, including editorial content and methods, the evolution of advertising, innovation in management and the impact of new technologies. It also includes varied fields on campus such as law, computer science, marketing, education and other disciplines.
Speakers
Aric Toler, reporter
Toler is a reporter on the Visual Investigations team at The New York Times. Before joining The Times in 2023, Aric was the director of research and training at Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based open source reporting organization. Through nine years at Bellingcat, he was involved with investigations that revealed Russian espionage activities in Europe and the United States, including pieces on the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England. His work has exposed online personas operated by Russian military intelligence officers and war crimes carried out by Russian forces in Ukraine. He has a master’s degree in Slavic languages and literature from the University of Kansas and lives in Kansas City.
Oleksiy Radynskyi, filmmaker and writer
Oleksiy Radynski is a filmmaker and writer based in Kyiv. His films have been screened at film festivals and in exhibition contexts worldwide, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), e-flux (New York), Docudays (Kyiv), Sheffield Doc Fest, Krakow IFF, DOK Leipzig, etc. His documentary Chornobyl 22 won the Grand Prix at Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen in 2023. His texts had been published in The Atlantic, e-flux journal, and Die Tageszeitung, among others. As part of the Reckoning Project, he researches Russian war crimes such as nuclear terrorism and environmental warfare.
Marcus Yam, correspondent and photographer
Yam is a roving Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent and staff photographer. Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, he left a career in aerospace engineering to become a photographer. His goal: to take viewers to the frontlines of conflict, struggle and intimacy. His approach is deeply rooted in curiosity, dignity and persistence. In 2022, Yam won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for images documenting the U.S. departure from Afghanistan that capture the human cost of the historic change in the country. Most recently, he was named the 2023 Robert Capa Gold Medal Winner for his stirring photographic coverage of the war in Ukraine. Yam is a two-time recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award, notably in 2019, for his unflinching body of work showing the everyday plight of Gazans during deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip.
The whole list of speakers you can find here.
The event is taking place at Reynolds Journalism Institute.
The event is organized by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the University of Missouri. The visit was partially supported by USAID - US Agency for International Development within the framework of the project "Human Rights in Action", which is implemented by the Ukrainian Helsinki Union for Human Rights - UHHRU.