Maurine Mercier named Swiss journalist of the year

The Kyiv-based Mercier, seen at the awards ceremony, won for her report following the occupation of the Ukrainian town of Bucha in the early days of the war. © Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle

Mercier, the Ukraine correspondent for Swiss public television RTS, took home the top prize at the Swiss Press Awards at a ceremony in Bern on Friday evening.

The 41-year-old French-speaking journalist received the prize for her report on Bucha following the Russian occupation of the town in the early days of the war. The photographer-of-the-year award went to Alex Kühni of Tamedia, also for his work in Ukraine.

Mercier was praised by the jury for her “exceptional talent”. Her report from Bucha included an interview with a woman who had been raped by Russian soldiers in her home over a two-week period. Human rights experts say they have found extensive evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces in Bucha in March 2022.

The reporter’s work in Bucha had won her the prestigious Jean Dumur and Bayeux awards for war correspondents last year. Mercier also works for networks France Inter, TV5 Monde and the Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.

Bernese photographer Kühni, who won the international category of the Swiss Press Photo award earlier this month, was honoured for images that “leave you speechless, because they are monstrous and courageous at the same time”, wrote the president of the jury, Albertine Bourget.

Other winners on Friday evening included Barbara Achermann in the text category for her investigation into claims of harassment and intimidation at the Zurich Dance Academy; and a trio of data journalists at German-language public television SRF (Pascal Albisser, Julian Schmidli and Lukas Frischknecht) in the online category for a “climate monitor” that measures climate change in Switzerland.

The awards were presented by the Reinhardt von Graffenried Foundation, created in 2009 to support journalism and press photography. Winners in the various categories each receive CHF15,000 ($16,760), while the journalist and photographer of the year each take home CHF25,000.