Welcome to Europe

When many newspapers around the world cut their foreign coverage, Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza invests in it for a good reason.

“Welcome to Europe” is a new weekly feature section to Gazeta introduced in July. It is inspired by a successful daily section “Welcome to Poland” focused on home issues and debates.

The new section features only original and exclusive narrative stories and interviews accompanied by the photos taken mainly by Gazeta’s staff photo reporters.

What’s also unusual: articles to this section are not submitted only by Gazeta’s foreign correspondent or foreign news desk journalists. Editors launched an internal competition and everybody, including local reporters from the smallest bureaus in the homeland, can enter with a story idea and get a budget to make it. This is both a way to promote talents in the newsroom and train people.

“Welcome to Europe” opened with a story about the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center operated by the US Army in Germany, probably the largest military hospital in the world. It serves as the nearest treatment center for wounded soldiers coming from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gazeta’s correspondent Bartosz Wielinski was the first Polish journalist who entered the LRMC and told the story about what he had seen there and what the US Army tried to hide.

The photo above shows the command center at the Landstuhl hospital. Miguel Cubano who coordinates the transport of wounded soldiers stands at the board with flight schedules. On this day there were 8 new patients expected from Aghanistan and 10 from Iraq.

And here is the full two-page spread:

Mission

Gazeta’s foreign news desk editor Bartosz Weglarczyk wrote in his column:

“Europe does not end on the Union, its Parliament and Commision. We send our reporters to Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain and other countries to discover the world not-covered by other Polish media…

We send our reporters to Europe because we want to check how it really is different from Poland. And how it is similar. What is better there than here? What is worse? What do we like in this Europe and what would we like to bring back home? And what do we see as unacceptable? Today, or maybe never? …

We send our reporters to Europe because we want to let this Europe to astonish us and to understand it.”

Stories

Just to give a taste of this new section, here is a glimpse on recent stories that have been published in print and online:

• Landstuhl. Hospital on the periphery: Finally, a chaplain reaches the ambulance. He stands by the head of a wounded soldier, on the left side – as the procedure demands. He whispers directly to the soldier’s ear: “Welcome to Germany. You are in good hands.” The soldier does not answer, he is unconscious. Sometimes there is so many wounded soldiers on the board of American transporter air craft C 17, that Landstuhl runs out of beds. (Written by Bartosz T. Wielinski)
• To smell Naples and die: Piles of dusts at the Garibaldi monument in the very heart of old Naples smell like rotten fish. Nearby, at the Pasquale Mancini street one feels putrid tomatos. Behind the corner, at the Umberto I Avenue, a passerby is hit by a fetor of rotten meat. Holding our noses we are walking around one of the most beautiful cities of Italy and Europe. (Written by Tomasz Bielecki)
• They took away our kids for a smack: The social worker said that for the children’s protection she would not disclose where the children were. And added that Polish migrants should find a good lawyer. “It must have been a mistake,” thought Eve. “Maybe again I got something wrongly in Swedish”. (Written by Agnieszka Czajkowska)
• Barcelona. A fight with tongues: Spanish nationalists are on a war with Catalonian ones. If one would leave them alone on a battlefield, they would certainly kill each other. (Written by Maciej Stasinski)

Invitation for readers’ tips and stories

Gazeta’s editors invited readers to discover Europe together. The paper asked simply:

“Are you traveling around European countries? Are your friends working or studying there? Tell us about Europe that makes you astonished. What irritates you? What excites? What makes you proud?”

There is a good reason for this approach. Since 2004 when Poland joined the European Union, up to two million Poles migrated to the Western countries to find better jobs. Gazeta has a good relationship with them – it runs several websites for its readers abroad and publishes foreign supplements in cooperation with the Daily Telegraph in UK and the Irish Independent.

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