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Hariss spoke at the Entertainment Gathering conference in December 2007. The event curated by MIT’s Michael Hawley takes a broad look at entertainment, technology and ideas.

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Promoting “Humane Dying” on billboards, in print and online

When you run a social campaign like this, you need to focus on the issue and not on the newspaper itself. This is the only way to make a difference. To change the world for better.

1. Media partners

Gazeta Wyborcza runs its campaign together with an outdoor advertising company AMS, a news radio network TOK FM and a web portal Gazeta.pl. They all belong to Gazeta’s publisher: a multimedia group Agora SA.

This is an easiest way to use internal synergies and reach the public with our message: “Humane Dying. A social campaign.” This is the slogan on billboards – outdoors and online.

The graphics is a play of two Polish words: “umiec” (can) and “umierac” (die).

We wanted very simple layout for billboards, as the topic deserves careful design. Maybe, it could be easier to get an attention by putting photos of dying people (as Benetton once did with a photo of a man dying from AIDS), but it would not be the attention we were looking for. 

2. In-paper promotion

Paper edition of Gazeta has at about 6 million readers a week. So it is a perfect advertising channel also for our social campaigns.

Two days before the launch of “Humane Dying” Gazeta run the full page ad.
It used the last words of Ilona Miller, the first volunteer of our campaign who died just before it started.

The ad read:

“The death closes one’s eyes and opens somebody else’s”

How do we die in Poland. An art of talking about the death. Dying with God and without God. Features, interviews, readers’ letters – daily in Gazeta Wyborcza from Monday

 

3. Online promotion

Online portal Gazeta.pl has over 6 million real users a week and its general audience tends to be younger than the printed newspaper’s readership.

So the web is a perfect channel to reach young readers.

Working on a campaign we prepared something special for this medium: a video documentary about a Warsaw hospice: “The house of departures.” It had its premiere on the web and an advertising campaign in the printed newspaper.

The movie was shot by Gazeta’s journalists and some volunteers. It is a heart-breaking and eye-opening story about one day in the hospice from the perspective of its staff and patients.

Would you like to learn more about the campaign “Humane Dying”? Read here.

How to debate publicly on death? Find an answer here.

Public debate on death

During the first months of Gazeta Wyborcza’s campaign “Humane Dying” we got thousands of letters and e-mails. Dedicated editors responded to almost all of them.

We could publish in the printed newspaper just a fraction. So we put many more letters online.
Here you get an excerpt of the summary written during the campaign’s first week by our deputy editor-in-chief Piotr Pacewicz:

Your letters, full of tears and sadness, will help to die in a humane way

“Did my father die in a humane way?,” a reader thinks over and over. She was with him to the end, she held his hand.

She is worried that she had not tell him about a cancer. When they approached the hospice in an ambulance, she covered the car’s windows with her back.

“My heart would break if I had told him,” she explains in a letter to Gazeta. Explains to whom? To herself? To us?

Do we must always tell the truth? We believe we should if a patient asks. What if he does not ask? What if he wants to believe that it is not the end?

Young doctor writes that he studied how to rescue the life. He was proud that he could raise everybody. But one day he started to re-animate an old man and the patient opposed: “Sir, let me die, please.” The doctor left this old man with his wife, they whispered to each other. After two hours the doctor found his patient in a ceremonial suit. Old man’s wife served him the last offices.

Somebody writes that he could not get reconciled with a relative’s death until he read our articles. Somebody else writes: “Humane Dying” is the most important mission of Gazeta after [the collapse of Communism in] 1989. A lot of people thank that we touched something painful for them, something horrifying, something they cannot talk about or even think about.

There are a lot of tears in these letters. About a father who begged for mercy and for dispatching him. About the last words that we keep in mind for years and we find new meanings of them (“See you in three days!”).

There are also tears of emotion and gratitude for doctors, hospices, hospitals. When people working there help somebody to die in a humane way, the family will be grateful forever.

However there is also a lot of letters full of anger and pain by the people whose relatives were dying alone, cheated, and humiliated. As they were dying not in a humane way. (…)

Readers are ready to help journalists in gathering data

In 2006 when we called young mothers to review maternity wards with Gazeta, we got 40,000 evaluations, most of them online.

We could then cross-check these readers’ reviews with data submitted by hospitals and facts reported by our journalists and a research company we hired.

The effect was the most comprehensive guide on 423 or 96 % of all maternity wards based in Poland.

In March 2008 we launched another campaign “Humane Dying” and we also asked our readers for help. We invited them to fill a form in print and online about how their relatives were dying in Polish hospices or hospitals.

We wanted to check if people die according to “10 rights of a dying humane being” that we had written down together with the Hospice Foundation.

Participation in a survey is anonymous. We want to send the results to hospices and hospitals as a feedback from their patients’ families. We believe it is important for doctors and nurses to know what is good and what is wrong with their services.

The survey will help us to prepare a guide on Polish hospices and hospitals planned for this autumn.

If you would like to learn more about this campaign and our plans to make a difference, read here.

How to write about dying?

It is probably the most difficult topic. Not only for journalists, it is hard for everybody. It is a public taboo. So starting a public debate about dying is a necessity.

“Dying is an experience that we don’t know how to cope with. We are afraid not only of dying, we are afraid of talking about it, even thinking about it,” wrote Piotr Pacewicz, deputy editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, the best read Polish newspaper in March 2008.

Gazeta – well known for its public campaigns – launched a new one called “Humane Dying”. It is an obvious reference to the campaign “Humane Birth” that in the last 12 years improved services offered to young mothers by Polish maternity wards.

Now we decided that it was a high time to try to improve services offered to old and ill people.

We launched this campaign together with the Hospice Foundation based in Gdansk. It is a non-governmental body that offered us a professional support and advice.

1. Debate in the newspaper

On the launch day we put “Humane Dying” slogan on the front page. We explained the reasons of the campaign and our plans in an editorial article that served that day as a main story on page number 1.

The campaign started with a new daily section in the newspaper. During the week Gazeta published many features, interviews and letters.

The first feature was about Ilona Miller, a woman from Gdansk who volunteered at the hospice there. When she found she had a cancer, she decided to die in the same place she served. Ilona adviced us when we were working on our campaign’s plans. She died just before the launch.

She said: “Death is closing one’s eyes and opening somebody else’s.” We run this campaign with her last words in mind.

Examples of other topics:

• How to die in a humane way? “The beginning is not very different from the end. A man is nude and helpless. He needs a support because he is afraid,” said in an interview Piotr Krakowiak, a director of Hospice Foundation that co-organises the campaign “Humane Dying”.
• I did not come here to convert you: it was an interview with Father Stanislaw Wysocki working with dying persons in the hospital (see the picture below).
• Come to me, please: it was a feature story about “bad deaths” – about the people who pass alone.
• A house of departures: it was a heart-breaking video documentary shot at the hospice by our journalists and some volunteers. It had its premiere online.
• Where is the death hiding today? There were opinion articles by a sociologist, psycho-oncologist, advertising proffesional.
• Letters: we got thousands of letters. We could publish in the printed newspaper just a fraction. We put more letters online. Read a short summary prepared by our deputy editor-in-chief Piotr Pacewicz.

2. Activities on the field

As we really wanted to make a difference, we prepared a campaign’s plan for the whole year. Gazeta is happy to have its own public campaigning department financed by a foundation of Gazeta’s publisher: a multimedia company Agora SA.

Here are the main activities planned for “Humane Dying” campaign:

• Volunteers: We invited schools and universities to attend training sessions about how to serve dying patients at the hospices and hospitals. These training programs are open to teachers and students. All participants will get professional advice and diplomas. Students are invited to write down their experiences from volunteer work at hospices and hospitals. The best articles will be awarded.
• 10 rights of a dying human being: We promote the ten commandments, for example: dying person have a right to die in his own home, a right to get an honest information about his condition, or a right to get a professional psychological help. We invite hospices and hospitals to promote these ten commandments among their workers and patients. We offer them materials and professional advice.
• Guide on hospices and hospitals: In November we are going to publish a guide about conditions and policies at hospices and hospitals in Poland. It will be based on data gathered from the authorities, these institutions and a survey among Gazeta’s readers.
• Communication: We launched a secretariat for the campaign, a hotline and a website for all the parties involved. This is the best way to spread information about our activities and how to get involved. Of course, we launched also an advertising campaign. If you want to learn more about it, read here.

How to promote an investigative story?

In March 2008 Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza broke a story about how the Catholic Church covered up a child-molestation scandal in Poland. Thanks to the internet and in-paper promotion more readers bought a paper on the day of publication.

The story hit the Gazeta’s front page on Monday, but the promotional efforts started many days before.

1. In-paper promo ad

On Friday – three days prior the publication – Gazeta devoted a full page to the promo ad. It reads:

Hidden Sin of the Church
Many priests knew about it, as did three bishops. For years, they hid the horrible truth
Read daily from Monday in Gazeta Wyborcza and on www.gazetawyborcza.pl

2. Online promotional activities

On Sunday – a day prior the publication in print – editors of Gazeta’s online edition Wyborcza.pl prepared an e-mail newsletter to all the readers who subscribe to any Gazeta’s news feed.

Online edition started also to publish some excerpts of the main feature story. The articles were accompanied by video interviews with Father Marcin Mogielski who tried to alert Catholic bishops about the case, but got accused for trying to damage the Church’s reputation.

3. Media pack and press releases

Also on Sunday Gazeta’s editors prepared media pack for other news outlets, especially TV and radio stations. It consisted of articles excerpts, photos and video files that they could use to start their own coverage of the story.

All these efforts paid: more readers rushed to newsstands on Monday’s morning to learn about the issue.

Would you like to read more about this investigation? Go here.

The Church’s Sinful Secret

Many priests knew about it, as did three bishops. For years, the horrible truth could not be revealed – an investigative story about how the Catholic Church covered up a child-molestation scandal in Poland.

The best read Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza broke the story on its front page in March 2008.
Reporters Roman Daszczynski and Pawel Wiejas found that Father Andrzej, director of a centre for difficult young people in Szczecin, was accused of paedophilia a long time ago.
People demanding that the truth to be revealed had been hearing for thirteen years: do not act to the Church’s damage.

Reporters gathered confessions made by the wards of the St. Brother Albert Centre in Szczecin. One of them reads:

I came to the centre in 1992. I was fifteen. Father Andrzej asked me to his room. He started groping me, touching my genitals, encouraging me to do the same (I didn’t, I just lay there, helpless). He made me come. When I got up, he told me to hit him for hurting me.

The alleged molester was Father Andrzej, the Centre’s founder and then-director. The boys told their tutors, and they, in 1995, notified Bishop Stanislaw Stefanek, the hierarch in charge of educational matters at the Szczecin archdiocese.

Bishop Stefanek dismissed the depositions as non-credible and refused to talk to any of the boys. “I didn’t receive such orders from the Archbishop”, said Bishop Stefanek, today the bishop of Lomza.

Embittered, the tutors asked two monks for help. Bishop Stefanek’s superior, Archbishop Marian Przykucki, received them. ‘He told us he was sorry about the matter and would help to solve it’, one of the monks recalled.

You can read more about the case in English.

The full story was published on March 10, 2008, in Gazeta’s feature supplement Duzy Format.

 

Is the Golden Age of investigative journalism already past?

Two reporters of Gazeta Wyborcza investigated this story for several months.

In the age of cost-cutting and newspapers’ downsizing one could say it is not a cost-effective way to do journalism: two people keep digging one big story despite the fact that they can at a time cover hundreds of simpler and easier news stories, for example local ones.

Gazeta’s first deputy editor-in-chief Jaroslaw Kurski spoke about this issue in a recent interview with the Editors Weblog:

Jean Yves Chainon asks: Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

Jaroslaw Kurski answers: Investigative journalism is a core of our editorial practice and as our world and lives become more complex, I see the need for this kind of public service rising.

We live in the world flooded with information, but it is served in bites, so many bites, that it is getting harder and harder to see the whole picture. We need wise journalists to solve this puzzle.

We live in the world of instant news, but it is often reaching only the surface of problems and challenges that we face. We need great journalits to show what was NOT on TV and the net. We need to understand what really happened.

We live in the world influenced more and more by professional public relations; it changes the way politics is done. We need clever journalists to see what’s behind the curtain, to ask the hard questions, to watch hands of those in power.

We live in the world of global economy and large corporations that affect people’s lifes and business. We need investigative journalists to provide us all with reliable information to make better decisions.

On March 10 we broke an exclusive news about a Catholic priest who reportedly sexually abused young boys and about three bishops who – although informed and alerted about the abuses – have been reluctant to investigate the case for 13 years! We publish Gazeta Wyborcza also to uncover stories like this.

Front page promo ad for “Solidarity with Tibet” campaign

Two days before Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza devoted a cover of its feature supplement to the Tibetan flag, the paper run a unique promo ad on its main section’s front page.

It is a very rare example of using Gazeta’s front page to promote future features in a graphic way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ad reads:

Solidarity with Tibet
Join the protest!
The cover of Monday’s Duzy Format [supplement] will be the flag of Tibet. You can show it publicly, appear with it to demonstrate one’s objection against policy of China. And you can send us a photo!

 

 

 

 

 

Would you like to learn more about this campaign? Read here.

In-paper promotion for “Parents back to school” series

Three days before Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza launched its “Parents back to school” series, it run a full page promo ad in the main section.

It reads:

Rehearsals for Parents
Was and Sterlingow go back to school
After 30 years we do homework again, we write tests, we answer at the class board. We thought that today children have easier than before. On Monday we will tell you how it is.
Tests for parents, advice – in Gazeta Wyborcza from Monday
Check if you can help your kid in learning!

Would you like to learn more about this series? Read here.

Parents back to school!

Imagine that: after 30 years you go back to school. You must do your homework again, write exam tests, answer to teachers’ questions in front of your class. Are you ready?

Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza asked two adult reporters in their mid-30s and mid-40s to check for themselves how it is at school nowadays. Is it really different from ours? Do students really have less work than we all had?

Marek Was and Marek Sterlingow had to spend a week at school in a class with 14-years-olds. (I can tell you: they dealt easily with math and history, but surrendered to the Polish orthography and geologic eras.)

They discovered a lot of things about modern youth:

When we both were 14 years: to be interested in politics meant to say: “no” [to Communist institutions and the Soviet Union's policies]. Today it is very different, as everybody prefers: “yes”. The school says “yes” the European Union. The class says “yes” to the EU. The Union is an absolute, a thing comparable only to what the [Catholic] Church used to mean for us in the old times.

Two reporters told their school story in the newspaper at the end of March 2008.

Then we invited readers to discuss their discoveries and share their experiences and views on the Polish education system.

Teachers who were giving extra paid rehearsals for students told their story: what the Polish schools could not teach for years?

Ambitious parents who had sent their kids to the best schools in towns told about their nightmare when they realized that kids could not meet the requirements. Other readers quickly responded with some advice.

Economists tried to calculate just for fun if the investment in your kids’ education is more profitable than -let’s say – stock exchange or bank deposit. Guess what was the result…

1. Tests for parents

We gave our adult readers an opportunity to test their skills and knowledge. Did they still meet requirements of a secondary school? Could they really help their children to do their homework and to shine at school?

We assigned teachers to prepare tests for the Polish language, English, math and history and we printed them daily in the newspaper.

 

 

 

2. Online teaching tool

We also launched a new website for teachers and parents: UczymySie.pl (We learn and teach together). People could there share ideas how to explain certain topics from school books.

For example: imagine that you are good at math, but you are poor in English. On this website you can find another parent to help your kid in English grammar and at the same time you can help another parent’s kid in math.

It is very easy to use: you just ask a question and wait for somebody else’s answer.

In order to promote the website we invited some well known people to serve as premium users like members of the government, parliament, movie directors, writers etc.

In the first three months the new website welcomed more than 40,000 users.

Readers show their solidarity with Tibetans

How to combine the best features of a physical printed newspaper and online communication tools? Look at this interactive campaign run by Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza.

In March 2008, a week of protests against China’s 57-year rule of Tibet erupted into rioting in the region’s capital Lhasa. On March 20, huge military convoys were heading to Tibet through mountain passes in western China.

The news made the next day’s newspapers’ headlines and Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza was no exception to cover Tibetan uprising on the front page. Gazeta’s online edition immediately created a special report on Tibet. You could call these activities: a traditional approach.

So what’s new?

1. Blog aggregating news and comments on Tibet and protests against Chinese policies

The blog is called “Tibet Watch.” It is a non-commercial venture and it’s written by volunteer journalists with different media background (Gazeta, free newspaper Metro, web portal Gazeta.pl and a radio station TOK FM) accompanied by human rights activists (Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights).

They cover both online and real-world protests or activities connected with Tibet and Summer Olympics in China.

 

 

2. Gazeta invited readers to show their solidarity with Tibetans

The newspaper devoted the front and back page of its Monday feature supplement Duzy Format (Large Format) to print the flag of Tibet (paper size: 2 x A3 page or 841 x 297 mm).

Readers could use this flag when demonstrating their support for Tibetans or their disappointment with Chinese policies there. And many used the flag. They put it on windows of their cars, on message boards at school. They marched with them, met with friends. They even organized flash mobs: gatherings of anonymous people called to a public place by a text message on the mobile phone or an e-mail.

 

 

 

 

3. Readers documented their actions by themselves

Gazeta encouraged readers to take photos of themselves with the Tibetan flag and upload them to our web portal Gazeta.pl. Within a week we got over 1000 photos. And we printed some of them in the next issue of Duzy Format.




Gazeta's web photo board

On the streets

At an elementary school

At a secondary school

With tulips

In the mountains

If you would like to see more photos submitted by Gazeta’s readers, please go to its photo board.