The Craft of Truth. A Lesson in Journalism with Dariusz Bohatkiewicz

Author/Editor: Maria Anna Furman

Subtitles: PL, EN, ES

In a world where information moves faster than reflection and commentary often precedes fact, the figure of Dariusz Bohatkiewicz recalls the original meaning of journalism: to be where history is happening and to tell it so that the audience can grasp more than just a headline. The conversation with Dariusz is a multi-layered portrait of a craftsman of word and image for whom truth begins with contact with another human being, that first, inimitable source.

Beginnings in local newsrooms and on the radio were not a prelude to a “real career” but the foundation of everything that followed. Sports coverage, floods, fires, accidents, this everyday reality taught stamina, humility and pace, but above all the art of conversation. A true reporter knows how to ask in order to hear not only words but intentions as well; how to verify information when every minute counts; how not to place himself at the centre of the story, even when he is the one holding the microphone. From that school, he took away simple rules: steady nerves and respect for people, including the youngest, whose plain answers can puncture the balloon of journalistic assumptions.

Dariusz distinguishes three worlds of reporting. The first is the local beat, direct, tangible, and unfiltered. The second is working at a central newsroom. The third is the life of a foreign correspondent: living out of a suitcase with a phone that can ring at any hour, and with the expectation that several far-flung stories will be handled within a single day. It is also logistics, which encompasses non-neutral transport, equipment, connectivity, safety, and decisions made under time pressure, that must not lose its weight of responsibility.

The toughest frames come from Iraq, Afghanistan and Georgia. It was there he saw how words can preserve the calm of soldiers’ families and how easily they can ignite fear. It was there he understood that every designation is a moral choice: the name of a side in a conflict, the tone of description, the proportions between drama and fact. There were days with dozens of live hits, reports from under shelling, and even detention by South Ossetian forces. And there was also the simple rule that nullifies ambition: no story is worth a human life. Courage in a danger zone is above all the ability to say “no” to oneself, to adrenaline, to the viewer’s expectations. It is vigilance against routine, which can be more dangerous than fear.

Dariusz Bohatkiewicz strives to present a dispute in such a way that the viewer can draw conclusions for themselves. The key is verification and proportion. A single source is a signal, not a certainty. Two sides of a conflict are a rule, not a flourish. When data are lacking, it is more honest to admit one does not know than to manufacture certainty out of conjecture. This stance is simple and rarely spectacular; it builds trust more slowly than a flashy comment, but it outlasts a single news cycle.

In his diagnosis, three phenomena converge in today’s media: the politicisation of messaging, the ease of “becoming a journalist” in the smartphone age, and the cynical use of propaganda. It is a mix that undermines authority and shatters the shared frame of discussion. Layered on top is the logic of platforms, fast, reactive, hungry for extremes. The antidote? A return to craftsmanship: solid documentation, a clear separation of fact and opinion, care for language that does not dehumanise. And a consistent search for positive stories, even if the world offers up mainly dramas.

After years at major broadcasters, Dariusz now works online, creating his own formats in DB from London. The internet demands a different composition of images, a different editing rhythm, and greater self-reliance, but it does not change the first principle: content should provide orientation, not just a stimulus. This pivot frees something else: time. Instead of two-minute inserts for newscasts, he can speak about people and places with the right breathing room: about history, football, culture, the everyday curiosities that make up the landscape of life.

The choice of London and the British context is no accident. It is a crossroads of history, culture and politics, important for Europe even after Brexit. For a Polish reporter, it is also a space of memory: the fate of wartime emigration, the ethos of service, and postwar choices that thread through successive anniversaries. The United Kingdom here becomes not a backdrop but a character, demanding, intriguing, full of contrasts, and at the same time close to the Polish experience.

In his plans and achievements, a special place is occupied by themes such as the less obvious threads of Operation Market Garden and the ways in which opinions and narratives about Gen. Stanisław Sosabowski have changed. This is not historical “retro content,” but an attempt to organise memory and to name the wrongs that are all too easily covered over with courtesy. The reporter returns to places he has been and to people whose fates he once described not out of sentiment, but out of a sense of obligation to unfinished stories.

Dariusz clearly emphasises the decision to show the good not as a saccharine counterweight to catastrophe, but as a real engine of community. Within the logic of news portals, it is easy to forget such stories, but within the logic of responsible communication, it is worth beginning with them.

He reminds us that journalism is made up of thousands of small organisational decisions that enable one fundamental decision: how to tell the world’s story without flattening its meaning.

At the bottom of this account lies a principle that Dariusz repeats in various forms: do not give up when the stakes are high, but do step back when the risk crosses the boundary of responsibility. Perseverance here is not stubbornness in spite of the facts, but patience in building trust, in returning to sources, in learning lessons from mistakes, and in avoiding the traps of routine.

With the same perspective, Dariusz Bohatkiewicz approaches his role as a juror in the international Stars Night Awards 2025. At the centre should be social impact, authenticity, and consistency of action. The most valuable aspect is the light shed on the diversity of attitudes and groups, and the fact that it is often a third party who notices someone’s work and gives it reach. Of course, dilemmas are inevitable: the heart and the rulebook do not always follow the same path. That is why humility is needed, along with the awareness that in this arena there is no single, final verdict; what there is, is the possibility of an honest justification of one’s choice.

In an age of snap judgments and short forms, such a stance may seem old-fashioned. And yet it is precisely this that turns information into knowledge, and knowledge into responsibility. In this sense, a reporter’s work remains one of the most important public services: the patient, dogged assembling of fragments of reality into a picture that allows us to orient ourselves better in the world and, perhaps, to make wiser decisions.

Author/Editor: Maria Anna Furman