Brent Renaud was an award-winning journalist, a documentary filmmaker and photographer, whose work took him around the country and the world, where he covered an earthquake in Haiti, cartel violence in Mexico and, in a Vice News series titled “Last Chance High,” a therapeutic school in Chicago. He won a prestigious Peabody Award for that last project in 2015. And, this past weekend, while chronicling the experiences of refugees and migrants, Renaud was shot and killed in Irpin, Ukraine.
Though I never met Renaud, I admired his work, and I appreciated an experience we both shared, a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, a magical year of learning and sharing with top journalists from around the world. During his Nieman year, Renaud “studied the effects of trauma and mental and emotional illness on rates of poverty and violence in America,” according to a story on the Nieman website.
Renaud’s Nieman classmate, visual journalist Juan Arredondo, who was on assignment with him, was wounded in the attack.
“This kind of attack is totally unacceptable and is a violation of international law,” Carlos Martínez de la Serna, program director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in response to the violent attacks.
