With journalism in her genes, Gavriella Epstein-Lightman is well on the way to continuing the family tradition.
The 17-year-old has just become a winner of The Harbinger Prize 2024, a prestigious journalism award available to seven talented 15 to 17-year-olds from across the globe.
Run by Harbingers’ Magazine, a current-affairs outlet written by students and published by the Oxford School for the Future of Journalism (OSFJ), the competition asked entries to write a story that would resonate with the publication’s young global audience.
Gavriella, who interned at the JC last summer, was the winner in the “Human rights” category, for her article Journalism under Threat, which delved into the precarious situation of reporters in oppressive regimes worldwide.
About her winning entry, the judges said: “Gavriella shined a light on the precarious situation of journalists in oppressive regimes...
“Her compassionate narrative emphasises the alarming trend of unlawful detention, drawing attention to the broader crisis facing the press globally.”
To reward her for winning, Gavriella will receive two hours of weekly tutoring as part of a 20-session “Essential Journalism” course, as well as writing and editing lessons and the opportunity to write frequent articles for the Harbingers’ Magazine.
“I was really excited because I knew that winning the award would give me so many opportunities, like being able to write for Harbingers’ Magazine, and a 20-session journalism course with a journalist mentor,” said Gavriella, whose great-grandmother Daphne Claff was a pioneering Agony Aunt for Women’s Own, and her aunt Esther Solomon is the editor-in-chief of Haaretz English.
Journalism runs in the family as Gavriella's great-grandmother Daphne Claff was the agony aunt at Woman's Own. Seen here in her office in 1969
She said: “I am so excited to be able to advance my skills in journalism,” adding that winning the competition had given her more confidence in her reporting skills and made her motivated to continue writing.
Six other aspiring journalists won awards for their submissions in the remaining categories – economics, culture, the women’s desk, international affairs, and society – while Reva Sobti from the US was the overall winner.
There were two stages to the competition. Firstly, students were required to submit an article, and shortlisted entries were then invited for a 15-minute interview, after which judges selected the final line-up of winners.
In her winning entry, Gavriella, a sixth-former at Haberdashers’ School for Girls, opened with the story of American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was only recently freed after spending more than 500 days in Russian custody.
In her article, Gavriella explains how, at the time of his arrest, Gershkovich was a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, reporting on the impact of the Russian war on Ukrainians.
“Journalist Evan Gershkovich was detained on March 29, 2023, in Yekaterinburg. The Russian authorities arrested him on espionage allegations, which the US government vehemently denies,” she writes.
“Since then, Gershkovich has spent 23 hours a day in a cell at the maximum-security Lefortovo prison in Moscow.”
As one of the few Western journalists reporting inside Russia, Gershkovich was instrumental in uncovering stories that the government didn’t want to hear, argued Gavriella.
“What does the arrest of a relatively high-profile accredited journalist say about the safety of reporters around the world?” she wrote.
The rest of the article delves into how widespread the phenomenon of journalists being unlawfully detained globally is. She cites Iranian reporters Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloufar Hamedi, who were sentenced to 12 and 13 years in prison in September 2022 after breaking the story of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody, and “pioneering feminist journalist” Huang Xueqin, who was recently sentenced to five years in prison in China.
Gavriella told the JC that she chose her topic because “Evan Gershkovich had been in prison for over 400 days, so it wasn’t a breaking news story anymore. Therefore, it didn’t take up so much space in the news.
US journalist Evan Gershkovich with his mother Ella Milman on August 1, 2024, after being released after spending 500 days in a Russian prison on charges of espionage. He is featured in Gavriella's award-winning essay (Photo: Getty Images)
“Initially, I thought it was quite rare for a journalist to be incarcerated, even when I knew they were in a country with an authoritarian government or very limited democracy, but I looked into it and found out it was more common than I had thought.”
She added: “Looking into the stories of so many other people, that was the most surprising thing – the extent of it.”
As an aspiring writer herself, Gavriella is passionate about raising awareness of the battles reporters are facing around the world, whether its government censorship or the risk of incarceration.
She said: “I’ve been looking more into the idea of the purpose of journalism and how important it is, as a bulwark of democracy, protecting [civilians] against the government, making sure that people are exposed to all perspectives, including those that they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise.”
Gavriella has a long-standing interest in human rights and has written articles exposing their abuses for her school magazine, The Cornflower, which she previously edited. “My background in journalism, until this point, was mostly in shedding light on human rights abuses,” she said. “I’ve written for my school magazine about issues like the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China, the military coup in Myanmar and women’s rights in Afghanistan.”
Her article, The Myanmar Military Coup: The World Must Act, was the runner-up entry in the Campaigning Journalist of the Year category for The Day Global Young Journalist Awards 2022.
For Gavriella, it is important for media publications to go beyond the breaking-news agenda and the trends of the day and report on complex, evolving stories. “In the press, there’s a tendency to focus on breaking news and what’s happening right now. But those are not necessarily long-running things, but short-term developments,” she said.
“In my journalism, I like to focus a lot on longer-term developments, especially human rights, because many of the victims of human rights abuses can’t get their voices out.
“For me, I think a huge part of being a journalist is to act as a voice for those people, in the best and most accurate way that I can.”
Gavriella sees the role of a journalist as giving voice to those who don't have the freedom to speak out (Photo: Epstein-Lightman Family)
When she’s not writing or studying, Gavriella does volunteering and is also politically active as a member of Bite Back 2030. The youth movement campaigns for food equality, and Gavriella has advocated for the extension of the Free School Meals scheme, which London Mayor Sadiq Khan pledged to continue earlier this year.
She is also an ambassador for human rights youth group Burst the Bubble, where she ran a campaign raising awareness about homelessness among young people, with the charity Crisis.
Not only has Gavriella inherited an interest in journalism, but also her strong sense of justice. Her grandfather, Sir Gavin Lightman, was the first High Court judge to keep Shabbat and a leader of Anglo-Jewry during his lifetime.
According to his obituary in the JC after his death in March 2020, which quoted Supreme Court Justice Lord Briggs of Westbourne, “[his] judgments will stand the test of time and become a true memorial to his unfailing sense of justice”.
A portrait of Gavriella's grandfather, High Court judge Sir Gavin Lightman by his daughter, artist Sarah Lightman. The portrait on the wall behind Sir Gavin is his father, Harold Lightman QC (Image: Sarah Lightman)
Gavriella’s father, Daniel Lightman, is a KC and her mother, Felicia Epstein, is a solicitor.
The sixth-former first realised she wanted to be a journalist after reading a pertinent piece about the labour of child migrants in the US.
“They are being sponsored by families, but then having to work night shifts and go to school in the day, and that really shocked me,” she said.
The story stayed with her long after she had read it and unlocked a longing within her to write something as effective and meaningful. “I want to write a piece that people will think about long afterwards.”
As a winner of the Harbinger Prize, Gavriella has more than proved she is capable of doing this. “The main thing to take away from the competition isn’t just: ‘Oh, I wrote a good article.’
“It’s that I have some preliminary skills, and I can’t wait to develop those further and to improve as a journalist even more.”
