Journalism Stepped Up in the Ukraine Tragedy


We tend to agree that journalists must cover what’s important. We ignore that importance is subjective and that news is basically a business, and we hope for a reasonable outcome. The Ukraine war has tested this brittle journalistic paradigm, and the results have been… reasonable. The news media arrived at the war in a bedraggled financial state: Google and Facebook account for almost three-quarters of global digital advertising and growing and revenues are falling. One indicator is that reporting jobs at legacy US newspapers fell between 2008 and 2019 by 51% — a collapse that was even crueler in the ranks of foreign correspondents. Moreover, the hardy souls remaining are exhausted from several decades of covering wars. While fewer than 20 journalist deaths were recorded in World War II, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that over 200 journalists and media support workers were killed in during the Iraq war from 2003–2011 and at least 78 journalists in Afghanistan. Despotic government decimated them further: the International Federation of journalists found that 2658 journalists were killed from 1990 to 2020.

It risks breaking the will of journalists to take more chances — and yet they have: There are thousands of foreign journalists in Ukraine — an estimated 3,000 at the height of it.Technology can mitigate the risks and difficulties: one can reach interview subjects more easily by cell or video calls; “citizen journalists” provide content (that needs verification, a new sub-skill); and drones (see this AP footage of areas held by Islamic State) diminish the temptation and need to go everywhere in person. Even so, at least eight journalists, including locals, have been killed in Ukraine, generally by Russian fire.