![Why journalists covering Ukraine and Russia lean into the many unknowns of war reporting Why journalists covering Ukraine and Russia lean into the many unknowns of war reporting](https://morningtopnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/220228000238-ukraine-phone-filming-02272022-restricted-super-tease-768x432.jpg)
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We’re seeing only a small fraction of the action in Ukraine and Russia right now. And some of what we are seeing in social feeds and faraway commentary is distorted. So it’s important for news outlets to recognize this knowledge gap and underscore the known unknowns in the minute-by-minute coverage.
I hate to fall back to the “fog of war” metaphor, but it exists for a reason. The fog is thick right now. Military officials know it. During a Sunday morning press briefing with Pentagon reporters, an unnamed senior defense official said something about “humility” that stood out to me. “The Ukrainians are putting up a very stiff and brave and heroic resistance,” the official said. “But we are only on day four. And I would be reluctant to provide an estimate of how many more days there are here.” The point: Predictions are a fool’s errand. Combat is ugly and unpredictable. “Everybody needs to look at this with a bit of a sense of humility here,” the official said.
Consider this…
French’s rule of thumb is that in warfare, “the more specific the information, the bigger the grain of salt you should read it with.” He said “right now, the more reliable reports, quite frankly, are going to be the more high-level, more vague reports. Things like, ‘The Russians are disappointed by their progress so far.’ That’s something that I think we can be pretty sure about. Some report that says ’15 kilometers from Kyiv, there was a tank battle involving X number of tanks destroyed and X number of Russian soldiers killed,’ take that with a huge grain of salt because we don’t know. We don’t have the resources to know. And in fact, we might not know for a long time exactly what happened where and when in this fight.”
Practical challenges on the ground
CNN’s Clarissa Ward in Kyiv brought up the curfew challenge and “very real limitations on where and how we can move around” when I spoke with her on Sunday’s “Reliable Sources.” She described how CNN staffers have been “combing exhaustively through all the social media footage” from Ukraine and Russia, working to geolocate it and “place it in its appropriate context.”
Social media as “force multiplier”
War in 2022 means…
Google disables live traffic data in Ukraine
Two Danish journalists wounded
The last news crew in Kharkiv?
Darja Stomatová is a reporter for CNN Prima News, a CNN international affiliate in the Czech Republic. On Sunday she reported live for both CNN Prima and for CNN’s global audience from a makeshift shelter in a hotel in Kharkiv. “She says they may be the last foreign crew there,” Ed Meagher wrote.
Stomatová described “the situation was changing” throughout the day on Sunday: Loud gunshots in the morning, explosions, then some semblance of calm. “It is very important to be here right now,” she said. Her companions at the hotel bunker feel like friends at this point, she added.
“FIGHT LIKE ZEL”
Ukrainian TV stations have backup studio in bunker
Teamwork
Darcy continues: “The 1+1 rep told me that the non-stop coverage, which has been dubbed the United News Marathon, is possible through teamwork. ‘We have teamed up with other Ukrainian media groups to broadcast in turns for 6 hours each in a single broadcast,’ the spox explained. “Each time an air threat is announced in Kyiv, our colleagues are going live from a backup studio in Kyiv. Plus, the company’s photo news service, UNIAN, is also offering its images at no cost.”
Newfound scrutiny of Russia Today
Inside ‘Russia’s Last Independent TV Channel’
A “troubling tone” — and offensive comparisons
Notes, quotes and further reading
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