Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Journalism, Trauma and Resilience

The Journalism Education and Trauma Research Group (JETREG) in the School of Film, Media and Journalism in partnership with Eleanor Glanville Institute at the University of Lincoln hosted a hybrid workshop on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The purpose of the hybrid workshop was to remember the suffering of the Ukrainian people and acknowledge the challenges of reporting the war.

The event was for journalists in Ukraine and journalists covering the war in Ukraine to share their experiences of covering the war with journalism educators in order to draw some lessons to inform the development of trauma literacy course to equip journalists with the skills to cover traumatising events.

Many attended the event either in-person at the Think Tank or online, including journalists in Ukraine; The British Council; City of Lincoln Council; National Union of Journalists, UK; National Union of Journalists of Ukraine; Thompson Reuters Foundation; Dart Center, Europe; IREX; Ukrainian residents in Lincoln; scholars from IVAN FRANKO NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF L’VIV, Universities of Amsterdam, Sheffield and Lincoln; and students.

Some of the lessons include the need for journalism educators to understand work-related trauma in journalism practice; to explore and evaluate the dynamics in the relationship between journalists and their communities; to teach professionalism, ethics, and professional and instrumental mentorship to prepare journalists to cope; to emphasise that accuracy and fairness are more helpful than objectivity; to have a broad conversation on emotion in journalism, self-care and cognitive warfare; to teach resilience with a range of options including social connections; that distress tolerance is important as a coping strategy; that distraction as a coping strategy is sometimes helpful but not always.

We hope the event underscores the need for regular deliberations between journalists/newsrooms and journalism educators about how to prepare journalists to cope with the emotional and psychological effects of reporting traumatising events.

You can find out more information about the Journalism Education and Trauma Research Group (JETREG) here: https://jetreg.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/

Story submitted by Ola Ogunyemi
oogunyemi@lincoln.ac.uk