In the weeks leading up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the headlines in a Kyiv newspaper looked much like they would anywhere else.
There was some debate over whether Russia would actually attack its neighbour. But then, outside of politics, there was everything else: the tourists stuck abroad, changes to school meals and the spread of the Omicron variant of the Covid.
On 24 February 2022, everything changed as Russian tanks rolled across the border. Businesses closed or relocated, martial law saw hundreds of thousands of working age men recruited for military service, and around one million people fled the country in the first week.
A brave few stayed behind to keep a record of what happened as the missiles rained down. Local journalists observed and asked questions as their communities were torn apart by the war.
“In one day, most of our journalists became war correspondents, especially in the frontline areas,” says Oksana Brovko, CEO of the Association of Independent Regional Press Publishers of Ukraine (AIRPPU). “And that was not a professional decision. It was the environment which changed, in February 2022.”
Oksana has spent the last four years organising support for Ukraine’s battered regional media industry. In the early days, she says, that comprised of delivering bullet proof vests, first aid kits, generators and charging stations so that reporters could continue to work.
Since then, AIRPPU has helped more than 180 outlets with material support, grants and business modelling to ensure they stay in print. Even now, the threats are very real. In July alone, Oksana says, eight local media outlets were destroyed by Russian missiles or drones. Upwards of 300 publications have closed since 2022, she adds.
UNESCO reported last summer that around 28 per cent of Ukrainian outlets had closed their doors since the start of the invasion, with 37 per cent of newsrooms partially or fully evacuated.
Internews International assessed that regional media has only seen a “clear deterioration in operating conditions” since then, exacerbated by the suspension of foreign aid programmes since Donald Trump took office.
Beyond the immediate threat to life, newsrooms are desperately in need of staff, investment and psychological support.
Mobilisation has seen newsrooms shrink from an average 10-20 reporters to just 3-5, Oksana says, while the evacuation of residents has cut into subscription revenues and the relocation of businesses has dried up advertising money.
Nearly three quarters of editors said a lack of funding was a primary challenge last year, up from 58 per cent a year prior. Almost half said staffing was a major concern, with mobilisation now the main cause of reporters leaving, ahead of stress and burnout.
Those journalists have crucially been among the first to parse and share the conflict as it moves through their communities.
The 0629 outlet from Mariupol was on the scene speaking to witnesses when Russia bombed a theatre sheltering civilians on 16 March 2022. Vhoru continued publishing from Kherson even through nine months of Russian occupation. Okana says their work is vital.
“They are writing history right now and in 50 years we’ll come back and we will learn history - European history - from these newspapers, which I receive every week from the colleagues on the front line.”
But the strain of the conflict also threatens the other functions of a free press.
It took decades from Ukraine’s independence for the media to unshackle itself from government ownership, and the country is still negotiating a new relationship with its anti-corruption bodies. Oksana says the media plays an essential role in scrutinising the work of local government. And besides the war, reporters also face pressure from local officials to rein in their investigations.
“From one side, we fight with Russia, because we work under missiles, in a broken environment,” she says. “From another side, it's the local government ... we start to be visible, and we start to feel pressure from a local authorities, from local businesses, from local politicians.”
She says the challenge going forwards will be to move out of this constant struggle for survival and towards a new resilience.
“It’s important to remember that sometimes you need to fight for independence. Sometimes you need even to die protecting that. But at the same time we need to remember that the future is not just to think about survival, but also about the future.”
AIRPPU has partnered with OpenAI and the World Association of News Publishers to facilitate the adoption of artificial intelligence in newsrooms. The topic is sensitive in the industry, but Oksana believes that using AI to automate routine tasks and administrative so that the reporters can spend more time on the frontlines news-gathering.
“This programme will provide Ukrainian publishers with access to international expertise, practical tools and hands-on support that will help them turn those opportunities into tangible results. And most importantly - it should give journalists back time to do journalism,” she says.
Trudova Slava, a digital and print newspaper in Zaporizhzhia, said in a statement shared with The Independent: “Our newsroom is small, but we serve five communities in Zaporizhzhia region, most of whose territories are inaccessible to journalists because of the fighting, while our communities are dispersed across Ukraine and abroad.
“We need AI to continuously monitor social media and other sources, helping us find important stories, people and issues that we might otherwise miss.”
The Kremenchuk Telegraph said they planned to use the tools to help analyse large volumes of documents, asset declarations, court decisions, public procurement records and other open data to generate leads for investigation faster than sifting through manually.
