How to report on a war
Ukrainecast
BBC
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 September 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Three seasoned correspondents discuss the challenges of covering prolonged conflicts, in particular, the issue of “news fatigue”.
Chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet, international editor Jeremy Bowen and the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville talk about their experience of reporting in places like Bosnia, Afghanistan, and now, Ukraine - and how to keep you, the audience, interested and engaged…
They also discuss President Zelensky’s visit to the UN and the US and the latest developments in Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
Today’s episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko. The producers were Arsenii Sokolov, Alix Pickles and Ivana Davidovic. The technical producer was Philip Bull. The series producers are Tim Walklate and Daniel Wittenberg. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham. Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480
You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast’s Discord server here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord
TOPICS:
00:05 - "News fatigue" and Ukraine 02:51 - How to cover a war 17:50 - Listener questions 18:53 - Zelensky's US visit and UNGA 23:34 - Counter-offensive update
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts |
| 0:04.8 | Hello, it's 573 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. |
| 0:11.0 | One issue we are going to talk about today. |
| 0:13.9 | The challenge is facing journalists when it comes to covering this war and in particular |
| 0:19.3 | the issue of news fatigue. |
| 0:21.7 | And when we say news fatigue, what we mean is audiences are losing some interest in |
| 0:26.8 | the coverage and it's something that the BBC's Olga Malchewska brought up in a recent |
| 0:32.0 | episode. |
| 0:33.3 | She worked then for the BBC's Ukrainian service and her family home was bombed on day |
| 0:38.0 | one of the full-scale invasion. |
| 0:40.3 | Here she is on the podcast the other week. |
| 0:42.4 | Now, the fact that it doesn't get to the headlines or to the news buildings at all doesn't |
| 0:47.8 | mean that it doesn't happen. |
| 0:49.3 | It just means that we don't know how to report on it because it's the same news every |
| 0:55.0 | day. |
| 0:56.0 | It's not in use anymore, right? |
| 0:58.9 | So now you and me are facing a struggle on what to do, how to tell those stories to our |
| 1:04.5 | very tight, very busy audience, which really doesn't want to have dramatic content anymore, |
| 1:10.3 | which wants to have some positive news and people continue to be killed injured every |
| 1:15.1 | day. |
| 1:16.4 | It is definitely a challenge and it's something that we, in our small team, talk about because |
| 1:22.6 | we know that you listen to Ukraine cast because you tell us regularly you want to bear witness |
... |
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