World in


In Lviv, journalists from around the globe talked resilience, reality and war. Anttoni James Numminen reports


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etworking does not come easily to me, but enjoying the last rays of sunshine on a warm spring night in Lviv, raising glasses and sharing stories with colleagues, it felt natural. If not for the wine bottles adorned with yellow


and blue flags and an energetic performance of jazzy Ukrainian hip-hop by a DJ, it could have been an evening gathering at a conference in any European city. You make friends faster in situations where there is more at


stake. Everyone had decided to travel within or to a country that most governments advise against visiting. It is journalistic instinct to rush towards a story despite and sometimes because of the presence of risk. In Ukraine, that risk is ever present, especially for local


journalists, even in the relatively calm atmosphere of Lviv. But reality soon came crashing down, my phone started buzzing – an alert I’d grown only too accustomed to – and, for a moment, I chose to ignore the inevitable air raid sirens that marked an abrupt end to the evening and a return to our hotels. It seemed fitting that the central theme of this year’s Lviv


Media Forum (LMF) conference was Reality Under Attack: Flight, Freeze, or Fight. Te event, now in its 12th year, brought together more than 700 journalists and media professionals from 36 countries, including Taiwan, the US, India and the UK. Te resilience of Ukrainian media and journalists in a conflict that has lasted longer than the First World War is remarkable. Speaking with journalists who never wanted to be conflict reporters but had stepped up to the mark and continued telling the stories of their countrymen was incredibly inspiring. Te Lviv Media Forum NGO operates across Ukraine and


works with more than 360 outlets as part of its emergency support initiative, while more than 400 journalists have benefited from its psychological support programme, which includes retreats in the Carpathian Mountains. “You can imagine how big the challenge is to stay in a


country at war and to make an everyday choice between serving in the army, being a caring family member, taking care


08 | theJournalist “


of your children or your closest ones or working as a journalist,” Ola Myrovich, the head of LMF, tells me. “You have to make this choice every day and, if you have chosen to stay in this profession, you are mostly dealing with a very challenging context.” Te psychological pressure of reporting on death, war


crimes, destruction and the broken destinies of people is no mean feat; this is combined with 12-hour working days owing to a shortage of staff and sleep deprivation from regular air strikes and shelling at night. Te importance of reporting increases, but the ability of


journalists to do their work is reduced and the pressures are getting worse, Myrovich observes. “Te further we proceed with this war, the worse is the


mental state of people, especially media professionals. Tere is also a drafting campaign into the military and now most media teams consist of women, who are also responsible for their children. Tis is a multi-layered responsibility and, step by step, it worsens the mental state of journalists.” From an outsider’s perspective, life in Lviv goes on. Apart


To have your own independent TV channel, it was like a dream – it was almost


impossible


from the air alerts and presence of soldiers, one could be walking along the tree-lined boulevards, dotted with cafes, in almost any part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. I was introduced to drone strikes and air alerts on the day I arrived, as my seven-hour train journey from Warsaw to Lviv intermittently halted and restarted because of threats from the sky. Part of the conference was held in a large underground bunker, which focused the mind on the realities of the conflict in which journalists are actively targeted. What makes the resilience of Ukrainian media even more


impressive is the relative newness of many of its key journalistic institutions and outlets. Before 2017, Ukraine had no dedicated public service broadcaster and audiences had to choose between state or oligarch-controlled networks. Today, Suspilne, the public broadcaster, is a well-trusted and popular source of news on TV, radio and digital platforms, and its formation was supported by, among others, international


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