Marshalling the troops: how Ukraine's biggest newsroom stayed afloat in the war | Global Journalism Seminar with Sevgil Musaieva, Editor in Chief, Ukrainska Pravda | Otter.ai

Marshalling the troops: how Ukraine's biggest newsroom stayed afloat in the war | Global Journalism Seminar with Sevgil Musaieva, Editor in Chief, Ukrainska Pravda

Reuters Institute59min

Caithlin Mercer

00:00

Hello and welcome to the global journalism seminars. I'm Caitlin Mercer, associate director of the fellowship program at the Reuters Institute for the Study of journalism. It's been 272 days since Putin escalated the Russo Ukrainian war with a full scale land invasion of Ukraine. According to the United Nations, at least 6490 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, and over 9000 have been wounded since the invasion began. 7.4 million Ukrainians have become refugees, and at least 12 journalists have been killed. Joining us today sebelum was I ever editor in chief of digital outlet Ukrainska Pravda, which reaches over 4 million people with Daily News in Ukrainian, English and Russian in the past year, said Gil has been awarded the Press Freedom Award and was nominated as one of Time 100 most influential people. I am so proud to welcome Southfields today. Thank you for your time serve.

Speaker 1

01:06

Hello, hello. Oh, nice to meet you. Greetings from give another round Metella darker is happening right now. Unfortunately, Russia heats Ukrainian critical infrastructure and residential buildings. But we are here and I hope that next hour we'll we'll have a good time and you will own that like interesting stories from Ukrainian side.

Caithlin Mercer

01:35

And it's important to say that we know and the entire audience understands if the sirens go off if you need to leave that No explanation needed. Your safety is number one for us. The actual

Unknown Speaker

01:49

error rates are on right now. But

Caithlin Mercer

01:52

it's okay. You've got a new generator.

Speaker 1

01:56

Yeah, yes, we switched on our generator and that's why it's possible to connect today. So we unfortunately already like blackout. And Kyiv in the big cities in Ukraine. I mean, we first and even the part of Moldova is out of electricity. But thanks to our generator, able to do that miracle but

Caithlin Mercer

02:21

I know that you have a presentation that you want to give to us to take up any more time asking questions, but we will have time for questions afterwards. And we invite the audience to put their questions into the q&a box and we will come back for questions in a second. So over to Yousef.

Speaker 1

02:44

Thank you so much, Caitlin. Actually, I didn't tell you that we will. We will follow so Reuters Institute together with Caitlin and for me it's because to speak from to your current fellows and the audience and they think that can you see my Yeah, okay. Unfortunately, I don't see it. So, the first one slide. About

Caithlin Mercer

03:14

it's not quite in presentation mode yet.

Speaker 1

03:18

There's a moment okay. So once you find that, I became the chief editor for Cohen's kappa in 2014. Five months after beginning of the war in Ukraine, I mean, the invasion of Crimea annexation of Crimea and then the started of occupation in Donbass, but we're pretty proud of that has a special story, the oldest online media outlet in Ukraine. It was founded in 2000 by two journalist Gergan guards and Dylan Abdullah. And for the first days, it was just mine page, how they call it so and remember how Lana told me the story that the audience of organic copra was around 15 to 20 people every day, and it's hard to imagine now like that into South and it was just 1520 people, or even increase the profit every day day. But, son, the story, fortunately is so tragic, because in six months after the foundation of Auckland's crowd, its co founder Julian Castro was killed. It's not occupations of the government and protests that took place in 2020. And also, I think that the investigation of organza case was among like most important stories in 2004, during the Orange Revolution, so what is Ukrainska Prada or before 220 fours red line actually, I'd like to say so we have a big audience with around 1 million readers per day 26 million visits in one month departments what we started with five people and I think that the story of Aquarius couple out there is also about how independent journalism the story of success of independent journalism in Ukraine because you know that you didn't know maybe but around 85% of our media landscape controlled by oligarchs before the war, and there are a few examples of independent journalism and plays couple of the oldest one. So and we grow to eight departments in different spheres. I mean, economic sphere, Euro integration, for example, it's another one project. So it was also it is also super life deployed and like the infrastructure for cranes problem is big and around 60 employees. were immigrants prouder, and now it's even more 65. I think that because we had like some people after the beginning of war. And so it was like, our situation before our financial model was also more about advertising. We're seeing revenue from advertising, mostly around 80% And then 10% from donors and 10%, from readership. And actually, I launched the I think, I want to mention that we launched the readership in 2020. And actually, it was a part of my fellowship at Reuters Institute. Because for us Liqui my my paper was about how to rebuild trust in the media and together with my tutor, former editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, we found this new model. The model this model was also the club of readers and village this club of readers in 2000 to 20, just once, one month before or like even two months after the beginning of pandemic and so we received before the war we received around 20% of our revenue from our readers, which was also important for us, because we were one of the first of media in Ukraine to launch this model. So yeah, want to compare myself with this epic movie? Don't look up because before the war and nobody believed that it will happen like, of course there are a lot of rumors of Western media that covered the stories from the beginning of October. There are rumors that maybe Putin will attack Ukraine, but nobody believed that because in May two years, we had a lot of rumors about that. Among even the claimants, a lot of people didn't want to believe that it can happen. For me personally. What can I say that okay, it's a formula but it's presented sorry, interrupting you. So, we now can work in a new sort of like in no danger circumstances. I'm not into shelter, but I want to let you know that it's already like Safe, safe time for us.

Caithlin Mercer

08:33

It's telling you you're safe. Yeah, yes. Yes.

Speaker 1

08:36

Like Thanks, God. But unfortunately, we already informed about one killed during this missile attack. I think that will tell you the result of this attack sorry. So from the Blue cup, because I was always a bit scared about possible invasion. And I was thinking about maybe we'll have to launch our own plan, how we will deal and of course even in my darkest thought about this war I never can imagine such brutality that Russia did and Russia still has in Ukraine. I never can imagine that it will be like missile attacks. But the same time I understood after Kazakhstan actually in January, you remember this protest that took place and blackouts and people were without internet and they blocked all the telephone information. I think that will be the target and how to protect. We have to have this plan to protect our people. And then we asked our employees do you want to stay to want to leave in the end of January and then after this one publication in Spiegel publication, that invasion will happen 16th of February, we decided to relocate the part of our team to western regions. It was like a lot of people didn't understand this decision or the people were thinking that maybe it's like we became a victim of this conspiracy theory but the storyboard that I want to share you that I came to my newsroom in 15th of February and told them okay, like, and I don't know how but three people three people from our team should leave this evening, at least this evening, by train to western part of Ukraine. And the story that those two for example, editors who left first day, they were from Bucha and in two weeks after that, so they emigrated together with the kid, and then in two weeks, three weeks, in two weeks, in two weeks after the start of the war and three weeks after they were evacuated. The father of our editor was killed in Bucha by Russian soldiers. He was a 70 years unarmed man. We also produced this security protocol for people of Ukrainska Pravda and literally published the novel group three days before the war and it was like security protocol, what what to do and how you can navigate people how you can navigate you what you should have in your backpack. And but of course, in 24th of February, we already in 24th of February, we already had seven people relocated to different parts of you to one part of Ukraine, and then on 24th of February, we understood that it will be difficult as to continue our work from Kyiv because Kyiv was under attack and we just decided to move like a part of team also to another two cities and even to Gdansk in Poland. So Around 17 people left Kyiv of their estate. There are my pictures from 24th of February. This is the first one in my pajama around eight. I am it feels aerates urine. This day you see that there's three cups of coffee. A glass of water with lemon and chocolate and like website. I'm not finding and then another one picture in 12 hours with the same day from the shelter together with my dog and you can understand that I was a little bit scared and because of this missile attacks and because of news I received from two ambassadors that probably is Lenski will be killed in the next couple of hours. And you have only three days and if you if you have to leave Kyiv in like few hours because if they will capture key if the key will be occupied, it will be your personal issue. So this was the beginning of the story. The same part of Glencoe proud of this they then I want to mention here that took place coupled product played important role during two revolutions in Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity. And they became like the most important source of the during critical situation. And of course, this was literally a critical situation I remember I woke up actually literally 30 minutes before the start of the war. I didn't know what is it? Was it intuition or just because I have this like nightmares and I usually wake up like three times per night just to see some just scroll some news. And this day I remember how I woke up and had my glass of had my glass of water and then received the spools that put engaged gave his announcement to the nation and this time I understood everything. So the first story was about Putin announced the worry in Ukraine and it was 4am and then I started to receive like calls from different different people, like from different countries and other authorities as well. So the head of National Security Bureau called me and said that we will announce no Marchello etc, etc. So and then the first director and it was like that but first day of the war. We received seven make our site visited by 7 million people. Now I can imagine such numbers of people and we will the second largest website this day in your brain after Google. This the result of March 2022 You see that 783 million pageviews and total visit like new CityLine visitors and like people span around six minutes, which is normal. So people will live in just this day was our news all the time. This is the result of 2022 marches well, so seven, seven place among the biggest websites in the country. So people like to ask more than Instagram, for example, just during the wartime and also in the beginning of war we launched our we cancelled all of our advertising and provided spaces for our army and we posted a lot of advertising for just support Ukrainian army. And you see like that total clicks around 678,000 clicks and I know that a lot of loads of volunteers received money from there is a return of currents problem because if you're the most popular website during this time, so this is a result more countries so you can understand our structures. So Ukraine is the first place the second place is United States, Poland, Russia, Russia in the first place. And I think that we can proudly say this because a lot of people from Russia still with us still we use our information and still trust us. Just important. I also see that from our social media, from Facebook, from Instagram, from YouTube. So a lot of people watch us and follow us from Russia still even with blocked so they can use VPN in YouTube I see it like without using VPN but but still with us and trust us. So in the beginning of war we also launched an English version because it was extremely important to receive people information from different hands in English. And this English version was launched by my colleague Alina Polyakova. And it was volunteers. So people from different countries just

Speaker 1

18:14

helped us for the first days of war and it was just an amazing but then of course we received like some nation and third months of the war. We started to pay them but first month they weren't literally we were literally volunteers and it was just a great example of of solidarity with people of Ukraine. And the total number of English version you also can see like 100 million use for the first month and stimulant use of pages. So which was also amazing results so I know that it was one of the most powerful English version of Ukrainian media started from scratch, which is something and never can imagine. As I mentioned before, this was our model before to 21st of February 2022. So we received we received 80% from advertising time from readers revenue from donors, and then it can change dramatically to the beginning for now our we receive around 60% from donors so different monetizing. And then still raise revenue. So we changed our financial model and thanks to donors, we're still able to continue to do our work and to pay salaries and to follow other projects. For us. It's important and in the beginning of war also our friends from genomics launched a campaign in GoFundMe to help independent media and received around visitor location actually was from the Munich it was a relocation and we were happy just to receive around 400 sold in pounds and then in den two it was around one in one human pounds. And we we divided this amount with different independent media because of course all of them faced with incredible challenges. Here I want to go to another part of my presentation. How this terrible war affected our newsroom because we are citizens of Ukraine first and our country became literal war zone. And here are some stories the first one I want to share about our designer for Ukrainska Pravda, we lost connection with him for 14 days. And for 10 days we didn't know if he was alive and he didn't respond emails he didn't respond phone calls. We know we knew that he was under occupation in a city close to Kyiv like 15 kilometers from here. around 15 kilometers from Kyiv and then after 14 days he gave me a call and just a short message I'm alive. I'll be able to do my work to continue more of my work tomorrow morning and this message made me cry for the first time in two weeks of this terrible war. And then he covered the story in this publication. So what How was it to be in in under occupation in key region for 14 days. He said that they didn't have electricity they didn't have water they had only like potatoes and it was very, very difficult and it was even the miracle. He survived. He escaped occupation and just wonderful story. This one another story I mentioned before have a colleague father was killed in Bucha in the beginning of March when Witcher was under Russian occupation and Russian soldiers came to his place and just kill him for seven days. His wife even wasn't able to bury him so and then they buried him and after which I was liberated in one month. It was very difficult even to find his body because all this investigation started and we understood that it his body only sinks to blanket. He was buried. This is part of my story. My friend my colleague Brenton was killed in a pain in the 14th of March. He came here to film a documentary about Ukrainian refugees and went to a bank together with my partner who was a driver and he was killed by a sniper and another my colleague Han Redonda, who was also my fellow or my classmate that covered he was wounded during this attack. And it happened in 13th of March and literally after this this day I saw that maybe like this war already gave me so much grief that I didn't know what what else and this is a story of our Managing Editor of English version of a critical problem. And in the program. She lost her father so your father has died and the Russians have killed your father. Your father was a soldier in the Parisian region and he died in the beginning of June. Now the one story about how to protect the homeland. This is our videographer journalist, return sermon. In the end of July, he decided to join the army. So he did wonderful, like he's amazing reporter amazing story he did like for the last couple of years and then he wrote to the readers of Oculus go proud that I'm going to Army not on the line of duty or guilty. It's about our dignity. We are standing for that for years and centuries and I have no other country and I have never have any and he decided to join the army and for me it's a painful yeah and to this story, I want to tell you that this car is provided by our colleagues. So we volunteered little bit and we bought this car and readers donated to this car and that is using this car that our guys bought with both both him so the short part of my presentation will be about about actually Jehovah's work not about numbers not about volunteer project not about how this war affected us. So this one story first March of 2022, so seven days seven or eight on the war, republish the list of Russian yachts and jets. And then in a couple hours I received a call from one of the ambassador of European country and he just asked me could you please give me a translation of this article? And they say of course I can. And then in two hours we sent this was 10, this translation and next three days around eight yards from this list view arrested by European governments in those countries. They think that it was like a great result how journalists can help the country and sanctions during the war. So this is another story. Another one it's about Carlos Vela, Ramzan Kadyrov, who is the one of the main characters of this war and one of the main allies of Putin and propagandist as well. We found his villa in Dubai, and one of our rater helped to film it. So and the story that we found this villa thanks to Instagram of one of bodyguards of polygraph and then in today's this bodyguard delete all for the deleted or photos from his deleted all photos from his Instagram. And, unfortunately the man who helped us was deported from the country by a Arab Emirates government because he took some photos of this villa and they respect private property

Speaker 1

28:11

Okay, this one it doesn't work but I will provide you a link. This one is film is our view occupant. We captured video from its film captured from video of Russian soldier who was captured by Ukrainian Vaughn and these became extremely popular not only in Ukraine in Ukraine received around 4 million views. But this film is available like in different countries now. And even we received a lot of invitations from documentary film festivals and they also have this film Misha Tkach gave a lot of interviews about this movie and I'll be happy to provide like a short version but unfortunately for some reason that doesn't work. Sorry about that. I will give you a link later. Just will be happy just to of course we cover war in the fields and here our reporters are located in Africa. She's just 23 years old and greatest photographer. I think one of the best photographer in Ukraine Metro lighting. They cover the war in from different cities. Battlefield stories with okay clarification with civilians. One of the one of the stories later stories was about zoo private Zoo. That was destroyed during the occupation was all killed animals. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that it has an English version, but it is heartbreaking to see like Ukrainian army and dogs and our reporter Allah and she decided by yourself that she wants to be a war reporter. And this is also a great example of courage and I'm really really proud of him. And this is also another one heartbreaking stories that during the war, you're not only a journalist, you will not only report you're not on the cover, but also you have to help your people. So the story that our journalist went to this village near the border near the frontline. And then this man old man told them, could you please find my wife because I don't have he doesn't have a connection in this village. Could you please find my wife she was ever created after she was wanted. And maybe she's in hospital in DC chance. Marvel reporters gave you a call in when they went to Ukrainian territory. And then in one month as I received another one call from this woman and she asked Could you please drug drive me back? I want to be with my family. And it was very heartbreaking story how this family was again United exists to have reporters and this is not only this story, so we had to when we go to this territories we also try to have some like humanitarian aid bring some human trained lead, warm clothes everything just to help people help civilians. Help army during those times. This one is also interesting before the world cleanse coupled with a covered domestic issues and corruption and then because of curfew because of for Marcelo, it became really difficult to film, Ukrainian corrupted guys in cave streets. So we decided we decided to form them in different European countries. And this one is like funny story about battalion monarca. So, oligarchs and corrupt Ukrainian officials, mainly former and current former officials, members of our parliament, who love the country after the beginning of war and now spend their time in Monaco and other like fancy places. And this was nice answer. So we not cover only wall will cover also corruption and misconduct of officials. And one of the latest story was about corruptions Hemofarm one of the head of NEWPRO region. Governor so this one is reconstruction. One of my favorite mine. Mine is about like three days in the beginning of for our our reporters did a great job. They interviewed more than Saudi people. Just to write this piece about how Ukraine more than ready for this war and how officials reflected after nine months after nine seven months for this word and received like 1000s and 1000s of positive comments from our audience and for them it was very important to know how they made decision However, officials made decisions how boditrak was security protocol or not, and it was interesting and important work for us to do. And yeah, we'd like to stop maybe. Glory to Ukraine and slow cranium. Hope you enjoyed and we'll happy to receive all your questions. Thank you

Caithlin Mercer

34:30

I think you've done a brilliant job there of let's just stop sharing that presentation. And I think you've done a brilliant job of explaining how the business model had to evolve how your team had to evolve, how, how and the stories that you're proud of stuff. It was really good to just listen to you about about your experiences I wanted to just repeat to the audience that you can put your questions for save into the q&a box. And we will go down to our room as well for questions soon. But quickly before we do. Can I ask you something that was particularly struck me there? Sorry. How do you tell your team how to rest and how to grieve?

Speaker 1

35:28

Oh, it's it's impossible. No, like, yeah, it is so hard. I think we even don't have a discussion about that we just do we just do our job and that's it. So we don't have a time just for self reflection now for understanding what how this war is affected Of course. Like, literally every single person of our newsroom is affected by this war. And it's just the curfew stories, but the part of people have relatives in occupied territories, for example, and it's also affected them. Of course they don't have connections they were afraid to use the real names just because maybe maybe those people in their relatives can be in danger. So

Caithlin Mercer

36:30

and I promised you I wasn't going to try to make you cry. And I'm not trying to make you cry. But you have to be carrying a huge amount of personal responsibility for this team of 60 people and carrying a huge amount of guilt around almost every decision you make that you talk to your team about that

Speaker 1

36:59

know I was so happy that the this security protocol worked and that we relocated the part of team before the war and it literally helped save lives. We felt so and I was so happy about that. Because unfortunately other newsrooms they didn't have this option. And it was just before more about kind of intuition and the feel of that maybe something can happen. And that's why we need to have this plan B. But

Caithlin Mercer

37:37

I put it to you that in 2018 when you and I met you were you know as a Crimean Tata, you were saying it doesn't stop with Crimea. It doesn't stop with Crimea. I'm telling you keep watching, this is going to happen. This is going to happen like years, six years ago, you were saying I'm telling you keep watching, keep watching.

Speaker 1

37:57

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And you know, and during my years covered I also I also received those comments from my, from my colleagues at covered so you told us that that's gonna happen. I think that this war started in 2014 and started from Crimea. And it should end in Crimea to me. It's my opinion. It's my feeling. Because without that, without it, nobody can feel safe. Because Crimea is literally military bases within now. And he used he uses six of everywhere. You use Crimea during his Syrian campaign he used Emir during Ukraine. Like a huge Oh, those missiles came from Crimean cities. Yeah. Because Crimea is not like a safe place. It's not like bliss for vacations anymore. This is a military base. And before without its liberation, like is just okay, we can you know, last days received, like 1000s of questions, what would what would be like, a decision and, you know, maybe like, you have to stop this war just to take a break. Okay, but like in few years to happen.

Caithlin Mercer

39:40

If my fellows downstairs can get their camera going and get ready. I'm going to come to you in a second but first question here for you from Ted Sullivan. Are you worried about infiltration by Russian agents or collaborators who might try to influence your coverage?

Speaker 1

40:01

You know, we already ATS in this war and we experienced so many have to say informational attacks and so thanks that we already ate Yes, in this war. We are ready for all this Russian fakes and attacks. So of course, like the first days of work, they were trying to destroy our website and the one of the biggest attack was around 300,000 requests per second, which was slick. Then I heard from my IT team that they never think something like that. They never saw something like that. But still like yeah, we can go in and of course, they they're trying they want to influence how information field but it doesn't work anymore and the people in Ukraine understand all these tactics and they are really clever, like the part of people like they're really really with their form, media literacy and just because it's already ATS in the beginning of occupation of Crimea, of course, we were not ready. We were not ready though, literally. Now the thing that Ukrainian experience and Ukrainian way of response for such challenges is so useful and important for you guys. Of course, the Russians will they will try to disrupt things in different ways in different countries, and they use this hybrid tactics everywhere. And this is a part of the military doctrine. So it's a breath of the mainstream military strategy. They started from cyber attacks and then they started with and they continue with the army. It's happening all the time.

Caithlin Mercer

42:11

Let's go to jovia from Hungary. Question about citizen journalism for you. We can that's Vanessa.

Speaker 2

42:32

Yes, thank you so much. for joining us and for the amazing work they do. I have a question regarding your relationship with your audience. So how do we change during my experience before scaling media, because you mentioned for example, that never seen readers who have UVM something or as some had from you, so how did it change and how, like, you receive a lot of material from them, and what do you love not to use?

Speaker 1

43:16

Thank you for the question. Yes. We're, I remember how the first days of war I just asked for like one simple question for my audience in Facebook and for readers if Ukrainska Pravda how are you? Could you tell us about situation your cities and it helped us to understand the whole situation because like a lot of people a lot of cities were under attack. And for example, of course, the main focus was on Kyiv for example, or like big cities could be missed. important events in southern part of Ukraine. And I received like 1000s of 1000 photos, videos and comments from our readers in Kherson, in Mariupol like but Mariupol was out of out of electricity and internet for the from the from the beginning, like from the first days of war and it was hard. But so of course we double check that we verified this information we received from our readers, but it helped us to to report the full the first picture of this war and you know that I still in touch with a lot of people in occupied territories. Our readers, for example. And they provide us important information about deaths about like, what occupant occupants do in this territories what they talk about human tortures when like about killings of civilians. Of course they're afraid to do that. So I asked them to be very careful with this and I asked them not to use like to clean everything after they sent me a picture, but then they still provide us information and they still help us. And for us, it's important and if you're asking me about the Warriors, model, readers revenue model, still like 900 people support us even when a lot of people donate to army, so to the army, they want to support us as well. And they ask us a lot of questions and of course, thanks to our readers, we also can fundraise some money for Army for civilians. For example, we slick plant even tablets for refugees Ukrainian refugees, for people, for eternal displaced people.

Caithlin Mercer

45:55

There's two questions in the q&a box here that relate to that answer. The first is from anonymous who says what's the situation now for crimean tartars with with the Russians trying to mobilize Do you have any insight on that?

Speaker 1

46:14

You know, I'm premiun and I'm from Crimea, and I still have a lot of relatives. I can tell you that part of my relatives left Crimea after the start of mobilization and they now live in Kazakhstan, for example. So we have a group with support and we also provide some help for people in that left Crimea was our document like was a lot of problems with our documents with all the families but they don't want to take part in this war against Ukraine against their people. And it's also the big tragedy of my nation. Because we got deported from those territories. I mean, from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. Now, we escaped to this territories again and again and again. And it's why because Russia, does it and we're not sure is responsible for that. So, and it's for centuries, it's happening for centuries, like it's happened in Quito for centuries. Ukrainians suffering Crimea into the suffering just because Russians don't want us to this.

Caithlin Mercer

47:27

There's a there's a second part to anonymous this question. But I want to approach it carefully. So I'm going to caveat it a little bit the language by saying for you personally, as an individual, not as the editor of Ukrainska Pravda, but as as safe with being in the middle of this war with seeing what's happened to the Tatas How do you feel about ordinary Russian citizens? And do you feel that they're complicit in this war? How do you relate for example to our mutual Russian friends? How do you what's the human?

Speaker 1

48:18

Yeah. Part hard one, like of course, I have friends in Russia, and of course, they texted me in the beginning go for miss a lot of support and was of course I understand the part of people they feel guilty about what's happening. But sometimes you just can, can do nothing. With your fear and with your emotions. And for me, this like redline was after Bucha and Bucha jonka and all the cities were so like 1000s and 1000s of casualties and killed Ukrainian civilians. And I was like Tiger, literally, like few days after I saw those photos. Like, even then cry so we just I felt only fury. And I was thinking about maybe my wasn't good in shooting during my school, so maybe I would love to join army and then I asked my good friend of mine Patrick Dubois, who is a bishop just Could you please explain me my feelings? And he tried, he tried he explained that it's it's okay for human being. When people killed your country man feels such pain and you've fought for me to difficult Yes, I'm even when they met with my friends from Russia. Yes, for me. It's painful and heartbreaking.

Caithlin Mercer

50:22

Let's leave it there. Western from Paddy Coulter is with the change in revenue coming from readers. Donors Do you worry about it affecting editorial independence. At all?

Speaker 1

50:40

No, you know we the grand scheme probably exists already 22 years and we have our principles rules and we follow them from the beginning of our existence. And we found that by actually also just with support with donors and from different countries, and then we built our financial model was indeed was pretty successful. I hope that it will not happen of course for us. This is important support but I will do everything possible to protect our independence as much as I can.

Caithlin Mercer

51:23

Question for you from Evie, who is from China, living in the US and she has questions about.

Speaker 2

51:36

Hi, thank you so much for talking with us today. My question is how do you perceive foreign journalists to work in Ukraine during the war? And do you have any advice for any reporters that are not following your plan, like what to do and what not to do when you're trying to cover it?

Unknown Speaker

51:54

Was it about my advices for foreign reporters?

Caithlin Mercer

51:57

Yeah. How have foreign correspondents faring in covering this war and any advice for those coming in?

Speaker 1

52:03

I assume that there are a lot of focus on of a president for example, Zelinsky, who's became the main hero of this war and I want to see more stories about heroes among people among Ukrainian soldiers among Ukrainian army not only want Ukrainian authorities and the main finger president because it's struggle. It's not only about him the struggle of Ukrainian people and culture of Ukraine and people. And they think that without this every single bit not possible. This war is about Ukrainian identity and people fight for Ukrainian identity and, of course, like leadership of the Lansky is very important, but still Ukrainians do brilliant. And every single Ukraine hen became a volunteer became a soldier became a part of army became a part of this resistance. And I want to hear and see more stories about Ukrainian resistance is not internal, but in faces and believe me, there are 1000s of 1000s human stories and you will be so touched by them when people change dramatically their lives and literally our army consists not only from journalists, artists, musicians, and that's why we're talking about genocide, the like now Yeah, because this is a battle for resistance of country and people from absolutely different spheres so we lose our best people. I mean, like the people who will build who needs to build this country in future who need to build this country's future. The core elements of this like Sorry I'm often all about that. But when I saw like, that was one story for example, two days ago, one of the founder of very important project in key have died. Actually he was killed like he went to army and he was killed by Russian soldiers. And he helped to save all these Kyiv. In some places, historical buildings and I understand when I read this story that nobody will follow him and nobody and it will be so

Caithlin Mercer

54:46

irreplaceable Yeah, every single person lost. So let's let's end with a little bit something a little bit left field. Indulge me in a fantasy. Let's say Putin gets on a bus this afternoon. With all of his cronies, all of his supporters, and the bus drives off a cliff by mistake. Oops. And the new Russian administration says this was stupid. We're leaving we're pulling out this weekend. The war will be over on Monday. What would you do?

Speaker 1

55:36

I have a dream, to go to Crimea and to hug my relatives I didn't see for the last eight years. This is only my dream. And then follow. Follow my team. I mean, the my regular job was providing news and information for people in Ukraine and this is what can I help and how we can help people but it was Yeah, it is my dream just to go to Crimea and combine besides knowing.

Caithlin Mercer

56:13

I've seen your pictures. It's beautiful. Have you had a chance to think about what you do with your team? After the war how it changes or

Speaker 1

56:26

think we all need a short vacation after the victory two week holiday. I'm not kidding when I'm talking about it was 24/7 24/7 and it's already nine months 24/7. And I don't know how people find Powerball, like all sources like eternal sources to provide news and when you're also affected by this for in different ways. I mean, when you lose your parents, lose your friends, lose your partners, colleagues. Yeah.

Caithlin Mercer

57:10

Yeah, no, you're not lying. You were messaging me in those first few days and we were all going save please. Save you have to sleep. This is gonna be a long war. You need to sleep please.

Speaker 1

57:23

For the first maybe five days, like maybe one hour or something like that. Now by sleep like ground six. Maybe like last two weeks. It was just around 545 Maybe after I came to key if it will be maybe six seven I hope sometimes.

Unknown Speaker

57:47

But it's not about like you still wake up a lot of times during the night.

Caithlin Mercer

57:55

I want to ask we were joking before this seminar began about all the awards. You've won you how you're going to need a trophy room when this war is over for all of the awards Would you mind showing them your latest trophy for the trophy room?

Speaker 1

58:17

What do you mean? Oh, this one is the meat I received from my friend actually our former journalist who joined toto defense unit and he brought me this trophy from here some are blessed and various he's from literally so he was the funding and then so yes, he brought me this meat from from already liberated territories from

Caithlin Mercer

58:52

I think will go very nicely next time. 100 most influential for your time for your work for your and anything

Speaker 1

59:09

that well I was happy to share this hour with you guys. Thank you so much.

00:0000:00