On May 11, 2022, The Washington Post announced that it was establishing a new bureau in Kyiv with Isabelle Khurshudyan leading coverage as Ukraine bureau chief. Elements of The Post’s expansive coverage dedicated to the war in Ukraine include a 24-hour live updates page on The Post’s site, a Telegram channel for news updates (now with more than 40,000 subscribers), and a database of verified, on-the-ground footage.
Ms. Khurshudyan joined The Naked Pravda to talk about The Post’s Kyiv bureau and her experiences reporting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Timestamps for this episode:
- (2:38) How did The Post’s Ukraine bureau come about? Will it remain in place after the war ends?
- (7:19) How readers in the United States respond to reporting about the war in Ukraine
- (10:07) How “burnout” affects journalists reporting in Ukraine on the war
- (13:43) How to get embedded with the Ukrainian military
- (18:14) Finding information about Ukraine’s occupied territories where there are no Western journalists
- (20:52) Navigating the wartime legal and cultural sensitivities surrounding certain kinds of speech
- (25:57) War reporting vs. hockey journalism
New episodes of The Naked Pravda are released at the end of every week. Catch each show by subscribing through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or one of these other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the podcast, please write to Kevin Rothrock at kevin@meduza.io with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”
Production, sound editing, and mixing by Kevin Rothrock