The Russian Invasion of Ukraine has claimed the lives of many, including journalists who are on the ground covering the conflict.
As of now, three media members have died: Brent Renaud, Pierre Zakrzewski, Oleksandra Kuvshynova; meanwhile, others like Fox News’ Benjamin Hall have been severely injured.
In an interview with Mediaite’s “The Interview,” Jane Ferguson, a special correspondent for PBS NewsHour and contributor to the New Yorker, spoke about the dangers covering this war.
Ferguson has plenty of experience covering conflicts such as the rise of ISIS in Iraq and frantic evacuation from Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal. However, the rate of violence against journalists in Ukraine “has been unbelievably shocking.”
“It’s an incredibly dangerous place to work,” she said. “I think one of the most difficult things that journalists have been grappling with after hearing the news of every death is how do we possibly avoid that?” Ferguson said.
“Because very often these journalists are not doing something that the rest of us aren’t. They’re not pushing the envelope, going to incredibly dangerous places.”
Ukraine remains in a fluid state, which makes it a war that makes calculating risk incredibly difficult.
“The problem here is that you could be just driving down the road that you’ve driven down 50 times and suddenly there’s gunfire, and no one will quite be able to explain to you where it comes from and who they are,” she added.
Ferguson has covered many post-9/11 wars and stated that being on the ground for those conflicts is much different than what she’s experienced during her time in Ukraine.
“The last 20 years we’ve been covering post-911 wars,” Ferguson said. “We’ve been covering insurgencies. We’re either with the insurgents, embedded with them, or we’re more with the government forces.”
“Here you’ve got two conventional armies fighting each other with heavy artillery fire, rockets, airstrikes. That means frontlines are extremely fluid and extremely deadly and indiscriminate. And that has been, I think, one of the biggest challenges of the last few weeks for journalists.”