2023-10-06

KIEV - Foreign journalists report plenty about the war in Ukraine, and that is dangerous enough. But they're helped by local journalists, "fixers," and they can't just avoid the situation in their country. What does that nonstop work do to these people?

This two-part project brings to light the difficult but underappreciated work of fixers and local producers. These are the local media professionals who accompany foreign media and journalists in the war zone.

In an initial report, journalists Johana Kotišová and Peter van Goethem examine the heavy emotional toll of these local media professionals who accompany foreign reporters covering the Russian invasion in their own communities. Meanwhile, they are of necessity postponing their own traumas. 

In the second report, journalists share fixers' and producers' experiences with hierarchies in war reporting and risk outsourcing. It is an account of a surreal journey through a country where business as usual overlaps with the uncanny.

Peter Van Goethem

Peter Van Goethem (1982) is leerkracht en studiecoach in de Gevangenis van Antwerpen en het GO!CVO Antwerpen.
Peter Van Goethem

Johana Kotišová

Dr. Johana Kotišová is a researcher at the University of Amsterdam and a visiting professor in the Department of Communication Studies at VUB.
Johana Kotišová
€4.250 allocated on 28/06/2022.
€3.620 allocated on 30/09/2022.
ID
FPD/2022/1946, FPD/2022/1977