Ukraine-Russia Crisis

Paramount Global is temporarily halting its operations in Russia and giving $1 million to support humanitarian relief for Ukraine.

He was killed in Ukraine on Monday when the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by incoming fire. Zakrzewski was a veteran war photographer who had covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria for Fox.

The fact-checking unit has seen surging subscribers on its YouTube and TikTok channels since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, and it’s using a variety of tools like RevEye, InVid, Google Maps and the Internet Archives Wayback Machine to debunk mis- and disinformation on the conflict.

Until RT America ended abruptly, life as a journalist there was “actually so normal.”

Recent reporting from Ukraine illustrates both the skill and gutsiness of female journalists serving as eyewitnesses to Russia’s brutal invasion and the way their presence — hard-won after overcoming ingrained notions of why women shouldn’t cover combat — has changed the nature of war reporting. They cover the tactics of war, but give equal measure to its toll.

A Fox News journalist, correspondent Benjamin Hall, was injured while reporting on the war in Ukraine, anchor John Roberts told viewers on Monday. Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, in a memo to employees, said that “we have a minimal level of detail right now,” but that Hall was hospitalized.

As Russia continues its attack on Ukraine, the suffering of its citizens and damage to the concept of democracy is playing out via broadcast and the internet. The media industry has joined much of the world in its response to Russia’s bullying, with media and tech companies throughout the U.S. stepping up and enforcing a variety of sanctions and taking other actions against the superpower in an effort to stop a madman.

The three major 24/7 TV news networks posted more soaring gains driven by intense interest in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Viewing rose 17% to a collective 7.09 million viewers for the most recent week.

AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit will pause all new business in Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar said in a note to staff on Wednesday. It will cease television broadcasts in Russia, halt new content licensing deals and pause planned theatrical and game releases.

Chris Post, a freelance photojournalist for WFMZ Allentown, Pa., specializes in journalist safety. So when Russia invaded Ukraine, Post volunteered to conduct a Zoom call for Ukrainian national journalists.

The BBC has resumed reporting from Russia after suspending it last week in light of draconian new censorship laws. “We have considered the implications of the new legislation alongside the urgent need to report from inside Russia,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “After careful deliberation we have decided to resume English language reporting from Russia this evening [Tuesday, March 8], after it was temporarily suspended at the end of last week.”

Global news media said they were suspending reporting in Russia to protect their journalists after a new law that threatened jail terms of up to 15 years for spreading “fake news.”

The company’s CEO and president, Jeff Rosica, writes an open letter of support for Ukraine.

Netflix suspended its service in Russia on Sunday, becoming the latest tech company to halt or restrict its offerings in Russia amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia,” a Netflix spokesperson said. TikTok announced earlier in the day that it was blocking users in Russia from posting videos on the platform.

New Russian legislation ”appears to criminalize the process of independent journalism,“ BBC director-general Tim Davie says.

The move came after a Russian regulator demanded that the company stop showing ads with what the regulator claimed was false information about the invasion of Ukraine.

As Russia is trying to cut off the flow of information in Ukraine by attacking its communications infrastructure, the British news outlet BBC is revisiting a broadcasting tactic popularized during World War II: shortwave radio. The BBC said this week that it would use radio frequencies that can travel for long distances and be accessible on portable radios to broadcast its World Service news in English for four hours a day in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and in parts of Russia.

The production company behind RT America, the pro-Putin American version of Russia’s RT network, ceased production and laid off most of its staff on Thursday. According to an employee memo obtained by CNN, the general manager of T&R Productions informed staff that “unforeseen business interruption events” were forcing the company to cease production immediately.

Virtually all of the war’s indelible images — the defiant guards on Snake Island, a woman’s chilling offer of sunflower seeds to a Russian soldier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying he wants ammunition instead of a ride — have served to rally the world to his country’s side. Ukraine may ultimately be overcome by sheer military might, but the power of war’s imagery will likely never be underestimated in the future. Above, members of civil defense prepare Molotov cocktails in a yard in Kyiv, Ukraine. (AP photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Among the many times in which punditry can go very wrong, few rank as high as wartime. And nothing demonstrates that better than some corners of Fox News right now. Tucker Carlson has spent years suggesting maybe Vladimir Putin isn’t a bad guy. Several of its hosts wagered that the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine was manufactured to distract from the Biden administration’s domestic political issues — right before Russia actually invaded. A number of its pundits and hosts have seen their statements on issues like sanctions contradicted by the network’s actual reporting on the situation. Fox’s Jennifer Griffin seems to have almost completely lost patience with all of it.

Google, Meta, Twitter, Telegram and others are levers in the conflict, caught between demands from Ukraine, Russia, the European Union and the U.S.

Russian military strikes have targeted a large TV tower in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, leaving at least five dead and blocking transmissions of TV channels across the country, according to the BBC and other news outlets. “The channels will not work for a while,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement, as reported by CNN. “The backup broadcasting of some channels will be enabled in the near future.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing big tech companies to decide how to handle state-controlled media outlets that spread propaganda and misinformation on behalf of the invaders.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought something cable viewers too-rarely see: Real journalists covering a real story, free of frantic hyperbole and driven by facts on the ground. Reporting on the war could be an inflection point. It offers cable news — especially CNN — a chance to rethink their programming focus and move away from obsessive political coverage. But two hurdles block the path forward: television news economics and the addictive nature of polarization.

The network’s national security correspondent has pushed back on comments made by Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy, Harris Faulkner and other hosts.

As the invasion unfolded, images straight out of Cold War nightmare dramas butted up against 21st-century politics.

Fox News stars like Tucker Carlson questioned why Americans hated Vladimir Putin, and CNN showed Russian tanks and rockets in live war-zone dispatches.

High tech communications technology exports to Russia is one of the categories subject to controls under newly imposed U.S. sanctions due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. President Joe Biden announced the sanctions Thursday in a speech to the nation. The White House said the sanctions would impose “devastating costs” on Russia.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is pointing journalists toward its safety advice — in English and Ukrainian — on covering the conflict as journalists began reporting on the Russian attacks on Ukraine, which was being called a “full-scale” invasion.