“It’s us (journalists) who have to find a way to beat news fatigue. People are not tired of news about war, and they will never be,” stated Maurine Mercier, war correspondent in Ukraine for RTS, RTBF, and Radio France. Together with Caroline Gillet, audio journalist and filmmaker at France Inter, they discussed how the media can keep audiences engaged in staying informed about the war, shifting the focus back to the power of audio.
“For the first time in my life, I allowed myself to say ‘I’ in order to help my listeners understand what war is,” Mercier said while describing how she works on her podcast. She added that podcasting is her way of sharing human stories full of life, even though they are about war. “I want to report on life in war because it’s there, and it’s important.” During her speech, she played some audio pieces from her podcast, Carnets d’Ukraine. One story about the feelings of a middle-aged woman for some young soldiers arriving in her town made the attendees burst out in laughter. This illustrated the importance of the life stories from the war that Mercier had been talking about. “I don’t feel legitimate if I don’t live in the country I talk about,” was one of the first things she said in her speech.
Later on, Caroline Gillet shared her experience of war reporting away from the front lines. Her podcast Inside Kabul, a story about two friends, Marwa and Raha, living in Kabul, which the BBC also adapted into an animated film, was the reason the lives of these two girls changed forever. “Even if the people you talk about are far away from you, you can still feel them really close to you,” Gillet said, becoming emotional after seeing a photo of Marwa and Raha.
Inside Kabul is a project based on voice notes sent to Gillet from people close to the front lines, as well as those who experience the war firsthand. She explained that the greatest advantage of this form of war reporting is that it resembles a diary, eliminating all intermediaries between the protagonist and the listener. Of course, she mentioned the challenges that may arise; the journalist is always on call and can easily face difficult ethical questions.
So, what can journalists do to beat the threat of news fatigue? “Do it as sincerely as you can,” Mercier said, and “remember that you are important in people’s lives,” Gillet added.
image © Afroditi Zaggana
