Kelman Seminar: Into Homes and Hearts: Navigating Emotions and Negotiating Access as a Journalist

Investigative journalism, by necessity, involves negotiation. Questions arise that relate to methods and approaches, such as how to access important and sensitive sources, how to persuade individuals to engage, and how to structure an interview to gather information and build trust. These questions implicate deeper and complex issues as well. For example, how can journalists engage multiple narratives in their reporting and represent those in a story? How can they balance meticulous preparation for an interview with an open and curious approach to the conversation? And, particularly in the context of reporting on crimes in conflict zones, what are the implications of journalistic frameworks for thinking about notions of blame and culpability?

In this session, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Yousur Al-Hlou and Masha Froliak will discuss their investigations for the New York Times from Ukraine, where they have spent the last three years covering potential war crimes committed by Russian soldiers by blending traditional shoe-leather field reporting skills with digital forensic techniques to uncover human rights abuses in conflict zones.

Through their reporting from Bucha, the journalists exposed how Russian soldiers carried out one of the most notable massacres, killing hundreds of residents in the first few weeks of their assault on Ukraine. A series of investigations published over the next eight months capitalized on the exclusive material they collected from sensitive sources in the field — hundreds of hours of security footage, hundreds of hours of interviews, and classified military documents — which revealed potential war crimes committed by Russian soldiers and their commanders. And in Kherson, they spent one year tracking Ukrainian children taken from a children’s home and identified the Russian officials who unlawfully transferred them to Crimea before placing them for adoption. Their reporting proved that the transfer was part of a systematic campaign by President Vladimir Putin and his political allies to strip the most vulnerable victims of the war of their Ukrainian identity. The plight of these children is at the heart of an open case at the ICC.

Join us to gain a deeper insight into how these compelling investigations are produced, and how journalism and negotiation share approaches to relationship building and problem solving.