(NewsNation) — News organizations from Ukraine turned from rivals into partners to better serve viewers in their coverage of the war devastating their country.
Two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, all four of Ukraine’s major news stations decided to work together. News anchor Marichka Padalko said the stations did this partly to keep their broadcasts running for 24 hours.
All main stations are located in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, one of the places being bombarded by the Russian army, meaning the people in them would have to go to bomb shelters occasionally.
“We thought that’s really bad for the audience, so we decided to first unite all channels so that everybody is responsible for one slot,” Padalko said. A backup studio outside Kyiv allows others to fill in when another station has to go to a shelter.
This system also helps them save up their resources as journalists.
“So far, we haven’t been interrupted … even when a TV tower in the capital was hit by the missile,” Padalko said.
While Padalko covers the war, her husband is fighting in it. He joined the army on the first day of the Russian invasion, and her children are in western Ukraine with their grandparents.
Even though they’re in different places, Padalko said her family is safe, especially compared with those in besieged Mariupol, which has seen some of the worst suffering of the war so far.
“Of course, I’m always worried about my husband,” she said. He’s not allowed to use his cellphone for security reasons while on a mission, meaning Padalko is often wondering whether her spouse is safe, or even alive.
When she works, Padalko said, she has less space for those thoughts.
“I’m happy to be working and broadcasting,” she said.
Having a broadcast to count on gives viewers some consistency as well, Padalko said.
“For them, seeing the anchors they’ve been seeing for so many years is a part of the normality,” she said.
It’s this normality that’s quickly fading for many Ukrainians.
“We’re not afraid to be killed by weapons, like by missiles, by shelling, because to us, it seems that it can be very quick and maybe not as painful,” Padalko said.
What people really fear, Padalko went on, is making personal contact with Russian soldiers, who are killing civilians, raping women and taking people’s food, Padalko said.
“That is the most disgusting thing that is happening,” she said.
For Ukrainians who are older, Padalko said, the attacks have brought back memories of World War II.
“They said that Germans didn’t behave that way to civilians,” she said.