War Stories: Brooke Gladstone and Fred Kaplan on the Media, War, and Ukraine

From the Crimean War of 1853 to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year, journalists, reporters, and the media have shaped the public’s understanding of war. But do the stories we read and the photos we see provide an impartial picture of the wars they document? As the Institute for Global Affairs’ Mark Hannah recently explained in Foreign Policy, certain aspects of American war coverage—reliance on government sources and incentives to simplify geopolitics as battles between good and evil—have long compelled news organizations to tilt toward military action. 

In this special episode of None Of The Above, host of WNYC’s On The Media Brooke Gladstone and Slate’s “War Stories” columnist Fred Kaplan, are interviewed by Mark at the American Academy in Rome. Together, in these excerpts from that conversation, they unpack the media’s coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the biases which influence how the media understand and depict these conflicts.

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This podcast episode includes references to the Eurasia Group Foundation, now known as the Institute for Global Affairs.