By Renu Nauriyal*
MUMBAI, India | 25 April 2026 (IDN) – While missile attacks and bombardments fill our feeds, front pages, and
screens, cameras are not following the volunteer doctors operating on the injured, often without
anesthesia. Journalists are not rushing to capture the teams that have crossed frontlines on foot to rescue
marooned families. Rarely do we get reports from the community kitchens where peace workers are
feeding conflict-displaced families, or from the war-hit locations where peace organisations arrived when
the first shot was fired.
All of this and more, goes unreported. And therefore unrecognised. The world hardly ever gets to know
about the massive wave of peace work that springs into action the moment a conflict or war begins.
Media Economics
This is not an accidental omission. This is media economics, because War sells.
It carries all the ingredients of a thriller — immediacy, destruction, survival, and raw human endurance.
Viewership spikes the moment conflict breaks out. For a war correspondent, action, valour, pain, and
suspense are the currency of the craft, keeping audiences gripped. Missile attacks, bombardment,
gunfire, and killings are high-value stories. The footage is urgently sought after. Violence, arson, and
debris make for the most impactful visuals.
Journalists covering conflict are doing extraordinary work, often at great personal risk, and they deserve
every bit of recognition they receive.
In recent decades, conflict coverage has certainly grown more trauma sensitive. There is greater
awareness around the ethics of photojournalism and news reporting. Concepts such as the “dignity of the
dead”, “death knock syndrome”, and the ethics of depicting graphic imagery are now debated within
journalism circles, and increasingly acted upon.
Conflict Reporting Tilts Towards Violence
But conflict reporting remains structurally tilted towards violence. The cameras continue to miss the
countless stories of rescuing, feeding, sheltering, counselling, and rebuilding that are quietly unfolding in
every war and conflict zone.
In every conflict, hundreds of individuals and organisations spring into action. Some work to prevent
violence before it escalates. Others arrive immediately — healing, housing, feeding, holding. But most of
these stories go unreported. And with that, unacknowledged.
The Stories We Never Hear
Sudan’s prolonged civil war that has displaced over 14 million people from their homes is covered by the
media across the world. But how often do we receive reports about the relief work that is carried out in
Tawila, Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of hungry and exhausted men, women and children fleeing from
attacks by warring factions. A small group of local volunteers did what they could. They went into their own
kitchens and pulled out flour. They cooked aseeda, a thick, jelly-like porridge, cooked with nothing more
than flour and water, and fed the displaced families.
That was the beginning. This initiative grew an active relief network, then a nationwide mutual aid
movement, now serving an estimated four million people across Sudan.
These community kitchens run against all odds. The volunteers do so at profound personal risk, aid
workers in this region being deliberately targeted and killed by warring forces.
How many media houses are giving those volunteers regular coverage? How many names do we know?
Denys Khrystov
How many global news networks have given due coverage to the volunteer evacuation work being
carried out on Ukraine’s frontlines.
Who knows Denys Khrystov? How will they?
News networks covered every missile strike. They covered mass evacuations in the early weeks when
the footage was dramatic. But how many follow-up stories were done to tell the world of the quiet work
that continues to pull people back from the edge in these war-ravaged regions?
A popular YouTuber and television host, Denys Khrystov signed up as a volunteer immediately after the
Russian invasion in February 2022. Since then he has been evacuating people from frontline areas. But
there is hardly any media coverage of the risks taken and the work done by volunteers like him, who
continue to help and rescue traumatised families in regions targeted by missiles and drones.
These volunteers work under hostile conditions: infrastructure has collapsed and the threat of shelling is
constant. The people are also often psychologically shattered, unable to process the danger and
destruction around them. Others have retreated into denial, insisting the danger will pass and are
unwilling to leave their homes. To reach these people, to earn their trust, to help them move, demands
courage and compassion.
Shouldn’t the media document their contribution ?
Myanmar earthquake
Myanmar was four years into a civil war in March 2025 when its central region was hit by a 7.7
magnitude earthquake that killed 4000 people and thousands more were trapped in rubble. Local
volunteer groups and global bodies like the RedCross got into action, rescuing and helping the victims.
Internet access was restricted. There was a severe shortage of fuel and electricity. Bureaucratic hurdles
and corruption was rampant . Reaching the affected locations was a challenge because of the ongoing
conflict. The volunteers also faced the risk of forced conscription.
Groups of Thai and Malaysian volunteers navigated all these challenges and worked relentlessly to set
up networks that collected donations and delivered food, medicine, mosquito nets, water filters and other
aid to the survivors.
Doesn’t such peace work deserve extensive media coverage?
A Dedicated Beat for Peace
Media houses must deploy ‘Designated Exclusive Peace Correspondents’ alongside War
Correspondents; not as a footnote, not as a segment tucked at the end of a bulletin, but as a dedicated,
respected beat: reporting live from community kitchens, pop-up hospitals, and relief corridors, these
correspondents would give voice to the urgent and the overlooked:
“If milk does not arrive within 48 hours, these babies will survive on nothing but soup.”
“This 30-year-old will lose his leg unless he is airlifted out today.”
These are not soft stories. These are life and death stories — told in real time, from the ground, with the
same urgency we give to every missile strike.
Peace efforts need to be documented and shown to the world. In real time. Without delay. Without
exception.
*Renu Nauriyal is a journalism professor at the University of Mumbai, India. [IDN-InDepthNews]
