New global survey shows many conflict reporters lack training, protective gear and institutional support

A global survey recently fielded by three leading academics highlights the structural challenges faced by reporters covering conflict and points to ways in which news organisations could better support their work. According to the study’s preliminary findings, most of the journalists surveyed said their reporting has impacted their mental health negatively and around half acknowledged overworking, social withdrawal and substance abuse. 

The online survey, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and designed by the Reuters Institute’s visiting fellow Adrian Hadland along with Tara Pixley and Martin Smith-Rodden, was fielded in six languages and received hundreds of responses from 54 countries. Respondents were predominantly male and most of them work as freelancers, and ages spanned from 21 to 80, with an average age of 47. The researchers will expand on this work with in-depth interviews of some of these respondents, and are planning to publish a report at the Reuters Institute in the 2026-27 academic year. 

Hadland, Pixley and Smith Rodden recently presented the survey’s preliminary findings in Oxford at an event chaired by the Institute’s Director of Journalist Programmes, Anne Godlasky. Researchers were surrounded by the Institute’s researchers and journalists fellows, and by media managers and representatives from media freedom groups. 

Speakers stressed conflict journalism is no longer restricted to battlegrounds. With drone attacks, digital surveillance and war rhetoric deeply impacting journalists, they wanted this survey to show how journalists are experiencing this kind of environment, the kind of strategies they are using to navigate it. 

How journalists responded

The preliminary data presented are a stark warning for the news industry. It suggests many of the reporters covering conflict do so without receiving any training or equipment from the organisations they work for. Almost half of the journalists surveyed said they had received no safety training at all before heading for a conflict zone and one-quarter said they’d worked with no safety gear. 

This is especially concerning in light of an increasingly dangerous environment. Almost half of the journalists surveyed report receiving threats or attacks from law enforcement or military personnel, with one-fourth being targeted or attacked by armed groups. Around one-fourth report being arrested, with more than one-third being attacked with non-lethal projectiles or beaten up while they were in the field. 

“As a journalist, you are going to be exposed to trauma, so we need to make sure journalists have adequate trauma literacy and support when going through it,” Pixley said at the event. “It’s also important to create a community of peers, where reporters can find all kinds of help.”

More than half of the respondents said they have used AI in their reporting in some way. But many fear being replaced eventually by this technology and wonder how AI would impact issues such as ethics and bias. 

“Ethics is what differentiates us from other voices and from AI,” Pixley said. “Many journalists said they’re using AI, perhaps more than we expected. But respondents cited critical thinking and verification skills as the most vital skills for journalists to have in an AI-dominated future, along with ethical reasoning and moral judgement.”

How to create a better environment 

When asked about their struggles, journalists who report on conflict shared candidly some of the challenges they face and how news organisations could help them in their work. 

“Sometimes I’m afraid of revealing too much, that it will scare them and limit the possibilities for future assignments,” said one of the journalists who responded to the survey in French. “It is important that the organization makes you feel that it stands behind you, that it is following your efforts, and that it can intervene if you need it, regardless of the position of the government authorities,” said one of the journalists who responded to the survey in Arabic. 

Researchers pointed to the work of the Journalism Trauma Support Network and the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma as organisations helping those reporting on conflict, and creating space for the kind of peer-networks many respondents are part of. They also stressed their survey should help reshape journalism education in the years to come. 

“It’s important to look at these findings as we rethink how we teach journalism,” Hadland said at the end of the event. “I’ve been reflecting on the kind of skills we should give them to be more resilient and better protected, and on how to build the skillset they need in light of this. These are things I’ve been thinking about quite a lot throughout the project.”