Published work
Published reports and news articles authored by Luba Kassova
Defiant and resilient, Ukraine’s women journalists navigate journalism’s deadliest war
Part one of a two part article series: While countries, including Britain and Bulgaria, are turning increasingly inwards - grappling with the mounting public pressure over the increasing cost of living and political scandals - the war in Ukraine is keeping momentum, causing death and trauma. It has been deadlier for journalists than the ten other deadliest conflicts or wars globally. In this conversation Luba turns the focus on three prominent Ukrainian journalists about their lives during the war. Their perspectives help to sift through the weed and appreciate the important yet ephemeral things in life.
Alone under siege: how older women are being left behind in Ukraine
This article which Luba co-authored with the head of news at the Ukrainian Public Broadcaster Suspilne Angelina Kariakina, shines a light on the plight of millions of invisible elderly women in Ukraine who have been forgotten or abandoned and who are often trapped, unable to evacuate. They are mostly left out of news coverage too. These elderly women require urgent support from the strained state health and social system, from international institutions and NGOs, yet the existing structural ageism across institutions and the media lets them down.
Животът ми след COVID-19: Какво се промени?
Luba’s father died from COVID-19 almost a year ago. This is an article-essay she wrote about her journey through grief and yearning since then - feelings which have punctuated to some degree everyone’s lives in the past two years, not only through the significant losses of loved ones, but also through the hundreds of micro-losses experienced since the start of the pandemic.
Ukrainian Women on the Front Lines but Not in the Headlines
Ukrainian women are in the frontlines but nowhere nearly enough in the news headlines. In this article published in Foreign Policy, Luba Kassova and Xanthe Scharff from the The Fuller Project, expose the marginalization of women’s voices in the war story in global and Ukrainian news coverage.
The high psychological cost women pay for engaging in news about climate change
In this article Luba Kassova highlights the high psychological cost that women pay for engaging in climate change news coverage using the findings from original research conducted by Richard Addy and AKAS. Find out how audiences in the global north differ from the global south, as well as three things news providers can do differently to alleviate that high psychological load of the story on audiences.
The muted voices of women in climate news coverage
In this evidence-based opinion piece Luba Kassova argues that women’s voices in news coverage are muted. The article is written with the data-gathering support of Richard Addy and AKAS. Most climate activists and influencers globally are women, but the majority of activists and influencers quoted in the news are men. "By offering more female perspectives, from both the global south and north, journalism can expand its relevance beyond its core audiences, and increase its impact as a result."
Is journalism inadvertently contributing to climate inaction?
In this article Luba shares new research findings which underline the struggle of journalists to engage audiences in the climate crisis story. She covers four existing gaps between audiences' needs and coverage, as well as three biases that are at play when facing climate change. The article offers ideas about what can be done to close the gaps between what audiences may need from climate change news and what newsrooms are producing.
The imprint of our ancestors on our souls
In this article, published in the most prominent Bulgarian magazine targeting women (Woman Today/Jenata Dnes), Luba takes a journey back in time to discover hundreds of stories, some traumatic, locked in her family tree. She finds patterns of behaviours that have been unconsciously repeated from generation to generation. It is a story of and constantly emerging new perspectives, love, pain, admiration and forgiveness. Mark Wolynn’s work, anchored in the latest research into epigenetics and in the hundreds of case studies accumulated over decades, contends that traumatic events which have been hidden and not forgiven, become genetically locked within us and repeat through generations until they are teased out of the generational family constellation through awareness, forgiveness and reprogramming.
The future of journalism lies in the marriage of words and numbers
As someone who has shifted from working more with numbers as a researcher and a strategist to working more with words as a storyteller, Luba has come to realise how pivotal evidence-based storytelling is in the age of proliferating misinformation and big stories underpinned by scientific data. In her opinion piece, commissioned by the World Editors Forum, Luba examines why "not being a numbers person" does not serve journalists well in the era of climate crisis & the pandemic. The article was republished by E&P (editorandpublisher.com) and by newspapers.org and, as always, contains solutions.
When diversity in newsrooms and newsleadership is not enough
In this opinion piece Luba develops the argument that news organisations can often reach gender parity but not inclusivity: women are counted but often do not count enough in decision making or in news content because male-dominated newsroom cultures act as barriers. Luba uses nine sources of evidence to craft her point of view, including a brand new content analysis conducted by AKAS of women’s share of voice in news output in specific news outlets such as The Guardian, The Economist, The Washington Post, The Sowetan, The Financial Times and other news outlets led by women Editors. The piece includes four suggestions for how to make women’s voices count in decision-making and in news stories.
