Published work
Published reports and news articles authored by Luba Kassova
From Outrage to Opportunity
This is the third report in the successful Missing Perspectives of Women in News series commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and hosted by Internews. Highlighting the impact of race for women in news leadership and coverage in multi-racial populations, Luba adopts a solutions-focused perspective to explore how this sector can include the long-standing missing perspectives of women of all colours. It also contains a chapter, authored by Richard Addy and much-desired by the news industry, about the business benefits of gender-equitable journalism. The 12 solution areas it presents, which contain numerous practical ideas about unlocking progress, have been co-created with 41 senior editors and news experts interviewed for the report.
How Africa’s first Gender Desk succeeded
This is the story of the birth and initial three years in the life of the first Gender Desk in Africa, launched in 2019 by the Nation Media Group – the biggest news provider in Kenya – in partnership with The Fuller Project for international reporting on women.
“We will rebuild": Ukraine`s women journalists look towards the future
Part two of a two part article series: As the Russians hit civilian targets in different cities around Ukraine, you wonder how Ukrainians live under this constant threat. In this second part of Luba’s conversation with three courageous women journalists - Angelina Kariakina, Ірина Славінська and Nataliya Gumenyuk - we learn that the Ukrainian in the room is always the biggest optimist. We also learn how the war can age one in a snippet and how looking beyond the war to rebuilding Ukraine keeps them moving forward.
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.
