In an increasingly unstable world, social journalism has become crucial as a medium for accurately describing reality amidst disinformation wars. Historically, this work has challenged preconceptions and stereotypes. How can we amplify the voices of journalists reporting outside the grand narratives, focussing on the lives of real people ‘on the ground’?

Join Elena Kostyuchenko – a journalist, writer, LGBTQ+ activist, and winner of the Pushkin House Book Prize 2024 – and Yulia Mineeva, an Academy Associate at Chatham House, in conversation as they discuss these questions.

Elena Kostyuchenko is a journalist, writer and LGBTQ+ activist. She has covered highly resonant stories of civil disobedience, including the punk protest of Pussy Riot in Moscow, the Zhanaozen massacre in Kazakhstan and various protests in Russia. She has been assaulted and arrested for her work several times. In 2015, she received the European Press Prize, and in 2018, she was the Paul Klebnikov Russian Civil Society Fellow at Columbia University's Harriman Institute. In 2024, she was the Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

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