I belong to Generation Z. In 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I began working as a journalist at Ukraine’s public broadcaster, alongside colleagues mostly born in the 1990s and early 2000s. Generation Z is often criticized for its dependence on social media, short attention spans, and constant online presence. Yet working in a newsroom during wartime convinced me that many of these traits have become professional strengths. In this article, I explore five skills that young journalists have helped normalize in Ukrainian newsrooms during the war.
We have made the use of artificial intelligence the norm rather than a threat. It is a tool that supports our work, not the foundation of it.
Last month, Suspilne, Ukraine’s public broadcaster, adopted its own AI strategy for integrating artificial intelligence into production. I think that if someone had told us two — let alone five — years ago that media organizations would have their own AI strategies, we probably would not have believed them. Yet today, this is a reality.
From what I have observed, older generations are often still faced with the question of whether to use artificial intelligence at all. For Generation Z, the question is often no longer whether to use these tools, but what to use them for — and where to draw the line.
Our AI strategy states that, when used responsibly, artificial intelligence tools can help improve the creation and distribution of content and attract new audiences. And this is also true. The primary purpose of using AI is to optimize our work and free up time for producing unique and creative content. That means speeding up routine technological processes. Here are some of the ways AI can be useful:
- Transcription: of press conferences, briefings, video addresses, and other content. At Suspilne, we now have our own internal artificial intelligence portal, Suspilne AI. Among other things, it can convert video content into text — something it is difficult to imagine a modern newsroom functioning without. From what I have observed, automated transcription has quickly become part of everyday newsroom work among younger journalists. Tools such as TurboScribe and ElevenLabs have also become popular. Modern tools can also transcribe and translate audio from many languages in real time, significantly simplifying newsroom tasks.
- OSINT and research: artificial intelligence tools can speed up searches through large amounts of open-source information, suggest where to look for an archived web page, or help locate a specific document or statement. However, AI-generated answers are never treated as sources in themselves: dates, quotes, and facts still have to be checked against the original source.
AI tools can also help identify people when necessary. Here, it is important to keep ethical rules and personal data protection in mind, so in our work we use AI to identify only public figures. For example, it can help determine who is representing a particular country at a UN Security Council meeting — since it is often not the permanent representative but a deputy or another delegate — or help identify members of official delegations during their visits to Ukraine.
Despite all of the above, artificial intelligence remains a supporting tool. At least in the newsroom of Ukraine’s public broadcaster, there is currently no question of AI directly creating the content itself. On the contrary, it seems to me that by using automated processes every day, younger journalists have more time and inspiration to create something unique and creative and develop their own journalistic voice.
Short-form content is our strength. Especially now, when people increasingly consume news on mobile devices throughout the day, including during air raid alerts and missile attacks.
Generation Z is often criticized for short attention spans, superficial information consumption, and fragmented thinking. Yet the ability to quickly identify what matters most is extremely useful in media work.
This does not mean that we no longer produce longer, in-depth stories that explain context and cause-and-effect relationships. Of course we do. But at the same time, we produce news content around the clock so that our audience can constantly stay informed about what is happening in the country and around the world.
Ukraine is now in the fifth year of the full-scale war, which means that media outlets need to be able to publish information quickly, as it can be critically important for people’s safety.
Imagine this situation: Kyiv residents hear explosions in the middle of the night. They open social media because they want to quickly understand what has happened. This is where journalists need to use short formats effectively: Was an air raid alert declared? What have the authorities said? What has the Ukrainian Air Force reported?
A short news item does not mean a less important one. In this particular situation, the reader does not need deep context or an analytical article. They need a short update.
It is also important to remember that because of attacks and damage caused by the war, Ukrainians are often left without electricity or with a weak internet connection. This means that readers need to see the most important information in the very first sentence of a news story or social media post, without having to load anything else.
At the same time, of course, we follow journalistic standards and wartime rules. We do not publish information about strike locations if doing so could create security risks, and we do not spread panicked or emotional calls to evacuate or stock up on food and water.
Social media is also our professional network. We understand the specifics of each platform and know where to find the right people — and our audience.
For Generation Z, social media did not appear after we entered professional life. For many of us, it had been part of everyday life long before our first newsroom job. Understanding the specifics and purpose of each platform often becomes useful in journalistic work.
- Facebook. One of Facebook’s main advantages is that people generally use their real names, which makes them easier to find. When I first started working at Suspilne and saw Ukrainian experts appearing on our broadcasts, I would simply find them on Facebook and add them as friends. This helped me significantly expand my network of contacts.
- LinkedIn. This is a social network specifically designed for finding and building professional connections. From what I have observed, it is widely used internationally, which makes LinkedIn a great platform for finding foreign experts. I also like that it allows you to find people through their affiliation with an NGO, university, research institute, or other organization. Through LinkedIn, for example, I have found experts for my stories from the Atlantic Council, a US think tank, and the Asia Research Institute.
- Instagram. Instagram may not be the most valuable platform for journalists, since people often use usernames rather than their real names, which can make it difficult to find the person you need. But it also has advantages. First, you can search by hashtags. Second, you can search by location.
This means Instagram can be useful when you need to find eyewitnesses to disasters around the world — earthquakes, floods, fires, and so on. It can also help find participants in demonstrations or protests. In October 2024, for example, I used Instagram to find eyewitnesses to the devastating floods in Spain. More recently, in June this year, one of my colleagues used Instagram to find participants in large-scale protests in Albania against development in protected areas along the country’s southern coast, the so-called “Flamingo Revolution.”
At the same time, it is important to stress that finding someone on social media is only half the job. A profile, a photograph, or a geolocation tag does not in itself confirm someone’s identity or prove that they were actually at the scene. This is why Gen Z’s ability to quickly navigate between platforms has to work alongside a traditional journalistic principle: verify a source before trusting it.
- Threads. Threads works well for short text posts on current topics that can later spark public discussion in the comments. The platform can help journalists find the people behind viral stories and turn those stories into journalistic pieces.
One example that immediately comes to mind is the story of a young woman named Daria. Her wedding dress burned in a tailor’s studio during a massive attack on Kyiv on May 24, 2026. She wrote about it on Threads, and the post attracted significant attention. Ukrainians responded to her situation in large numbers, offering their own wedding dresses and help with making a new one. Journalists, in turn, produced many great stories about her experience. So sometimes we do not find a person for a story — we find the story through a person.
We build our reputation before we even start building our careers.
During my first year at journalism school, one of our professors asked the class how many of us already had more than a thousand followers on social media. I still remember that question.
Of course, the number of followers says nothing about how good a journalist you will become. But the question itself illustrates an important change: our generation began building a public identity and personal brand before we even got our first jobs.
It is also worth noting that the line between personal brand and professional reputation has become increasingly blurred. In the past, it was easier for journalists to separate their professional identity from their personal lives. Today, a potential employer or reader can see your social media posts, previous workplaces, and much more within minutes. In other words, our digital footprint has become part of our CV.
And returning to the situation in Ukraine, the war has made questions of reputation even more sensitive. If you are a journalist and a public figure, the audience sees not only your published work, but also the language you use to communicate, the sources you share, the accounts you follow, and the content you support.
In today’s digital environment, then, journalists are not the only ones checking their sources — the audience is also checking the journalist.
A journalist’s reputation can therefore no longer be measured by the number of followers — or at least not by that number alone. Far more important are the audience’s trust in their work and what people associate with their name.
Internet culture has created a new language of media. It includes meme journalism and communication through humor — even among political leaders, and even (or perhaps especially) during wartime.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has, from what I have observed, affected the culture of communication in at least two ways.
First, people living under constant threat and stress desperately need emotional release. Perhaps this is why Ukrainians so often respond to major social and political events with jokes and memes on social media. Research by the Ukrainian House information and cultural center, for example, describes humor as a sign of mental health, a form of psychological relief, and at the same time an expression of inner freedom.
The role of media, in turn, is to document, select, and contextualize these public reactions. If you think about it, this is another way of reflecting public opinion — one of journalism’s functions.
Collections of memes have become an increasingly popular format in Ukraine. They are now regularly published not only by Suspilne, but also by Ukrainska Pravda and other media outlets. Recently, for example, the online outlet dev.ua published a collection of Ukrainian memes responding to threats by Russia’s Ministry of Defense to “freeze” Ukraine during the winter.
Suspilne has published similar pieces, including “Laughing Through Tears: How Ukrainians React to Donald Trump’s Victory in the US Election” and “Power Outage Schedules and the Neighbours’ Electricity: How TikTok Reacts to Planned and Emergency Blackouts.”
These examples show how Ukrainians turn even painful experiences into humor — from electricity outages to anxiety about Donald Trump’s future policy toward Ukraine.
Second, the war has changed not only how citizens talk about politics, but also how politicians talk to citizens. Political statements have become tougher and often contain elements of humor.
During one press conference, for example, journalists asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy what he would do if Vladimir Putin called him in the middle of the night. Zelenskyy replied that he did not use a 1917 telegraph, while Putin did not have a mobile phone. In another address, Zelenskyy remarked ironically that “it was cloudy in Crimea, although it was also warm,” referring to the explosion on the Kerch Bridge.
And once again, one of the tasks of journalism is to convey statements accurately without distorting them. We need to understand that irony cannot always be read literally. A meme cannot be understood without context. A politician’s joke can contain a political message.
For a generation that grew up inside internet culture, a meme, irony, or viral reference is not simply entertainment. It is a language we have learned to read.
Perhaps, then, Generation Z did not invent a new kind of journalism. The fundamental principles remain the same: verifying sources, understanding context, being accurate and responsible, and earning the audience’s trust. At the same time, however, we have learned to turn the environment we grew up in into a set of professional tools.
References:
Kravchenko, V. (2023, June 7). Меми під час війни [Memes during wartime]. Український Дім [Ukrainian House].
https://www.uadim.in.ua/post/memy-pid-chas-viiny
Ми – Україна [We Are Ukraine]. (2024, February 25). Зеленський ТРОЛИТЬ путіна! “Якщо сьогодні вночі вам подзвонить путін?” [Zelenskyy trolls Putin! “What if Putin calls you tonight?”] [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXMj47GgrO8
Stepura, O. (2026, August 14). «Ви спочатку літо переживіть». Як українці мемами відповіли на погрози міноборони рф про «заморозку» взимку? [“Try surviving the summer first”: How Ukrainians responded with memes to Russia’s Defense Ministry threats to “freeze” Ukraine in winter]. dev.ua.
https://dev.ua/news/rf-pohrozy-memy-1786709037
Suspilne Kultura. (2024, June 7). Графік відімкнення світла та електрика у сусідів: як у TikTok реагують на планові й аварійні знеструмлення [Power outage schedules and the neighbours’ electricity: How TikTok reacts to planned and emergency blackouts].
https://suspilne.media/culture/763085-grafik-vimknenna-svitla-ta-elektrika-u-susidiv-ak-u-tiktok-reaguut-na-planovi-j-avarijni-vidklucenna/
Suspilne Kultura. (2024, November 6). Сміх крізь сльози: як українці реагують на перемогу Дональда Трампа на виборах у США [Laughing through tears: How Ukrainians react to Donald Trump’s victory in the US election].
https://suspilne.media/amp/culture/873961-smih-kriz-slozi-ak-ukrainci-reaguut-na-peremogu-donalda-trampa-na-viborah-u-ssa/
Suspilne Ukraine. (2026, August 3). Suspilne Ukraine approves artificial intelligence strategy.
https://corp.suspilne.media/en/news/70204-suspilne-ukraine-approves-artificial-intelligence-strategy
Tyshchenko, K. (2022, October 8). Зеленський: У Криму було хмарно, але українці знають, що робити [Zelenskyy: It was cloudy in Crimea, but Ukrainians know what to do]. Українська правда [Ukrainska Pravda].
https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/10/08/7370946
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