Chills during the summer heat, and beyond
Fearless reporting, a behind-the-curtains look, an unabashed point of view
I’m sitting here crying harder than I have since I returned home from Ukraine a couple weeks ago. I’m looking at a photo of a lost-looking man holding the hand of his dead 13-year-old son, who is otherwise hidden beneath a red tarp, in Kharkiv.
It’s strange that this is the image that has hit me this hard, considering the things I saw and heard during my recent trip to Ukraine. But, every time I return from a reporting trip to a war/refugee zone, I deal with the pain very differently.
I’d like to tell you about that — why each reporting trip is unique in its horror — but I need your support to do so. And my ask for your subscription goes way beyond a simple, yet agonizing, offer of a description of dealing with PTSD.
Like you, I’ve been dismayed by the rise of mis- and disinformation this past number of years, and believe that a lack of trust in media is deeply harming our democracy. I also believe that the U.S. media woefully under-reports what is going on outside this country, or reports it in ways that are damaging to the people who suffer from the trauma of war and beyond. (I will share with you the many awful things I know journalists have done to some of the most vulnerable people in the world, such as a 14-year-old Syrian rape and torture survivor.)
If we can’t trust the gadflies to hold power to account — wherever it is abused — and we can’t trust them to not do so without retraumatizing people who have already been victimized, who can we count on for hard truths that are obtained ethically? And for the important stories that have been curated in order of importance? It’s up to each of us to find the sources we trust to do all of that. But when you come to Chills, you don’t have to wonder whether I’m hurting my sources, or doing whatever it takes to hold powerful people responsible for the atrocities they’ve committed.
Your subscription to Chills will give you:
Fearless reporting
I’ve already spent years reporting in dangerous places that are usually under-covered by mainstream media — such as the border of Syria in three countries, and the Democratic Republic of Congo — and I’ve spoken to the people you are unlikely to hear from otherwise. And my work is only just beginning.
With your subscription to Chills, you are supporting a way to deepen the breadth and reach of the kind of sensitive journalism I believe is missing in most media outlets. You are sending me to Ukraine, to cover things like this severely traumatized mother, who later relayed through my fixer that our interview had helped her move forward. Or these WWII survivors, who are struggling to endure yet another horrific war. You are allowing me to show you the lives of people who have no other way for their crucial stories to reach the world.
A behind-the-curtains look
Beyond my published writing, which appears in The Atlantic, The Guardian and elsewhere, Chills gives you the behind-the-scenes stories of how I did my reporting — what challenges I faced, what ethical decisions I struggled with, even how I dealt with reactivating my own trauma upon coming home.
Stories I’ve published in The Guardian and beyond over nearly a decade resulted in the arrest of a rapist warlord and his men in Congo. The following year, the ringleader, a member of parliament, and his underlings were sentenced in a ground-breaking case to life in prison for crimes against humanity. The multipart back-story I wrote for Chills explains the decision-making that went into this difficult assignment, and resulted in Substack nominating me for a Pulitzer Prize.
Quality reporting by an experienced journalist
As a former New York Times journalist, Foreign Policy columnist and editor at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), freedom of the press is my core belief as a human being, and I feel lucky to be able to do this work for a living — and have been doing it for more than 20 years.
At CPJ, I watched as journalists in more countries than I can count saw their ranks decimated by targeted killings, censorship and threats. I’ve also watched over the last number of years as my hometown paper, the world’s hometown paper, the Times, has come under fire for its “bothsidesism” — not to mention that they fired me over a tweet that was widely misinterpreted by powerful right- and weird-wingers on social media.
Sometimes there is a right and wrong. There are lies and there are truths, and that’s what I aim to make plain to you with my work. It’s why NYU hired me to teach in their journalism school graduate program.
Transparency
As a journalist, I take some responsibility for the lack of faith in Western media. We in the press need to give readers a better sense of how we do what we do. We need to offer transparency in our processes, our sourcing, our methods and our ethical choices. That is what I am uniquely offering here — mainly in the context of some of the highest-stakes beats: international war crimes, human rights and conflict itself.
That is what your subscription does: It makes it possible for me to explain to you, step-by-step, how we report in war zones — from the Middle East to Eastern Europe.
An unabashed point of view
Make no mistake, I am unashamed of having a point of view in my reporting. A “bias,” when it comes to terrible things in the world, is necessary. There is no “pro-rape” side I’m missing when I report on sexualized violence. That doesn’t mean I’m not always seeking comment from the alleged offenders, nor does it mean that I am offering you purely opinion pieces. It means that there is a real detriment to readers in partaking of “bothsidesism,” and that I’m not afraid to choose a side.
It has never been as important in our lifetimes to support a free press as it is now.
Your subscriptions will allow me to return to report on the war in Ukraine, where I was in June. I’ll have a long-form story out in a major newspaper soon based on what I learned on that trip. By subscribing to Chills, you’ll get exclusive access to some of the classified documents I’m using in the article, as well as to my personal experiences of the painful reality of living through the fear of dying every day.
I’ll take you with me wherever I go, as I did here, in Kyiv. By subscribing, you make it possible for me to follow up on my war crimes reporting, and allow me to continue the kind of work I’ve been doing for nearly two decades in other dangerous areas.
You’ll also have access to the kinds of tips I give my NYU graduate students, as well as mentoring.
My work has been repeatedly cited by organizations for my ethical decisions, which includes doing everything I can to not retraumatize survivors — it’s not something all journalists care to worry about.
Chills readers, I need your help to continue to do my expensive work. I hope you will subscribe because you believe in the same things I do: clear, transparent journalism on hard-to-cover stories, and explainers on how those stories were made — journalism that gives you insight into the lives of people you may never have otherwise met.
Thank you, as always, for your support.
Lauren
Beyond grateful for your reporting, your tenacity and your heart. It is a privilege to read your words. They make me think.