ISMJ 2026
The female fight for the frontline
War is often seen through headlines, statistics, or images of destruction. The work of reporting from the frontline is widely perceived as a male-dominated profession.
Yet women have been documenting wars for over a century, from Alice Schalek to Martha Gellhorn to all the female frontline reporters working today.
We explored the experiences of women reporting from the frontline, showing not only the stories they capture but also the daily work, preparation, and challenges they face. Through their eyes, we see both the realities of conflict and the dedication it takes to witness history as it happens.
Before we listened to the stories of current female war reporters, we looked at the stories of past female pioneers of war and crisis reporting.
Do you know this woman?
Alice Therese Emma Schalek was an Austrian photographer, journalist and author. Schalek worked from 1915 until 1917 in the service of the Austro Hungarian War Press Office. She reported about military fights in the dolomites and the Isonzo front. Her war reports were rather subjective and sometimes even trivialized the war. For which she later received a lot of criticism especially from the author Karl Kraus who famously reported about the “reality” of war. Due to her jewish background she was originally imprisoned by the Nazis but managed to escape first to Switzerland and later to the US where she lived until her death in 1956.
Martha Gellhorn with Ernest Hemingway and Chinese soldiers (1941)
What about her?
Martha Ellis Gellhorn was the daughter of the women's activist Edna Fischl Gellhorn. She was born in 1908 and grew up in the US but always travelled a lot. Gellhorn worked for over 50 years as a war reporter. She wrote many stories about social crisis, for example Martha Gellhorn wrote about the effects of the Great Depression on Americans. She also reported about the Spanish civil war, visited Nazi Germany 1936, wrote about the fall of Czechoslovakia and the Vietnam war. Once she even smuggled herself onto a ship and witnessed the landing of the allied troops in Normandy on June 6th 1944. Gellhorn died in 1998 but to this day her work is a sign for extraordinary journalistic work. Since 1999 the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism has been awarded annually to investigative journalists all over the world.
What did this woman do?
The rise of female war reporters
The present reality
Over the years, the meaning of the expression "war has no female face" has become outdated. Nowadays, women in journalism are not only reporters, press officers and social media managers, but also serve as military correspondents wearing camouflage uniforms, helmets, bulletproof vests with the word "PRESS" written in white letters on them.
To understand how the work of female war and crisis reporters looks nowadays, we spoke to women who have experienced working on frontlines or other dangerous zones.
Katharina Wagner
Katharina Wagner is an Austrian journalist and crisis correspondent at the ORF. She has previously been a correspondent in Italy and the Vatican as well as in Paris, Turkey and Iran. She is currently reporting from Jordan and for this project we could conduct a virtual interview with her.
Katharina Wagner speaks about her experience as a woman in crisis reporting and gives her assessment of whether woman are at a disadvantage in this profession.
She also talks about how difficult it can be to stay professional in crisis situations and that you have to be careful not to get too emotionally involved.
Antonia (Toni) Titze
Antonia Titze is a german journalist working in Vienna for the viennese newspaper der Standard. She mainly manages their various social media accounts where she explains everyday topics as well as more serious issues. Her work also takes her abroad, including to crisis areas such as the West Bank or Ukraine. Toni Titze is currently reporting from Syria and shared her perspective on crisis reporting as a woman for our project.
Toni Titze is currently in Syria and has told us that as a woman, you have better access to the stories and experiences of women in war or crisis zones. Just like Katharina Wagner, who said that as a woman, you are more welcome in female spaces.
Titze also talks about how she thinks it is important to show the presence of female crisis reporters in order to show other women that they can also pursue this profession.
Last but not least, Toni Titze tells us about her experiences as a woman and that we should not let ourselves be influenced by stereotypes.
Rosa Lyon
Rosa Lyon (pronounced Lion) is an austro-american journalist and reporter. She has been working for the ORF since 2005 and reported from many different crisis regions. Amongst others she has travelled and reporter from Afghanistan, Syria, the Middle East or Pakistan. She currently heads the ORF foreign office in Istanbul with a branch office in Teheran. For this project, we asked for a statement on the topic of women as war and crisis reporters, and she gave us the following insight.
There are many similarities with male colleagues. For example, most of the dangers are the same, especially those that could get interview partners or teams into trouble on site. There are also advantages, for example, Afghan or Iranian women find it easier to talk to other women than to men.
- Rosa Lyon
Aleksandra Tulej
Aleksandra Tulej was born in Poland but moved to Vienna at the age of 6 and has lived, studied and worked here since then. She is the deputy editor-in-chief at the Wiener Zeitung, a state funded viennese online newspaper. For her work she has already reported from Syria, the Middle East, Iraq and Lebanon. We got the opportunity to talk to her about her experiences and impressions as a female war and crisis reporter.
In this video, Aleksandra Tulej shares how she prepares for going to the frontline both practically and mentally and what she always takes with her on these journeys. From essential equipment to personal items, she explains how every detail matters long before the first photo is taken.
Tulej shares her experience of working in unpredictable and constantly shifting environments, where plans can change within minutes and routine rarely exists. In this video, she reflects on the rhythm of frontline reporting and what a day on the frontline truly means beyond the headlines.
Behind every published photo and every recorded interview from a frontline, there is an invisible layer of preparation, pressure, and constant decision-making. Audiences usually see only the final result, the powerful image or the finished story. What often remains unseen is the intense organisational work behind it: securing access, navigating safety risks, managing time under extreme circumstances, and making ethical choices in unpredictable environments.
Olha Kyrylenko
Olha Kyrylenko is an Ukrainian journalist and since Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine started she became a war correspondent at the media outlet Ukrainska Pravda. She is currently in Ukraine, so for this project we’ve conducted a virtual interview with her.
Olha Kyrylenko told us about how difficult it is as an Ukrainian journalist to show the suffering of their own people. But also how important it is.
Kyrylenko talks about her work process and how she organizes and also prepares herself mentally before entering a dangerous zone.
Olha Kyrylenko shares that she does not actually feel disadvantaged as a woman in the profession of war reporting. On the contrary, almost all of her colleagues are women, and she recounts a situation where it was actually a great advantage that she herself is a woman.
The Ukrainian journalist Kateryna Sergatskova sums up the reality of our interviewed journalists perfectly.
I never thought about the differences between men and women in a conflict zone, because a journalist has certain tasks and the main thing is professionalism
Kateryna Sergatskova,
Ukrainian journalist who has been to eastern Ukraine several times
For a long time men dominated the field of war and crisis reporting, however over the past years this has changed. In our project we talked to five impressive female journalists about their experience in the field. They told us about the reality and showed us insights into their world. Even though the job is still challenging, gender isn't the biggest obstacle in their personal journey anymore. However, that wasn't always the case, that's why we chose to look at historical figures in this field who paved the way for more equal chances in war and crisis reporting.
We are an international Team from Austria, Ukraine, and Denmark
left to right: Elsa Mayringer, Marcus Norup Refsgaard, Aviana Horvath, mentor Yvonne Widler, Solomiia Bodnarchuk, Sofiia Dubik
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