EBU Opens Ukraine Archive to External Applicants

By Anne Koch

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the world’s largest alliance of public service media, has opened it’s Ukraine Archive to external applicants. This curated, searchable collection of some of the best journalism about the Russia-ukraine war since the full-scale invasion of February 2022, is accessible on request to journalists, academics, human rights researchers, and others engaged in public interest work.

The archive brings together more than 30,000 video and audio reports from EBU member journalists – from broadcasters like France Télévisions, Polish Television, BBC, Suspilne Ukraine, and many others – and contains social media verified by the Eurovision Social Newswire team and from other media sources, such as AFP, all focusing on the biggest armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

The material in the archive is searchable by the usual criteria like location and date, and additionally, each item is labelled with one or more tags documenting alleged human rights violations in armed conflict, specially devised for the project by human rights experts. These include abuses such as ‘Violence Against Person – Killing’,and ‘Infrastructure Damage – Bridge’,to name only two of the more than 100 tags being used. This means researchers can search according to specific categories of human rights abuses in war and armed conflict,making their task easier and faster.

Close collaboration by national broadcasters has been crucial to the project’s success.Inspiration has also been drawn from talented people inside and outside the EBU: the Eurovision News producers who curate and tag the items; endlessly helpful and educated IT experts; the EBU News Committee and Eurovision News leadership, strong supporters of the project who had the original vision to create the Archive; legal advisors, policy staff, and many others.

The astonishing network of archivists in national broadcasters,some working in challenging conditions close to the frontline,and archivists from other important archives around the world who advised on issues like accessibility,ethical responsibilities and security,were also sources of inspiration.

As work on the project progressed, the essential importance of the Archive became increasingly clear. Amid the confusion, bloodshed and destruction of war and armed conflict, journalists bear witness and open the world’s eyes to atrocities.Their work is critical.