56.6% of Ukrainian media professionals surveyed by IMI saw signs of exhaustion or burnout in their teams, and 49.1% reported that their workload had grown over the past year. Yet only 14.7% of respondents said they had access to mental health care.

These are the findings of a study by the Institute of Mass Information focusing on Ukrainian journalists’ resilience ahead of winter 2026–2027. The survey covered 265 media professionals based in 23 oblasts of Ukraine and in Kyiv city and was carried out during the period from 21 September to 7 October 2026.

The key trend revealed by the IMI study: newsrooms rely heavily on mutual aid and the personal endurance of their staff, while systemic mechanisms for safety, staff reserves, and recovery are often lacking.

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News teams do roll calls after attacks but many have no plan in case an employee is lost

The most widespread newsroom safety practice was a roll call after major air strikes, reported by 69.8% of respondents.

More complex organisational mechanisms were much rarer:

  • 47.2% kept track of up-to-date contact data of their staff and their families;
  • 34% had someone who could replace an employee performing a core function;
  • 27.5% knew who had access to passwords and work systems;
  • 16.6% had a set procedure if an employee went missing or could not be reached.

Meanwhile, 12.1% of the media professionals surveyed by IMI checked out none of the listed newsroom safety practices.

The IMI study also found a link between organisational preparedness and employees’ ability to recover after big air strikes. Among respondents who did not list any newsroom safety practice, only 21.9% were able to take some time off to recover. By contrast, this figure reached 69% among those who reported three to five such practices.

While this does not prove a causal link, it does suggest that newsroom safety procedures and a culture of care for staff often go together.

Overall, 35.1% of respondents said that they could not actually take time to recover after a major attack or found it extremely difficult to do so, despite being allowed to on paper.

Television and print press: two opposite vulnerability profiles

This problem proved particularly acute in television, where 69.6% of TV respondents said recovery time was essentially off the table for them, compared with 31.8% of respondents working in other types of media.

The paradox is that, of all respondents, journalists working in television were also the best prepared for emergencies: they were twice as likely to have taken first-aid training and three times as likely to have a fire extinguisher and know how to use it. Yet only 4.3% of them said taking time off to recover after an attack was normal practice for them (30.2% for other media), and this difference persisted among media outlets based close to the frontline. 13 of the 23 respondents working in TV had taken training within the past year but were unable to recover after strikes. Safety training does not make up for exhaustion.

Print newsrooms proved the most dependent on individual people. Only 3.2% of respondents working in this field reported having a set procedure in case an employee goes missing (18.4% for other media), 16.1% reported having someone who could replace an employee performing a core function (36.3%), and 38.7% could not take proper annual leave (18.8%).

Burnout levels are not tied to proximity to combat

Another important finding was that signs of burnout were widespread in rear regions as much as in areas close to the front line. They were reported by 52.9% to 63.3% of respondents in different regional groups. No statistically significant variation between regions was found.

Media professionals reported the following key staffing problems:

  • workload increasing over the past year — 49.1%;
  • core functions hinging on one or a few people — 38.5%;
  • difficulty finding replacements for staff — 28.7%;
  • difficulty hiring — 25.7%;
  • regular overtime — 23%;
  • inability to take proper annual leave — 21.1%.

43.8% of respondents reported three or more staffing problems at once.

In their open-ended responses, media professionals reported their teams shrinking due to underfunding and the inability to recover properly.

The combination of staff shortages, growing workload, and the lack of staff reserves creates an additional risk to the continuous work of newsrooms. If a key person is absent due to illness, conscription, evacuation or other circumstances, some newsroom processes may come to a halt.

The study showed that the resilience of Ukrainian media can not be measured only by their ability to keep the news coming. Having backup staff, clear procedures for emergencies, opportunities to rest, and access to mental health care are equally important.

For media support programmes, this means investing not just in equipment or content production, but also in newsrooms’ institutional capacity, in particular in management practices, staff resilience, and burnout prevention.

Note. The study is based on an anonymous targeted survey of 265 media professionals based in 23 regions of Ukraine and in Kyiv city. The survey was carried out in the period from 21 September to 7 October 2026. The maximum margin of error for the full sample is ±5.6 percentage points. The questionnaire did not measure the actual number of hours equipment can run autonomously.