A former sports journalist on what it’s like to cover the war in Ukraine; sports media ratings – The Athletic

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There was a time when Isabelle Khurshudyan’s professional life centered around blue lines, red lights and Alex Ovechkin.

Today it covers the war for the Washington Post.

Khurshudyan is currently based in Odessa, which is located on the coast of Ukraine and is one of the largest port cities on the Black Sea. (It is now the main hub of the Ukrainian Navy.) Fluent in Russian, Khurshudyan had always dreamed of working as a foreign correspondent. After presenting the idea to her bosses for years, in 2019 she was assigned to the post office’s Moscow office. as correspondent in Moscow. She previously covered the Washington Capitals for four seasons — including their Stanley Cup-winning season in 2018 — and the University of Virginia before that. His last athletic assignment before moving to Russia was the 2019 World Series between the Nationals and the Astros.

While staying in Kharkiv, a city of 1.4 million people in northeastern Ukraine, about 40 kilometers from the Russian border, Khurshudyan said she woke up the morning of the February 24 around 4 a.m. local time. Like many journalists covering Ukraine, she had a terrible feeling that today was going to be the day the lives of Ukrainians would change forever. Global news outlets such as The Post had been briefed and reported on the prospect of war, but many Ukrainians did not believe in the possibility. That day, Khurshudyan said he watched a speech by Vladimir Putin at 6 a.m. Moscow time.

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