Kelman Seminar: Into Homes and Hearts: Navigating Emotions and Negotiating Access as a Journalist
The Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution presents:
Into Homes and Hearts: Navigating Emotions and Negotiating Access as a Journalist
A virtual talk with:
Yousur Al-Hlou
Visual Journalist
and
Masha Froliak
Investigative Journalist
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm ET (US and Canada)
Free and open to the public.
Register for the webinar here.
About the Talk:
Investigative journalism, by necessity, involves negotiation. Questions arise that relate to methods and approaches, such as how to access important and sensitive sources, how to persuade individuals to engage, and how to structure an interview to gather information and build trust. These questions implicate deeper and complex issues as well. For example, how can journalists engage multiple narratives in their reporting and represent those in a story? How can they balance meticulous preparation for an interview with an open and curious approach to the conversation? And, particularly in the context of reporting on crimes in conflict zones, what are the implications of journalistic frameworks for thinking about notions of blame and culpability?
In this session, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Yousur Al-Hlou and Masha Froliak will discuss their investigations for the New York Times from Ukraine, where they have spent the last three years covering potential war crimes committed by Russian soldiers by blending traditional shoe-leather field reporting skills with digital forensic techniques to uncover human rights abuses in conflict zones.
Through their reporting from Bucha, the journalists exposed how Russian soldiers carried out one of the most notable massacres, killing hundreds of residents in the first few weeks of their assault on Ukraine. A series of investigations published over the next eight months capitalized on the exclusive material they collected from sensitive sources in the field — hundreds of hours of security footage, hundreds of hours of interviews, and classified military documents — which revealed potential war crimes committed by Russian soldiers and their commanders. And in Kherson, they spent one year tracking Ukrainian children taken from a children’s home and identified the Russian officials who unlawfully transferred them to Crimea before placing them for adoption. Their reporting proved that the transfer was part of a systematic campaign by President Vladimir Putin and his political allies to strip the most vulnerable victims of the war of their Ukrainian identity. The plight of these children is at the heart of an open case at the ICC.
Join us to gain a deeper insight into how these compelling investigations are produced, and how journalism and negotiation share approaches to relationship building and problem solving.
About the Speakers:
Yousur Al-Hlou is a visual journalist who uses traditional field reporting, visual evidence gathering and original cinematography to investigate crimes in conflict zones. As a visual journalist for The New York Times for nearly a decade, she traveled to Syria, Gaza, and Ukraine to document human rights abuses and their impact on civilians. Her work with colleagues covering Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was awarded a 2022 George Polk Award, a 2024 DuPont Award and the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously, she was a global fellow for The Associated Press in Jerusalem, an associate producer at the Investigative Reporting Program in Berkeley, and an associate producer for Al Jazeera’s documentary show “Fault Lines.” She received her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Currently, she is a fellow with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University where she is studying international humanitarian law and the challenges for accountability mechanisms in prosecuting potential war crimes (despite visual evidence).
Masha Froliak is a journalist who has covered the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022. She spent months reporting in the field in Ukraine together with her colleague Yousur Al-Hlou for the New York Times. Their reporting has launched several critical investigations into likely war crimes of the Russian soldiers committed in Ukraine. In these investigations they combined traditional reporting with open-source methods, like forensic analysis of large troves of digital data. They identified the Russian military unit behind the killing of dozens of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. In a separate investigation they exclusively obtained thousands of intercepted calls of Russian soldiers to their families in Russia. After months of analysis and verification they revealed to the public the Russian army in disarray in the words of the perpetrators themselves. These investigations were recognized with the 2023 Pulitzer award for International Reporting, 2024 George Polk Award, and 2024 Dupont award.
About the Herbert C. Kelman Seminar Series:
The Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution series is sponsored by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
For more information, contact Donna Hicks at dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu.
Accommodation Statement:
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (PON) is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation(s) for persons with disabilities in connection with its programs and activities. Accommodations must not fundamentally alter applicable PON programming and are not retroactive.
Event participants should request accommodations at least two weeks prior to the start date of a program or event, as accommodations may take time to implement. Please note that PON will make every effort to secure services, but these are subject to availability.
To request accommodations please e-mail ponevents@law.harvard.edu.
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