“I’ve decided to go back into Ukraine to keep reporting,” war correspondent Tim Mak writes in his first Substack newsletter. “This time, alone.”
NPR laid off Mak from his job as an investigative correspondent when it cut its staff by 10% last month. On Tuesday, Mak, also a former U.S. Army combat medic, launched The Counteroffensive, the first Substack dedicated to war correspondence. (Others have featured war correspondence from time to time, a Substack spokesperson noted.)
“The idea first occurred to me just a few weeks ago,” Mak told me. “I think one of the benefits of Substack is that it works right out of the box. I just signed up and started writing.”
I’ll tell you my personal impressions, and let you in on the inside jokes, and give you the behind the scenes scoop on what’s happening in Ukraine…
… the sort of writing I couldn’t do with my straight news reports at NPR. pic.twitter.com/DwHyem1vjb
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) April 25, 2023
Reporting from conflict zones is complicated, resource-intensive, and, yes, incredibly dangerous. News organizations often provide equipment, hostile environment training, special insurance, and other resources to full-time reporters headed to the front lines.
In his appeal to subscribers, Mak outlined some of the costs — body armor, medical kits, rental cars, emergency supplies, a Ukrainian interpreter, etc. — that he’ll now pay for out of his own pocket. He told me he expects his operating costs to be, at a minimum, around $7,000 per month. (Substack has offered Mak “guidance and advice, but no financial resources,” he said.)
“I need 1,000 paid subscribers in order to stop losing money,” Mak wrote to me. “Then more to be a little bit more ambitious than ramen and buses. Then after that I can pay myself.”
Mak arrived in Kyiv on the night the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, according to his NPR bio, and has been covering the war since. I asked him what he sees as his biggest challenge, now that he’ll be reporting from the country independently.
“The hardest thing will be discipline, I think. As an independent journalist I’ll be on my own, without an institution to pull me out when I need it,” Mak said. “I’ll need to have the discipline to make wise decisions to keep me and my team safe.”
On Twitter, Mak often shares behind-the-scenes photos and stories from Ukraine. He said he was looking forward to taking a more informal, conversation manner with The Counteroffensive — less AP Style, more “like a letter to a friend.”
And there was the humor: the Ukrainians esp appreciated Angelina Jolie for visiting them during the war… pic.twitter.com/6lXPRAPMqY
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) February 24, 2023
In other dispatches, Mak has been posting various “dogs of war.” (He also reposts “dogs of peace” that folks back home in the U.S. send him.) He’ll continue the tradition in his newsletter with a mascot named Rex.
Today’s dog of war is Rex, our new mascot. “Soldiers call each other ‘Rex’ when they’re impressed with how good you are, or sarcastically when you’ve messed up,” said Ross, my interpreter and reporting partner.
Let’s hope for more Rexes of the former, and less of the latter. pic.twitter.com/vndnsdWoUW
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) April 25, 2023
You can read the first post from The Counteroffensive here.