JOURNALISM IN THE CROSSFIRE M edia coverage of the war in Ukraine in 2014 Gunnar Nygren, Michal Glowacki, Joran Hok, Ilya Kiria, Dariya Orlova, and Daria Taradai War reporting has mostly been analyzed as a struggle between political and military control over information and journalistic professionalism. An analysis of reporting in mainstream media from the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014 shows that many other aspects must also be considered. In a comparative study, mainstream media coverage in four countries, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and Sweden, was analyzed and interviews were held with journalists in the media included in the content analysis. Findings revealed significant variations in the framing of the conflict, portrayal of actors involved, and word choice across national settings. Interviews with journalists also high lighted crucial differences in approaches and perceptions. Results show that the specificjournalistic culture in each country, self-censorship, and the degree of activist approach amongjournalists simi larly play an important role in war reporting. Researchers from all four countries participated in the project. KEYW O RD S journalistic culture; professional values; Russia; self-censorship; Ukraine; war reporting Introduction During wartime, journalism usually finds itself in a kind of crossfire. Sometimes this crossfire is quite literally between the two sides in the conflict, i.e. the fighting. More often, however, this crossfire is more metaphorical, journalists struggling to maintain pro- fessional autonomy while under pressure from the military or political leadership, or attempting to balance the professional values of objectivity and impartiality against expec- tations from sources and audiences to share emotions or show patriotism and loyalty to the country and to the political and military leadership. The coverage of the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014 clearly contained both literal and metaphorical crossfire situations. Journalists were not only killed, wounded, and beaten while conducting their work, but there were also many examples of partisanship in main- stream media, and the media was accused of spreading disinformation and propaganda (Boyd-Barrett 2015; Khaldarova and Pantti 2016). The purpose of this article is to analyze coverage of the conflict in Ukraine in selected mainstream media and to discuss factors leading to different approaches towards conflict reporting in four countries, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and Sweden. The study employed two methods, content analysis of media coverage and semi-structured interviews with journal - ists, to identify patterns of coverage and to explore journalistic practices and perceptions with regard to conflict reporting. By focusing on two directly involved countries (Ukraine and Russia) as well as two neighboring countries (Poland and Sweden), the article examines media coverage and performance and discusses them in the broader context of factors as Journalism Studies, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10U 080/1461670X.2016.1251332 © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group