Introduction: The war in Ukraine and foreign news reporting

The introduction to this edited volume begins with retelling an incident of voluntary censorship in the American media concerning the war in Ukraine. It then discusses the importance of the war in Ukraine for global citizens and scholars of foreign news, raising the possibility that restraints, including ideological ones, have increased in the reporting on the war. Subsequently, background and context to this edited volume on a controversial topic, the news coverage of the war in Ukraine, are provided by discussing the history of war reporting in Western media, scholarly literature on events in Ukraine over the past decade, and recent literature on the coverage of the Russian invasion. The introduction ends with recapturing another incident of censorship, this time of a scholar at an academic conference, and a call for open and engaged dialogue on one of the most important issues of the times.