Mstislav Chernov is the founder and head of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPP) and an international journalist for the American news agency Associated Press. Drawing on his own experience and material from colleagues, he spoke about the manipulation of meaning in the preparation of news reports.

Photography does not exist on its own — only in conjunction with text, captions, and other images. Even in a gallery, we do not perceive a single photograph in isolation from the others. This is the classic Kuleshov effect, where the first frame influences the perception of the next. Many countries use photography for propaganda. Nowadays, the publication of photographs is not in the hands of the state, but another problem has arisen — the uncontrolled amount of content. There is a suggestion that war is not profitable to anyone right now, but staging wars is. This problem concerns me. There is nothing wrong with there being no war, only images of it — but documentary images are used to construct a convenient reality. And that is only one layer of manipulation. Then there is the reporter's personal perception — their fatigue or political views... We believe in stories, not facts.