Who We Are — Meet Terrell J. Starr, a Black Journalist in Ukraine and Creative Capsule Year One Resident Who Believes Reporters Can Have Feelings, Too.

For those still stuck on the name change from Twitter to X, you’re probably in the majority and in good company. Among that crowd of kindred spirits is someone who has experienced the floodgates of attention after cracking the algorithmic code to going viral on the platform. Terrell Jermaine Starr currently has over 315k followers on X thanks largely to his live coverage as a Black American living in Kyiv, Ukraine at the outbreak of Russian attacks in early 2022. He is also the third and final profile for year one of the Creative Capsule Residency (our first two profiles can be found here and here).

Terrell received his undergraduate degree in English from an HBCU (historically Black college or university), served in the Peace Corps, has two Master’s degrees (one in Russian, East European, and Euroasian studies and another in Journalism), and has won a Fulbright, among many other notable accomplishments and accolades. At his core though, he still proudly claims his hometown: the largest Black city in America, Detroit, Michigan, and now maintains residency in Brooklyn.

When we spoke, we both celebrated and lamented our experiences as people of color in a field that is not always kind to faces like ours working to expand understandings and approaches to audience engagement. With each passing day, however, finding ways to engage and empower audiences not typically included in foreign policy or national security discussions becomes more important, whether that’s through mediums like my column The Mixed-Up Files of Inkstick Media or Terrell’s person-to-person videos on the lived reality for Ukrainians.

Molly: The 101 icebreaker: tell me a little bit about yourself.

Terrell: Yeah, sure. I’m an expert on this region [Russia & Eastern Europe], particularly Ukraine. I’ve been studying this part of the world for more than 20 years. I first went to Russia in 2001 and around then began to understand Russia from a colonial perspective. It was my first experience fully coming to grips with what imperialism means. I’m not trying to make this some wonky conversation that nobody cares about, but I started understanding world powers and control and domination. That made me interested in learning more about how smaller countries could resist bigger ones.

Molly: You went viral for your live coverage on Twitter (now X) from Ukraine last year. What was it like to go viral and did that affect your relationship with journalism?

Terrell: I had to learn to be okay with the fact that I am not a traditional journalist. It’s taken me more than a year to realize that my virality happened because I broke all the rules of what a journalist is “supposed” to do. People saw me because I had a heart and I cared. I think that through all the very rigid and traditional style reporting, which has its place, my work and my presence helped people of all backgrounds to care. So, I was most proud to see Black people engaged with my content given that Black people are some of the most disengaged groups within mainstream foreign policy conversations. And that’s not for no reason, mind you. This field is very aggressively anti-black. In fact, I think the field is anti-anything-non-white.

Molly: That’s really impactful. Did you ever feel pressure as The Black reporter and ergo the assumed voice of The Black opinion for the region? I think about how in US classrooms, the sole POC student often gets treated as The Voice of all POC. And it’s shitty to do to students, but even as adults we still sometimes find ourselves in conditions where we suddenly think, “Oh God, am I the voice of ‘my’ people right now?”

Terrell: Haha, yeah, that’s a good question. And my answer is yes. I’ll give you a specific example. It was also a growing experience. I was in Kyiv at the beginning of the war, and we didn’t know how well the Ukrainian military would defend the capital. People were bracing for the possibility that the Russians would take over Kyiv. Although that never happened, within two days of embedding myself into a territorial defense forces unit, I saw alleged saboteurs killed by automatic gunfire and was myself almost killed by a Russian airstrike. I literally saw a Russian fighter jet swoop down, shoot at my location, and about four or five people were killed in that incident.

I saw my life flash before my eyes while, unknown to me at that time, Black refugees were fleeing the country and facing incredible racism. And people asked me, “Why aren’t you covering this!?” With my virality, I suddenly had a level of attention I wasn’t used to. And in that, some questioned my devotion to Black people because I wasn’t at the border. It hurt. I was busy learning how to be a correspondent in active combat, facing issues vastly different from migration issues, and even if I tried to go to the border it’d take me at least four or five days. Navigating Ukraine at that time was a logistical nightmare!

It was tough for me. But I grew from it because I learned that I can’t control how people respond to me, I learned how to manage myself emotionally and professionally in that type of situation for the future, and I learned how to be a better communicator.

Molly: Thank you so much for sharing and opening up about those experiences. In reading your articles with Inkstick, a common theme I noticed is how much of your reporting isn’t just reporting. There’s a lot of explaining, too. Explaining the power plant, explaining Putin’s nuclear threats… it’s not uncommon for situations in foreign countries to become easily mischaracterized, but from your experiences trying to communicate these discrepancies in narratives, any advice for media literacy on foreign issues?

Fighting disinformation is a revolutionary act. And if you are not revolutionary in your resistance against disinformation, you’re gonna be fooled by it. Both domestic and global.

Terrell Jermaine Starr

Terrell: I’m happy you asked me that question. I believe our constitutional right to free speech and free press entitles us to the responsibility of understanding what we read. Especially with social media nowadays, it is even more incumbent upon us to do so. Yet, as a society, we’ve failed at that. We have not learned to challenge our own biases and to distill what we want to hear from what we need to hear. Fighting disinformation is a revolutionary act. And if you are not revolutionary in your resistance against disinformation, you’re gonna be fooled by it. Both domestic and global.

Molly: Period. Where are you going next? What’s the next step?

Terrell: I’m moving to YouTube soon. My channel will be called Black Diplomats. I have a podcast with the same name but shifting to video is how I stay viable as an independent journalist. My channel will debut next month where I’ll post videos and updates weekly. I’ll keep exploring new ways to explain foreign policy, focusing mostly on Ukraine but covering a wide range of issues if it means engaging people who are not traditionally included in these conversations.

Molly: Easy transition to the final question then, where can people follow you and stay up to date on all these projects and your work?

Terrell: Twitter is still the best way, but I’m also on Instagram. My Instagram handle is the same as my Twitter. And once my YouTube is launched, then of course that platform will have longer-form updates and content.

Join us on September 14, 2023, at Noon Eastern to hear directly from Terrell and other year one CCR residents at the Creative Capsule Residency Showcase! Register here.

Learn more about the Creative Capsule Residency here.