Sole Israeli reporter in Bucha dismisses caterwauling over pink coat

Hadas Grinberg, the only Israeli reporter to report from Bucha, Ukraine, this week, has become the center of a mini media tempest around her reporting.

Grinberg wins plaudits for her brave reporting from the war zone, even after almost all other Israeli reporters have returned home from Ukraine. On Sunday, the Kan reporter stood in front of a mass grave uncovered near the Kyiv suburb, telling Israelis in Hebrew of the atrocities she saw with her own eyes.

הטבח בבוצ'ה – בלעדי: שליחת כאן חדשות @hadasgrinberg, העיתונאית הישראלית היחידה בבוצ'ה, בין ערימות הגופות וההרס שהשאיר הצבא הרוסי#חדשותהערב pic.twitter.com/AC2R0HtOo9

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) April 3, 2022

But she is also being criticized for her reporting style, which focused on what she had seen and seemed to place herself at the center of the story, as well as for her fashion choices, including a bright pink fur-lined coat she wore while reporting.

In ToI sister site Zman Yisrael, Amir Ben David compares her reporting to an Instagram Story. “Like in every Story, Grinberg chose to place herself at the center. She even managed to change outfits between shooting sites — a windbreaker on the ‘highway of death,’ a jacket the color of Bazooka gum with fur lining next to a mass grave in Bucha, a white jacket while speaking to the studio,” he writes.

Responding to the criticism, Grinberg defends her jacket choice.

“When it’s cold out and your warmest jacket is pink with a fur hood, you wear the pink jacket with the fur hood,” she tells Kan radio. “I’m walking between bodies and see the most shocking scenes I’ve ever seen, so someone writes about my coat.”