Framing the regional frontlines: challenges, ethical dilemmas and experiences of Journalists in Northeast India

This article investigates how journalists in Northeast India negotiate objectivity, ethics and journalistic role perceptions while covering conflicts in geo-politically sensitive and digitally mediated settings. Drawing on eight in-depth interviews, this study reveals how journalists navigate safety concerns, emotional connections and platform logics that increasingly affect their workflows. Employing Framing Theory and Role Theory, the paper highlights three interconnected dimensions: journalists’ reflexive negotiation between emotional attachment and professional neutrality, increasing influence of platform logics and analytics in editorial processes; and contextual restrictions arising from state control and linguistic hegemonies within the Indian national media landscape. The findings demonstrate that in conflict settings, journalistic objectivity is contextually negotiated rather than being universally fixed, highlighting moral sensitivities and hybrid professionalism in peripheral media settings. By examining the lived realities of journalists; the study contributes to de-Westernised discourses in Journalism Studies and explains how journalists in parts of the Global South, especially in conflict-sensitive and marginalised territories, reimagine journalistic ethics and agency amid political, cultural and technological challenges.