Kyiv Post on 11 June 2010. Journalists see rising interference from media owners. Photo: Kyiv Post

Nobody is declaring victory in Ukraine’s ongoing battles over free speech, writes the bold and edgy English-language Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post

The English-language Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post has, despite a tense media environment, printed a series of critical articles citing the experiences and opinions of Ukrainian broadcast and print journalists who feel squeezed by actions allegedly instigated by the authorities’ wish to control media.

Dual role of media owners

Television dominates the Ukrainian media scene in terms of audiences and advertising revenue. Many outlets are privately-owned. Commercial networks, particularly Inter TV and 1+1, attract most of the TV audience.

Since April this year, a number of events have marked the escalation of the government’s stronghold on media. Managers and staff from TVi were amongst the first to complain about government harassment, publishing an ad in the Washington Post in English to coincide with the visit of President Yanukovych to the US. In the ad, TVi’s staff and managers accuse the owner of Inter Group, the country's largest television group, who is also chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), of being driven by private interests. “TVi has been subjected to significant and unwarranted pressure from the SBU”, the journalists write in the ad. 

The dual role of TV1’s owner as chief of Ukraine’s state security services and co-owner of Inter Group, illustrates the problems of media ownership transparency in Ukraine. According to Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s media is controlled by some of Ukraine’s richest men, many of whom occupy powerful government posts alongside their roles as media outlet owners.

Fifteen journalists from another TV station, 1+1, which is the nation’s second most popular station according to surveys, signed and publicised a statement in May 2010 accusing the station’s top management and a member of President Victor Yanukovych’s administration of outside interference with editorial decisions.  The accusations were denied by Hanna Herman, deputy head of the presidential administration for media issues, in a later Kyiv Post article titled: 1+1 TV journalists claim censorship of news reports”.   1+1’s own General Director, Tkachenko, was also dismissive of his station’s journalists, and was quoted in the same article as saying that the signees of the statement were confusing their own political sympathies with the basic rules of journalism.

Benefits of publicising censorship

However, the attempts to publicise censorship have not been in vain according to several journalists quoted in Kyiv Post. In an article by Yuriy Onyshkiv on 11 June, Serhiy Kudimov, a journalist from 1+1, explains that the station’s reporters have achieved more freedom to cover certain stories following their public complaint about censorship.

Some of their demands however, have yet to be met. The journalists had asked for a rotation of the channel’s reporters covering the presidential administration. This demand came about based on rumours that  presidential administration officials have been handpicking the most Yanukovych-friendly journalists to cover presidential issues and events to ensure positive coverage.

Sophisticated manipulation

- Proving censorship right now is very difficult because manipulations have become very sophisticated, says Natalia Ligachova, head of media watchdog Telekritika’s news and magazine website, in an interview with Kyiv Post’s Katya Gorchinskaya earlier this year. Potential news stories go unreported or are filtered out by chief editors under the pretext that they are not important or interesting.

– In 2002 and 2004 it was easier to prove, she says in the interview and describes how Ukrainian government officials in 2002 and 2004 sent out written instructions (termed temnyky) on how to cover news to journalists and managers by email. The instructions had no stamp on them, but they were received by hundreds of people.

IMS in Ukraine

The increasing number of physical attacks on journalists and freedom of expression in general in Ukraine, have also led to increased international focus in support of Ukrainian media.  On 5 November 2010, International Media Support and Article 19 called on the Ukrainian parliament to adopt a new access to information law which was removed without warning from the Parliament's agenda where it has been scheduled for consideration on 2 November. 

Since 2008, IMS has worked with Ukrainian partners to draft and reform media legislation with the aim of increasing transparency, equal market conditions and to induce pluralism of Ukrainian media.

For an overview of media in Ukraine visit BBC’s website.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1102303.stm