The first issue of Vesti. Reporter, a weekly glossy news magazine, hit Kyiv’s newsstands on Aug. 30, just two months after Multimedia Invest Group (MIG) announced that it bought the license from the owners of its counterpart Russkiy Reporter (Russian Reporter). The move marks MIG’s second foray into the print media market having launched the daily Vesti newspaper in May.
The weekly Russkiy Reporter, with a circulation
of around 168,000, has been published since 2007. It is not sold widely in
Kyiv, but it appears on newsstands with foreign press. Vesti. Reporter uses the
same design, layout and section names of its Russian counterpart. Its
circulation is 50,000 and it is written in the Russian language.
“Our publication is a new genre [for
Ukraine], and we have no competitors,” editor-in-chief Iskander Khisamov said
in video interview to Videoteka, during the inaugural issue’s presentation.
According to the State Registration
Service, 315 print media publications were registered in Ukraine in the first
six months of this year. The registration service said there is a total 43,630
print media registered in the country.
Even though Vesti. Reporter is the first known
publication in Ukraine devoted strictly to reporting, the reasons behind its appearance
on the market spark even more interest than the magazine itself.
When Igor Guzhva, former editor-in-chief
of popular daily newspaper Segodnya, launched Vesti four months ago, the
question of where he got money for it hung in the air. The newspaper claims a
circulation of 420,000, and is distributed for free in Kyiv every weekday
morning. It also sells in the press kiosks. Guzhva says he owns MIG, which
includes Vesti, Vesti.Reporter and a minor TV station UBR, having used “borrowed
funds” to operate group.
“Confidentiality is part of my deal with lenders,”
Guzhva told media watchdog Telekritika in April 2013.
Guzhva’s silence evoked conspiracy
theories about who stands behind the new media holding. Versions included
pro-Russian politician and Vladimir Putin’s friend Viktor Medvedchuk (also
ex-President Leonid Kuchma’s former chief-of-staff), Russian Vneshekonombank
(related to Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev), Russian energy giant
Gazprom and the so called “The Family,” a group of President Viktor
Yanukovych’s closest allies.
In interviews, Guzhva denied connections to
Medvedchuk and Gazprom.
The first issue of Vesti. Reporter numbers
84 pages and costs Hr 10 (€1). As much as seven pages are filled with
advertising.
The issue opens with four successive articles
on the Ukrainian police. A long explanatory story on the future of police
reform is followed by an editorial on what Ukrainian police should be like. Two
other stories paint a picture of “common police officers.” Ukraine’s Interior
Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko is considered to be a member of “The Family.” One
of the articles opens with a comparison of Zakharchenko’s inglorious appearance
in Verkhovna Rada on July 2, 2013, when deputies booed him and demanded his resignation
following the anti-police riots in Vradiyivka, Mykolaiv Oblast, with a similar
situation from 1906, when Pyotr Stolypin, Interior Minister of Russian Empire,
was poorly received by parliament.
The issue also features a report from a striptease
club in Kyiv, written by the reporter who posed as a stripper to get the job in
the club. There’s also a profile of economist Bohdan Havrilyshyn, and a listing
of the 10 most important figures in the history of Ukraine.
According to Khisamov, the magazine will
reprint international stories from Russkiy Reporter, filling up to 30 percent
of space with them.
