During Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency from 2005-2010 the term “censorship” significantly faded away, yet over the last six months it has made its way back to vocabulary of Ukrainian journalists and media experts.
President Viktor Yanukovych, who came to power in February has his own view of the free media environment – so far he’s been pretty skeptical on the cases of censorship and other violations of media freedoms. “Give me the facts,” he usually says, although during his recent visit to the United States the president admitted that “some problems exist.” Ukrainian journalists and experts believe the president does not get the real information as his team is feeding him only favorable information.
His team is working hard to decrease any negative or critical coverage of Yanukovych’s policy and deeds of his allies. The tools used for massaging the positive coverage of the president varies from peaceful agreements with the owners of media companies up to hampering their work, as when a court cancelled the licensees of TVi and Channel 5. Numerous cases of physical assault against journalists are not being properly investigated: Two reporters – TVi director Mykola Kniazhytsky and executive director of Mass Information Institute Viktoria Siumar reported that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is shadowing on them. The SBU denies this.
Kyiv Post asked Siumar to comment on recent changes in media environment, cases of censorship at Channel 5, SBU interference in the media and if Ukrainian media will follow in the footsteps of their Russian counterparts.
Kyiv Post: What’s the key difference between the current situation and censorship during the second half of Leonid Kuchma’s presidency (1999-2005)? It looks like the current administration is not instructing editors on how to cover this or that event, as it used to under Kuchma?
Viktoria Siumar: There are some silent agreements between the representatives of the authorities and media owners. The latter care about their other businesses, they don’t want to lose their assets, so their TV channels don’t criticize the president and his team. But you can see that some topics are being prohibited from coverage, the new tax code for example. According to the monitoring report done by Telekritika (the respected media watchdog) the list of “uncomfortable” topics is pretty big, I’d note, for example, the wrecked mayoral election in Izmail [town in Odessa region]. Only three channels – STB, Channel 5 and TVi – covered it. The same thing concerns the student’s protests against [education minister Dmytro] Tabachnyk. The news packages have become absolutely sterile; important social issues are being purposely ignored, and channels prefer to do stories about new teaching methodology introduced for kids in a day care – isn’t it a great story for a national channel at prime time?
K.P:Recently an internet publication ran a blog about Channel 5 top management trying to “correct some political issues in a package about the 10th anniversary of the murder of Georgiy Gongardze. The author of the blog mentioned that those “corrections” would likely concern the mentioning of Volodymyr Lytvyn, who is viewed as one of those allegedly involved in Gongadze’s case. The KP talked to the journalist who was working on that story and she said that the conflict was over and her package was aired the way she wanted it to be and no “political” changes were made. What do you think about this situation? Is it a sporadic conflict or is Channel 5 trying to introduce censorship when it comes to the parliamentary speaker Lytvyn?
V.S: I think that Petro Poroshenko, the owner of the Channel 5 is infected with the same virus as other media owners in this country – they do not want their journalists to speak critically about their friends or people who help them to solve their issues. Besides, under the current circumstances Poroshenko is trying to take this opposition stand and say he’s under pressure. But I think it’s true he’s got an offer to sell the channel [to Yanukovych allies], who are working hard to monopolize media sector in Ukraine. But the journalists managed to resist the pressure and this is a positive fact I think, and it proves that Channel 5 team didn’t break the standards of free and unbiased coverage. If you look at their content you’ll see that they are one of the few TV channels who produce balanced newscasts.
Petro Poroshenko, the owner of the Channel 5 is infected with the same virus as other media owners in this country – they do not want their journalists to speak critically about their friends or people who help them to solve their issues."
Viktoria Siumar
K.P:What are the other ones?
V.S: Besides Channel 5? TVi for sure. I know that journalists at STB are fighting for nearly every second story to be done in a fair way, nevertheless STB is preserving its balanced, sharp and ironic coverage. If you compare STB to ICTV, the other channel of the same holding [owned by ex-president Kuchma’s son in law Viktor Pinchuk], you’ll see how important the journalists’ position is. If reporters support each other, they can defend their opinion and produce quality news. In 2002 I interviewed Vadim Rabinochyvh, who had a share at 1+1 TV channel back then, so he said “I don’t get it – if my neighbor’s cat gave birth to six kittens – why is it not news? It’s news, very positive news and people want positive news”. So ICTV is producing positive news now.
K.P:How about print media? Is there any pressure being put on them or does nobody care about them because they are not as influential as broadcasters?
V.S: Communal and municipal state funded media are being under huge pressure. It’s a catastrophe – print materials have to praise local governors and often times the articles have to get “clearance” with the corresponding local headquarters of the Party of Regions. We [Mass Information Institute] asked those journalists – why do you send those to the headquarters? And they said – it’s obvious, the governors are the heads of the Party of Region’s headquarters! Today I spoke with Volodymyr Prytula, head of a media monitoring think tank in Crimea. He told me that the news produced by “Krym” broadcaster is nothing but a report about the Party of Regions’ local branche: Jankoy branch visited a prep school and gave them a TV set, Saky branch had a session etc.
Communal and municipal state funded media are being under huge pressure. It’s a catastrophe – print materials have to praise local governors."
Viktoria Siumar
K.P:As for the SBU – a couple of weeks ago some people who introduced themselves as SBU operatives were asking your concierge about your daily routine – does this story have any follow-up?
V.S: All that I know is that they said they were investigating a shady company registered at my address. Which is total nonsense as we’ve been living here since the condo was built and there was no company here. It’s a really weird situation.
K.P:
It looks like the SBU is actively interfering in society – your case, earlier Mykola Kniazhytsky complained SBU was shadowing him, the “frequency court” for which the SBU requested documents from the National Council on TV and Radio, inspections of the Renaissance Foundation grantees, the incident with Niko Lange, director of Konrad Adenauer Foundation who was denied entry to Ukraine for several hours. Does it all look like a strategy or just a bunch of mistakes by the SBU?
V.S:It all started with a visit of SBU representative to Borys Hudziak, rector of Lviv Catholic University. Frankly, at first I thought that the officers tried too hard, but there are way too many cases that prove it’s being done on purpose. By the way, we touched on this issue on Savik Shuster’s political talk show, and panelist Inna Bohoslovska [Party of Regions lawmaker] said “your organization is funded through international grants, and we remember how the Orange Revolution was exported here, it was exported with the help of international grants. So we have to check if there is any relation [between Ukrainian NGOs] and foreign organizations.” So they check those [people] who in their mind were involved in the Orange Revolution.
K.P:
What’s the purpose?
V.S:I think they are trying to prevent social reaction. As far as I know, and my sources keep telling me about that – strengthening of the SBU is one of the priorities now and the SBU is dealing with all the issues even beyond its responsibilities. I think that [SBU chief Valeriy] Khoroshkovsky is trying to show how efficient he is and prove that he can build a powerful enforcement agency.
K.P:
You wrote in your blog that the SBU is trying to copy the work of its Russian counterpart, the FSB, and act in Putin-style…
V.S:Yes, partly it’s due to the influence of Russian political strategists who want to “plant” this tradition here. We remember what happened in Russia – the FSB shut down Freedom House, and other foundations who cooperated with Russian NGOs. They did so in order to prevent export of “color revolutions.” But it really looks like they [current administration] didn’t properly understand what caused the Orange Revolution. The orange revolution was not fueled by international foundations and grants, it was fueled by intimidations, pressure, censorship, corruption and absence of independent justice.
K.P:
Given this situation, what are the chances Ukrainian media will follow the footprints of Russian media?
V.S:It all depends on Ukrainian journalists. If they stand up for each other, it they protect their professional rights, they will take a different path.
K.P:
And otherwise?
V.S:Otherwise, I think, we can have a “light” version of Russian media environment. But I doubt it will last for long, Ukrainian media is significantly different from that in Russia.
