One big item for President Volodymyr Zelensky to tackle, with help from the nation and its Western friends, is the unconscionable control of most of Ukraine’s news media by oligarchs and pro-Russian politicians who don’t care about the truth or independent journalism.
As the page 1 cover story “Media Grab” shows, Ukraine’s TV airwaves still are controlled by Ukraine’s oligarchs — who have stifled the nation’s economy and pursuit of the truth for too long — or avidly pro-Russian politicians of the Opposition Platform, which stands a chance of becoming the second-largest faction in Ukraine’s parliament.
The disturbing news comes ahead of the July 21 parliamentary election. Victor Medvedchuk, Ukraine’s “Prince of Darkness” and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s friend, looks to have increased his TV holdings. He or his friends now control 112, NewsOne and ZIK TV stations. The latest acquisition, that of ZIK, prompted the resignations of several journalists who did not want to become propagandists to a pro-Kremlin line overnight.
The state of affairs is not much better on the rest of the TV channels: Victor Pinchuk has three channels, Kolomoisky has 1+1 and other holdings, Dmytro Firtash and Serhiy Lovochkin have Inter and other holdings, while Rinat Akhmetov has Ukraina and other media properties.
No healthy democracy can be formed from this nucleus. Public TV stations, which provide independent and useful news, are floundering: Less than 1 percent of the viewing public tunes in.
TV ownership and editorial policy matter because, unfortunately, most Ukrainians still get their news from television — and these stations often provide poor journalism. Solutions? TV licenses should be redistributed on the public airwaves, which belong to everyone. There should be moral standards applied to who can own a TV station and, additionally, editorial independence of the journalists should be a requirement .
The owners are often bad enough. But Western donors are also part of the problem. They are providing too little assistance to change the status quo and some of the assistance is misguided — such as to the little-watched public TV station. If there’s good news in this, it is that viewers are switching from traditional TV to content on demand through internet. This should favor those with the best content. Financial aid, meanwhile, should go to media outlets that demonstrate editorial independence and commercial viability. Now the journalists are at the mercy of their owners or the next grant. It is no way to live.
