I became editor by happenstance. I had left a staff job as Moscow correspondent for a British newspaper because I was moving to Kyiv to join my wife, who lived and worked in Kyiv and did not want to live in Moscow.
By complete coincidence the position of editor had become vacant just before I moved to Kyiv and I accepted the job when the then-owner of the newspaper, Jed Sunden, offered it to me. I had been a British newspaper reporter for 20 years but never had the responsibility of being the boss. It was daunting to realize that ultimately the quality and feel of the newspaper, the accuracy of stories, identifying the skills of staff and giving people the opportunity to show what they could do, allowing them to pursue interests and develop specializations, maintaining staff morale, taking the can for any errors — all of it rested with me.
Former Kyiv Post chief editor Askold Krushelnycky stands in the trenches earlier this year near Mariiupol, where he filed several stories about the prospects of a Russian-led invasion of the Ukrainian-controlled Azov Sea port city of nearly 500,000 people.
When I arrived, the newspaper came out twice a week in a viciously energy-depleting, anxiety-inducing rhythm.
I didn’t try to remodel the entire look or routine of the Kyiv Post.
There were already some outstanding staff there – Katya Gorchinskaya, Lily Hyde, Viktor Luhovyk, Stefan Korshak, Euan MacDonald to name some – who wouldn’t have appreciated a newcomer dictating things should be done in an entirely different manner.
We were shorthanded and one of my first tasks was to recruit more hands.
I hired Tom Warner, who became chief editor after me, and another American, Nathan Hodge, who went on to become a Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent, based for the last four years in Kabul.
I wanted to increase the number of Ukrainian writers and I was lucky to find that a young man called Vitaly Sych working in an obscure part of the business pages was keen to become a mainstream reporter.
I asked him to think up ideas for stories and when he wrote them it was obvious his eagerness was matched by talent. Sych later became editor of Korrespondent magazine, which he crafted into Ukraine’s most respected news publication. He and many of his staff left Korrespondent after it fell into the hands of cronies of disgraced former President Viktor Yanukovych and since then Sych has built an excellent reputation for the new magazine he edits, Novoye Vremya.
All the journalists I met at the Kyiv Post had an instinctive understanding about applying honesty, fairness and accuracy in their writing so I needed to tweak style rather than ethics.
I did, though, try to impart some of the experience I had acquired from my life in British journalism. I had been lucky that in the early stages of my career editors had taken the trouble to teach me by going over my stories with me and suggesting improvements in content and structure.
I tried to do that – time allowing – at the Kyiv Post: to suggest adjustments to pieces rather than re-writing people’s copy without explaining why it was being changed.B ritish journalism has probably always allowed more leeway (than say the American press) for reporters to incorporate their own experience and judgment into stories without crossing the line into an opinion piece.
Whereas U.S. reporters sometimes take “balanced reporting” to ridiculous brinks – giving formulaic equal weight to statements by sources who can be held accountable for their pronouncements (and however cynical one is, that includes most Western leaders, NATO, the International Monetary Fund and God) and those who are demonstrably serial liars – say Vladimir Putin, Robert Mugabe, Satan). Example: “But President Putin denies sending Russian soldiers and weapons to the conflict in Ukraine….”
So I tried to encourage writers to use the confidence and knowledge one acquires over time to be reflected in their stories. British journalism always encouraged color and description – trying to conjure up an atmosphere and picture with words – and, when appropriate, a sense of fun, and I felt these were important elements in newspaper writing.
I tried to widen the scope and increase the quality the opinion pieces the Kyiv Post ran. We had a very limited budget but I tried to enable a few trips for journalists to travel beyond Kyiv and for the newspaper to report on stories around Ukraine.
Members of the 37th Mechanized Infantry Battalion in early February as they took their positions near Mariupol.
I was born in the United Kingdom but my parents were Ukrainians – and very patriotic ones at that.
Because I didn’t speak Russian and thus used Ukrainian I remember Katya Gorchinskaya asking me in 1998, over a few drinks, whether I intended to introduce some sort of nationalist-Banderite tone at the Kyiv Post. (Stepan Bandera was a controversial Ukrainian nationalist hero who lived from 1909 to 1959, when he was murdered by a KGB agent in Germany).
I replied “no” (although there is much I like about Banderites!) because I, like the previous and subsequent editors, didn’t want the Kyiv Post to be vulnerable to charges it was a slanted, propaganda rag.
The Kyiv Post has proven itself repeatedly to be a trustworthy and authoritative source with a gutsy and talented staff who, despite an obvious affection for Ukraine, don’t pull punches about telling hard truths about the country.
I don’t claim credit for introducing any profound changes at the Kyiv Post or midwifing some of the stars it has borne. But I am proud that I worked alongside colleagues of the caliber I have listed above, many of whom are still, in their different ways, shedding light for the world on different aspects of Ukraine.
I am proud that in our various ways we contributed to a Kyiv Post that is now an important and vital information source not only to an audience in Ukraine but to governments, organizations and thousands of individual readers around the world as Ukraine struggles for its survival.
The Kremlin spends hundreds of millions of dollars funding the components of its mendacious propaganda machine such as Russia Today TV. The Kyiv Post, by its reputation for professionalism and integrity, shows Putin’s lies for what they are and turns much of that Moscow budget into wasted millions.
Yes, I’m very proud of my links to the Kyiv Post.
Askold Krushelnycky was born in London to Ukrainian parents became refugees during World War II. He is currently a foreign correspondent. In 2006, Krushelnycky published “An Orange Revolution: A Personal Journey Through Ukrainian History.” He was the Kyiv Post’s third chief editor, serving in 1998 after Andrea Faiad and Igor Greenwald.
