Brian Bonner: Coronavirus stops the Kyiv Post’s print edition for now

There is hope. First, it’s spring in Ukraine, always a light and optimistic time of the year — even lighter starting March 29, when clocks move an hour ahead.

But second and most importantly, I’ve never seen, in my 60 years, the world so singularly focused on one topic — the coronavirus — and how to defeat it. When all of humanity concentrates on solving a single problem, we’re going to win.

Or die trying.

And that’s the situation we’re in now. Lots of studies, lots of theories, lots of action, lots of government bailouts ahead — all disguising the scary uncertainty, from experts to the uninformed, of what lies ahead of us.

Global policy debate

We’re witnessing a global policy debate on whether strict quarantine measures are needed and for how long to stop the spread of the novel virus leads to COVID-19, which has been deadly to 26,928 people globally and five in Ukraine as of March 28.

Epidemiologists, law enforcers, and dictators tend to line up on the side of a complete lockdown of society.

Businesspeople and economists argue such a draconian measure will kill the economy — making the cure worse than the disease. The hardliners counter that if millions of people die, the economy will never recover. This debate is playing out in Ukraine as well. Elected politicians and dictators, along with international experts, will decide the balance and hopefully adopt the correct global policy. For now, we have everything ranging from a complete lockdown of India, with 1.2 billion people, to almost business as usual in Sweden, with only 10 million people.

Ukraine’s politicians and policymakers are in the hardline camp, undoubtedly informed by the paucity of coronavirus testing, the weakness of the health care system, and the advanced age of much of the nation’s 40 million people — making them more likely to have underlying health conditions that put them at greater risk if infected.

Lockdown until May?

We are in a national quarantine as of midnight on March 27 — nobody in, nobody out, says the government. All forms of cross-border transportation — air, bus, rail, and private car — banned. Public transportation is shut down. Schools, universities and most workplaces are shut down. Restaurants and nightclubs closed.

You can order your favorite meal from your favorite restaurant — but you either have to pick it up yourself (preferably with a mask on) or have it delivered to your door by a carrier wearing a mask.

It’s easier to list what’s open and doing business: pharmacies, groceries, banking services, gas stations, post offices, and parcel companies.

The government started imposing the measures on March 17 and hoped they could be lifted on April 3. But now they are in place until April 24, past Orthodox Easter Sunday on April 19. Since this date almost bleeds into the long May holidays — starting with May 1 Labor Day and ending with May 9 Victory Day — I would bet that the quarantine will be extended through then.

Casualties mount

Until then, the casualties will continue to mount in terms of people killed or infected.

The economic casualties are already mounting.

That’s why the United States is spending $2 trillion to offset the damage, the European Union another $1 trillion and why international financial institutions, like the International Monetary Fund, are putting up $50 billion in emergency lending. Along with that, individual nations are pursuing their own stimulus plans. Ukraine’s government wants to create a $7 billion stabilization fund. While it’s more than 15 percent of the national budget, the truth is that Ukraine doesn’t have the resources to spend like economic powerhouses such as the United States, Germany, China, and the United Kingdom.

Ukraine suffers most

And that’s why Ukraine, as it is usually fated, is likely to suffer most. Already, most forecasts say a recession is a given and that the economy could shrink 5 to 10 percent, the hryvnia could fall to 30 to 35 per $1, and that a half-million people could be thrown out of work. The sad part is that these might be best-case scenarios. We hope not.

Kyiv Post’s future

I’ll stick to the economic fallout that I know best: That of the Kyiv Post. The newspaper is in its 25th year and I have been blessed to be at the helm for 12 of those years. We have survived recessions, revolutions, and war. And never can I remember a time when we stopped the weekly print edition because of what was happening in the world.

But we stopped this week’s print edition — the 13th of our 25th year, dated March 27, 2020.

The main reason is that there’s nowhere to distribute the newspaper. Our paid subscribers — who get about 1/3 of our 9,000-copy print run — are mostly closed. The more than 300 free distribution points around Ukraine — including hotels, restaurants and office centers — are mostly closed. So printing a paper that people won’t see is just a waste of money. A replica will be available in PDF format online.

Most likely, we will resume printing only when the quarantine is lifted and businesses reopen. But this is not the biggest problem.

Living online only

The longer this goes on, the more our main sources of revenue are imperiled — print advertising and events organization. This revenue has dried up. This leaves us only two sources of revenue: digital subscriptions and advertising, mainly employment ads and also what we call business wire, a section where company press releases are published online.

Readership, as expected during a crisis, is up. We will have more than 3 million page views in March alone — nearly a third of the entire total for 2019. Online subscriptions, which cost $45 on the yearly plan or $6 monthly, are also going up. As I write this, we have 1,843 online subscribers as of March 28 and we love them all. But while this is an increasingly hopeful number, it doesn’t pay the bills.

So far, we haven’t laid off any of our 50 employees or cut salaries. But we’ll need a turnaround soon.

Media under stress

The same situation is playing out in other news media organizations. This is why we’re in a mad scramble for emergency grants. We’re in a somewhat better position than other organizations because our owner, Adnan Kivan of Odesa, is incredibly generous, patient and understanding. But there are limits, in time and in money, so the Kyiv Post is fervently hoping that business gets back on track soon and at least some donor money is diverted to supporting independent journalism in its hour of need (again).

There are winners and losers from every crisis, and news media looks to be in the loser camp. If this is over in May, we’ll be OK. If it lasts through autumn or longer, it’s going to be an entirely different situation. Already, media experts are predicting this crisis will accelerate the demise of the print edition. I certainly hope not.

But we are not suffering as badly as some other people out there — the jobless, the elderly, the single mothers raising children without paternal support, the university student and so on.

Human nature on display

Crises provide opportunities and test human character.

My grandfather, who lived through the Great Depression in America, told me that the richest people only share generously when they feel their lives and fortunes are at risk.

We may be in such a situation now.

Already, the crisis has exposed the divide between the well-connected rich and the rest of us. The rich can retreat to their country homes, have no trouble getting access to coronavirus tests, get the best medical treatment and magically know when to sell off their stocks before the market collapses. Already, there are bad signs: The same capitalists who believe all their profits belong to them when the economy is going well are some of the same ones looking for government handouts during today’s crisis.

Their ugliness and selfishness, fortunately, are more than offset by the heroes who have stepped forward to give generously, to work harder and to accept the risk of infection as part of their duty — this includes medical works, cleaners, law enforcement officers, construction workers, delivery people and all the rest who continue to keep the stressed-out economy going.

I don’t know what it will take for the top 1% to share what they have and join the rest of us in solving this problem and easing the suffering of the have-nots. But we’re about to find out.

Predictions are pretty useless at this point. Prayers seem more useful at the moment. And I hope humanity, collectively, learns to take better care of our planet and ourselves after we’re done with the real life-and-death drama unfolding before our very eyes.

Brian Bonner is the chief editor and executive director of the Kyiv Post.