Ukraine’s media landscape: The dark ages

She sat there each morning, at the entrance to the metro. An elderly lady, shouting out the headlines of the day, selling the nation's main daily Segodnya (Today). Not a particularly informative read – murders, scams and scandals, Ukraine's equivalent of the Daily Mail. Still, it provided some insight into how recent developments were being spun, and those sales certainly went far to supplement her meagre pension.

Everything changed this spring when Vesti, a new daily with almost four times Segodnya's print run, appeared on the market. Advertised on huge banners throughout the city with the dubious slogan “We're not for sale”, the paper was distributed free at metro stops and city choke points by an army of young workers. The people gobbled it up. Both quality and content were comparable to Segodnya – many of its journalists, including the chief editor Ihor Huzhva, had come from there – and it was a free way to get the anxiety-news-fix during your morning commute.