While most feel the impacts of government decisions
over time, journalists are among the first to catch the wind of change.
This has been particularly obvious during Viktor Yanukovych
tenure as president in 2010-2014m when newsrooms in Ukraine, including Kyiv
Post, were among the first to feel the new zeitgeist.
My work at the Kyiv Post started in May after the eventful
beginning of 2010 when in a tight presidential race Yanukovych became Ukraine’s
new president, defeating Yulia Tymoshenko.
Around that time I had my job interview with Kyiv Post chief
editor Brian Bonner. Then Brian strongly recommended that I cover the paper’s
Kyiv section and anything that came with it – courts, the police, local
elections, rallies etc – which I strongly resisted, preferring to focus on the
parliament and national politics, which I did.
There was a lot to write about. As Yanukovych backtracked on
the country’s modest democratic gains during Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency in
2005-2010, opposition rallies have started to be unwelcome, their leaders were
landing behind bars while public activists were harassed and beaten.
The newly elected president had a plan to swiftly
consolidate power in his hands, including control over media. My first story
was on censorship at two Ukrainian large television channels – STB and 1+1. Two
other TV channels that were seen as loyal to Yanukovych’s political opposition
– 5 Channel and TVi – were on the waiting list to be stripped in a few months
of some of their broadcasting licenses that could have helped them extend their
coverage.
Those days the atmosphere at Kyiv Post newsroom was tense although
we hoped that we would be safe. But Brian was anxious. When I once asked him if he
thinks such pressure could come to Kyiv Post, he said something along the lines
that “If you live long enough, you’ll see things happening.”
We did not have to wait long to see bad things happening.
A
year later, in April 2011, now former Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk
pressured the Kyiv Post publisher to remove an interview that the minister gave to the the newspaper and
in which he did not look good responding to allegations of corruption in grain
business. But the paper ran the story anyway and Brian got fired the same day, which prompted the rest of us to go on strike and get him reinstated five
days later. This has been one of the few victories for journalists among
numerous defeats. Speaking of the minister, he has been on the run since April
2014 when the General Prosecutor’s Office charged him with embezzling public money.
Half a year into Yanukovych’s tenure as president, criminal
investigations against his political opponents started piling up, a few people
were charged and arrested, a couple of others were put on an Interpol wanted list.
One of those people was Bohdan Danylyshyn, economy minister in the Tymoshenko
cabinet, whom I interviewed in 2010. The day the interview with Danylyshyn came out, I was subpoenaed to give testimony as a witness in the case against the
former minister. It was one of the occasional times when a journalist was
summoned to the prosecutor’s office for questioning for the story he wrote.
Over time it has become more and more difficult for
independent media to do their work properly.
When Yanukovych gave press
conferences, his staff made sure that there were people with pre-arranged
questions that he was not embarrassed to answer. Criticism against the
government and the president did not appear on national TV, while the
administration de facto divided journalists into two groups – loyal and
oppositionist. The first group had good access to government officials and was
privileged to travel with the president abroad, but did little to nothing to
report objectively on the president and his government. The second group of
reporters went out of their way to access information that the government was
keeping a lid on and tell what has not been mentioned on TV, but has always
encountered obstacles on their way.
During 2011-2012, offices of opposition parties and some TV
channels were raided by law enforcement, some others were simply bugged. The
law enforcement agencies’ task was not to enforce the law but to create a sense
of fear and, to some extent, they succeeded.
The Kyiv Post continued its fair
reporting of the government, but the newsroom was full of fear that we
would become a target once again as our numerous sources suggested the paper
was high on the radar of those in power. It was during those years that
reporters learned to turn off their cell phones and to take batteries out
during important conversations with their sources for the fear of being bugged.
Luckily for us and our readers, the Kyiv Post publisher did not
interfere with the newspaper’s editorial policy and its journalists could do their jobs.
Those several turbulent years of Yanukovych regime were
tough and taught us that with resistance and solidarity we could prevail and
hopefully this always be the case.
