Two television channels, UA: Pershyi and Pryamyi, on Oct. 20 accused President Volodymyr Zelensky and his party of heavy-handed political pressure.
Both channels said that the President’s Office sent them demands on whom to include and exclude from their political talk shows. If they did not comply, the President’s Office allegedly retaliated by blocking the ruling Servant of the People party members from participating.
Zelensky’s office denied the accusations.
“I don’t understand what the President’s Office or I have to do with this but I understand that this is hype. We don’t confirm anything, there are no lists. Especially a public television channel,” Interfax-Ukraine quoted Zelensky as saying. “As for deputies, they can go or not go to any program. It seens to me that they’re free people.”
In an Oct. 20 Facebook post, Myroslava Barchuk, the host of UA: Pershyi public channel’s talk show Countdown, said that all appearances by Servant of the People members must be approved by the contact person of Zelensky’s advisor, Mykhailo Podolyak. She also accused the President’s Office of issuing ultimatums.
For example, on Oct. 11, Countdown received an ultimatum to invite to its show about energy security two Servant of the People members who are not energy experts, or else it would get none of the party representatives, Barchuk wrote. “We decided not to accept ultimatums.”
She added that a week later, on Oct. 18, the President’s Office said that it would only allow two Servant of the People members to attend the program if it disinvited Geo Leros, a lawmaker who got kicked out of Servant of the People last year for criticizing Zelensky.
After the show refused to cancel Leros’s appearance, the President’s Office accused Countdown of not giving sufficient airtime to the ruling party.
Following UA: Pershyi’s announcement, Pryamyi, a channel that belongs to Zelensky’s political opponent former President Petro Poroshenko, published its own accusations against Zelensky’s staff. Pryamyi stated that it, too, rejected ultimatums from the President’s Office, which punished its journalists by refusing them accreditation to Zelensky’s events.
In September, the President’s Office “gave direct orders to completely ignore the Pryamyi channel,” the TV station wrote.
In a comment to publication Novoye Vremya, Podolyak denied that the President’s Office pressures the media, calling it “absolute nonsense.”
He appeared to have indirectly criticized the channels, saying that “society wants unbiased moderation on the air, where all parties to the dialogue have equal opportunities and journalists do not abuse their political positions.”
