A much-rumored rift between the nation’s top media owners and President Viktor Yanukovych appears to be real and growing.
Anecdotal evidence can be found in independent media monitoring of the election campaign by a number of organizations under the umbrella of the International Renaissance Foundation.
A comprehensive study of news coverage of nine major national channels in Ukraine showed a surprising drift towards more balance in the news and more air time for the opposition in the final stages of the election campaign. This stands as a sharp contrast with Ukraine’s previous election campaigns, when pressure on the news media increased, and so did imbalance in news coverage in favor of incumbents. If the new trend holds, it’s good news for the public, which has been turned off by one-sided and partisan news coverage.
Experts speculate that the handful of oligarchs who own most of the nation’s media outlets are disenchanted with the pro-presidential Party of Regions. If that’s true, their media outlets have awakened suddenly to the dangers of the consolidation of economic and political power in one party.
“Preserving the political pluralism is essential for preserving the economic pluralism,” said Viktoria Siumar, head of the International Media Institute, a non-government organization, and one of the coordinators of the monitoring effort.
Nowhere is the contrast in coverage more visible than on Inter TV channel, owned by Valeriy Khoroshkovskiy, deputy prime minister and multi-millionaire.
When the monitoring started in early September, his channel was giving 15 percent of its news coverage to the United Opposition-Batkivshchyna Party. But by the end of the campaign, the figure more than doubled, to 38 percent. Svoboda started featuring in the news, too, which was not the case early in the campaign.
Larisa Gorska, a member of Inter’s management board, said the shift occurred partly due to the “good will of the owners, the willpower of managers and professionalism of journalists.”
A similar move to more balanced coverage occurred at most channels owned by billionaire Viktor Pinchuk. Of the channels monitored, he owns Novy Kanal, ICTV and STB.
At the early stages of monitoring, which started at the beginning of September, all channels signed a memorandum of understanding that they will strive to a fair and ethical coverage, a precedent in Ukraine, according to Yevhen Bystrytskiy, executive director of the Renaissance Foundation, a non-government organization of American philanthropist George Soros.
But a source familiar with the inner workings of the program said it came at the initiative of Pinchuk and Khoroshkovskiy, who essentially needed a good excuse to change their media holdings’ editorial policies. The monitoring, backed by international donors, as well as the Party of Region’s need to have the result of the election and their own victory recognized by the international community, created enough momentum for the media to become fairer.
Other oligarchs, Economy Minister and Channel 5 owner Petro Poroshenko and the Russian owner of TVi, Konstatin Kagalovsky, came on board also, according to a Kyiv Post source who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of harming his relationship with media owners.
Ukraina TV channel, owned by the nation’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov and 1+1, controlled by Ihor Kolomoisky, also signed up, although somewhat less willingly. This would put Akhmetov in the odd position of championing journalistic fairness as he serves as an elected member of parliament from the Party of Regions.
At least four media oligarchs have been at odds with some core representatives of the Party of Regions, including Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and “the family,” a loose grouping of people close to the president and his elder son, Oleksandr Yanukovych.
Pinchuk openly challenged the Party of Regions in his native city of Dnipropetrovsk by nominating his flagship pipe plant’s top manager to run for parliament in district 24 against a Party of Regions nominee. Yakiv Bezbakh, the manager, won that constituency, which had twice sent Pinchuk to parliament in the past.
Poroshenko, meanwhile, had a public row with the president in early September, when Yanukovych said he would “tear the heads off” Poroshenko and others.
Poroshenko was also running for parliament in his home town Vinnytsia, and won easily. Commentators speculated that the president is worried about Poroshenko becoming an independent force in parliament. According to the news monitoring, his Channel 5 gave 53 percent of its news coverage to the United Opposition, and only 18 percent to the Party of Regions.
Khoroshkovskiy, a member of the so-called “gas lobby” along with billionaire Dmytro Firtash and Presidential Administration head Serhiy Lyovochkin, is a deputy prime minister with little power. Appointed in February, he hoped to eventually become prime minister, but is now marginalized in the the Cabinet, a source in the Cabinet told the Kyiv Post on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly.
