However, some of us could have gone courtesy of Ukraine’s richest billionaire Rinat Akhmetov. Two pairs of sweet tickets – each worth more than Hr 1,000 — landed on the desks of two Kyiv Post editors for Journalist’s Day, celebrated in Ukraine on June 5. According to information that came with the gift, it arrived via a courier for Akhmetov-owned Systems Capital Management.
We returned the tickets.
It turns out that many other journalists received them and did not return the tickets. In fact, they all sat in the same section – 69, according to http://dusia.telekritika.ua/shoubiz/18716, and even had access in the stadium bar.
This is just wrong.
Journalists should avoid taking freebies from the people they cover. It’s that simple.
The Kyiv Post tries to avoid these conflicts of interests. In cases in which we do accept free offers, they are judged on a case-by-case basis, and the exceptions should be explained to readers. It’s impractical to return small gifts (such as bottles of wine that often get delivered to the office at Christmas).
We also generally find no ethical problems going on journalistic tours organized by government agencies or non-profit organizations, as long as no strings are attached to how we cover or don’t cover the event.
But there is an ethical problem with Ukraine’s richest billionaire, who is also a member of parliament, doling out freebies to journalists. These gifts are compromising and weaken the arms-length, professional relationships that should exist between journalists and newsmakers such as Akhmetov.
If Akhmetov in the future would like to do something for journalists, he should be more accessible to the public and to journalists, since his large business holdings and unanswered questions about his current business practice and his past remain items of public interest and importance. Or he could create more scholarships for journalists in Ukraine at such fine institutions as the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, where he admirably sponsors the Digital School of Journalism.
But he and his company cross the line when they start handing out expensive tickets and gifts to journalists, more of whom would be doing the profession a favor by just saying no.
