As Ukraine's parliament buzzed with excitement because of the stalemate between the majority and the opposition on Feb. 5, there was one TV channel that was uninterested in the colorful images from the session hall: parliament's very own.
Rada TV channel, which was created in
1998 and is subsidized by the taxpayers, failed to see the attraction
of deputies blocking the podium, opposition wearing uniform red
sweatshirts in support of personal voting by elected deputies, and
huge slogans and images of guillotine and bloody chopped-off hand
plastered around the perimeter.
The channel, which by 10 a.m. was
ready for a live broadcast the first session after the winter break,
instead chose to run ads for its own shows and meaningless graphic
images, to the disgruntlement of at least some of the viewers, who
complained in social networks.
“There is nothing happening in the
Verkhovna Rada, according to the version of the main political
channel, as they call it. The taxpayers are supporting these
falsifiers,” Vlad Sodel, a photographer for Kommersant daily wrote
on his Facebook page.
Vasyl Klymchuk, the general director of the
Rada channel, told the Kyiv Post there is nothing extraordinary about the
Rada channel being blank in the midst of a major stand-off between
the majority and the opposition. “We do not switch on the broadcast
according to the rules of procedure, until the speaker or deputy
shows up in the hall,” he said.
The channel’s coverage of the day’s
events started with the briefing of the speaker, who lashed out at
the opposition for blocking the work of parliament.
Rada TV is financed from the state
budget. Its financing is hidden under the article that sets aside
money for for parliament’s functioning, says Andriy Pyshny, a
deputy from Batkivshchyna. The total Rada budget for this year is
just under Hr 850 million.
Olena Bondarenko, a deputy with
pro-presidential Party of Regions and deputy head of the freedom of
speech committee in parliament, says last year’s budget for Rada TV
was Hr 7 million.
Parliament also has its own newspaper
and magazine, which is getting a budget subsidy of just under Hr 29
million in 2013. The Cabinet’s newspaper gets another Hr 5 million,
according to the state budget.
Bondarenko said it was “traditional”
for the Rada channel to not show parliamentary fights and the
blocking of the podium. “I am not sure that this mess should be
shown anyway,” she said. She also added that if the deputies wanted
to establish new rules for the broadcasting, it was up to them. The
opposition is in a good position to make changes through the media
and freedom of speech committee, where seven out of 10 members are
their representatives.
Rada TV is not the only channel that
fails to serve the public interest, a recent media study showed. On
Feb. 5 Telekritika watchdog published the results of its December
media monitoring, which showed that the state-run Channel 1
consistently
fails to observe most journalistic standards.
Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post staff writer Denis Rafalsky contributed to this story.
