President Leonid Kuchma may lose one of his biggest supporters among journalists if Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko has his way
President Leonid Kuchma may lose one of his biggest supporters among journalists if Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko has his way.
Yushchenko officially asked Kuchma on April 2 to fire Vadym Dolhanov, the president of the state- financed National Television Company of Ukraine on the grounds that Dolhanov’s coverage of the government’s activities was not objective. Kuchma said he was opposed to dismissing Dolhanov, but agreed to order a special commission to look into the allegations. Kuchma said he would “make the right decision” based on its conclusions.
Dolhanov also hosts the program “7 days,” a weekly current events show often criticized for airing pro-presidential propaganda.
Yushchenko isn’t the only one who wants Dolhanov out. The oppositionist groups National Salvation Forum and Ukraine Without Kuchma have demanded that Dolhanov be sacked before they will consider negotiations with the government to stop the anti-presidential protests.
“[Dolhanov’s probable dismissal] would be the only successful and timely decision made by Leonid Kuchma during this political crisis,” Vitaly Shevchenko, the secretary of the parliamentary Committee for Freedom of Speech and Information told UNIAN on April 2. “Mass dissatisfaction is ripening on the part of staff working for the National Television Company due to pressure on freedom of speech, censorship of news bulletins and open political opportunism imposed on journalists by Dolhanov.”
The Yabluko Party, which opposed the station’s broadcasting of private phone conversations recorded by police, is also calling for Dolhanov’s ouster.
Yabluko leader Mykhailo Brodsky said that if the president doesn’t fire Dolhanov within a week, his faction will storm the studio of UT-1 to stop it from broadcasting.
Dolhanov accused the government of violating the principles of freedom of speech and putting pressure on the NTCU. “We could be hit with mud or even fired, but it wouldn’t stop us from telling the truth,” Dolhanov said on “7 Days” on March 31.
President Kuchma told journalists on April 3 that the special commission will investigate coverage of the governments’ activities on UT-1, and if there is proof that UT-1 is biased, the president will make “an absolutely correct decision.”
