Oleh Rybachuk, a former Ukrainian government official turned civic activist, spoke with the Kyiv Post about the implications for media freedom.
The recently resolved conflict between the Kyiv Post owner and the newspaper’s editorial staff put the spotlight on the state of independent and objective media in Ukraine.
The dispute was resolved on April 20 in a mutually beneficial way for the publisher and staff members who went on strike to protest owner Mohammad Zahoor’s dismissal of chief editor Brian Bonner.
Zahoor fired Bonner because of the editor’s refusal to stop publication the April 15 publication of an interview with Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk, who talked about the government’s controversial curbs on grain exports and the controversial rule of a quasi-state company in Ukraine’s multibillion-dollar agribusiness sector.
Zahoor did not reinstate Bonner as chief editor, but allowed him to rejoin the staff as part of a four-member editorial board that directs news coverage.
Oleh Rybachuk, a former government official turned civic activist, spoke with the Kyiv Post about the implications for media freedom.
Читайте це інтерв’ю українською тут.
Kyiv Post: What do you think the resolution of the conflict in the Kyiv Post means for the media and democracy in Ukraine?
Oleh Rybachuk: This is a success story that proves if Ukrainians truly unite around solving a problem, the chances for this to succeed are very high. It is important that the journalists were not trying to sort this out behind closed doors. In this kind of conflict, attempts to solve the problem behind closed doors normally fail.
It is interesting to note that part of this conflict was a media owner who is a foreigner with no public political preferences in Ukraine.
If you watch news on TV, you can conclude that there is a direct link between an owner’s business or their political affiliation and the content of the news programs that run on their TV channels.”
– Oleh Rybachuk, a civic activist.
Last fall I had a conversation with your editors who said they were proud that the Kyiv Post’s publisher does not interfere with editorial policy.
But everything good comes to an end. It is clear to me that at some point the publisher was approached by someone with some convincing arguments and pressure was applied.
Why would a publisher get interested in an average interview otherwise? You do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this out.
If you watch news on TV, you can conclude that there is a direct link between an owner’s business or their political affiliation and the content of the news programs that run on their TV channels.
Just like in the Kyiv Post, that same line of argumentation was around the conflict in the Gazeta Po-Kievski daily [whose chief editor was recently fired]. They said it has nothing to do with politics, just business.
KP: Is the resolution of the conflict in the Kyiv Post an exception rather than the rule?
OR: The authorities have pretty much filtered television media.
There is only one guarantee to that – adopt a law letting journalists work independently. The law about access to public information adopted last year is just about to start working.
In Ukraine, most media owners do not view it [media] as a business.
– Oleh Rybachuk, a civic activist.
However, recently I learned from a source that there was a closed meeting in parliament initiated by its speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn and dedicated to putting up a strategy of how to neutralize this law.
KP: Much of print media in Ukraine is not profitable. How do you think it is possible to make non-profitable media independent and objective?
OR: This is a serious and key question. The Kyiv Post’s owner was keeping a newspaper just like some other oligarchs keep soccer clubs, even though soccer clubs can be profitable when managed properly. In Ukraine, most media owners do not view it as a business.
It is rather a political protection or a bargaining chip. Also to protect media, there normally is a board of trustees made up of trusted people from the community.
The board normally also seeks long-term investments for that media.
KP: The Kyiv Post staff believes the conflict was triggered by the publisher’s request to pull an interview. A number of my colleagues from other media organizations that I recently talked to said they would have done that without hesitation. For the Kyiv Post editorial team, such a practice has not been accepted and breaks the rules of independent journalism. Why can’t most Ukrainian journalists understand this and why don’t they stand up against it?
In the West, there are authoritative journalists who really influence politics and government. Here journalists are very young and there is no demand for old and experienced reporters.”
– Oleh Rybachuk, a civic activist.
OR: It is interesting to know that in the West, the average age of a journalist is significantly higher than in Ukraine.
In the West, there are authoritative journalists who really influence politics and government. Here journalists are very young and there is no demand for old and experienced reporters.
KP: What can be done to support independent journalism in Ukraine?
OR: I am surprised that Ukrainian journalists have never created some association of journalists that would help them professionally and legally defend their rights. We have a number of media unions, but there is no association that would unite them.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].
