Censorship is suspected as TV Channel 1+1, which belongs to Dnipropetrovsk oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, cut references to its owner from video leading up to the annual New Year’s speech of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
This year’s the speech began with the video compilation of the most significant events that happened in Ukraine and in the world in 2015, including the so-called oligarchic wars for property.
The full version of New Year’s President Poroshenko speech
1+1 was the only channel to cut the entire video compilation, which included a 2.5 second-moment of Ukrnafta seizure and Kolomoisky arguing with journalists on March 22, 2015.
Journalist Viktor Ukolov noticed the edit and wrote about it in his blog on Ukrainska Pravda on Jan. 1. “This is outrageous. It was not the government who censored media, but media who tried to censor government in order to please their boss,” wrote Ukolov.
The 1+1 edition of the President Poroshenko speech( without video prelude)
In turn, Olexandr Tkachenko, CEO of 1+1 media group defended the decision to cut the video..
“This year’s annual speech of the president was enhanced with the video report of the ‘successes of Presidential Administration’. We (1+1) classified that it would be unnecessary to use the TV air in New Year’s night as the instrument of political propaganda,” wrote Tkachenko on his Facebook page.
So 1+1 views started watching the speech not from the introductory video, but from the moment the president started speaking.
According to Tkachenko, on New Year’s night nine million Ukrainians watched the presidential speech on 1+1 TV channel.
Kyiv Post staff writer Veronika Melkozerova can be reached at [email protected]
