You're reading: Media outlet says it is targeted in smear campaign

A table listing 18 reputable national and regional media outlets published on Sept. 10 to an obscure website suggests that at least one of them accepted, and three more had already reached an agreement, to run a story for money on the national currency’s devaluation prospects. 

Oddly enough, the table lists Ukrainska Pravda,
one of Ukraine’s most visited online news websites known for its independent stance, for accepting $9,000 in an exchange for an article that outlines the
hryvnia currency’s eventual fall.

Ukrainska Pravda swiftly denied the allegation
and called it yet another measure to smear its reputation for solid news reporting.

The list first appeared on kraina.name, and
included seven screen shots of e-mailed messages purportedly containing communication
between some of the journalists and the woman who allegedly compiled the list under
the alias of Olga Korneyeva who claimed to represent a Russian public relations
firm called Soobscheniye.

The Kyiv Post couldn’t confirm whether
Korneyeva or the public relations firm exists.

Kyiv Post phone calls placed with the phone
number listed in the e-mail screenshots for Korneyeva and emails sent to the electronic
address that both purportedly belong to her went unanswered.

The table, which the From-UA website carried
the same day, lists Ukrainska Pravda editor Serhiy Liamets as accepting $9,000
for writing an article about the hryvnia’s devaluation. Ukrainska Pravda has roughly
270,000 average daily visitors, according to LiveInternet counter.

Pravda was swift to respond. It refuted the
allegation by demonstrating the currency report it wrote on Sept.4 was based on
a recent study by Russia’s Sberbank, and which was heavily referenced by other
media. Pravda said it never accepts money for publishing news without the
appropriate marking.

Liamets, who the table listed as accepting
money, didn’t have his byline attached to the Sept. 4 article. Liamets told the
Kyiv Post that two days later on Sept. 6 the website did receive proposals of
money for running a similar story, but they were simply ignored.

Many industry insiders and observers say that
the smear campaign is targeting reputable media, and is devised to neutralize the
Russian bank’s unfavorable report.

“This is a large-scale provocation with huge
money and secret services involved,” Ukrainska Pravda said in its editorial
statement on Sept. 11.

They pointed the finger at First Deputy Prime
Minister Sergiy Arbuzov as the mastermind of the campaign. But his spokesman
said on Sept. 12 that Arbuzov has, in fact, nothing to do with provocations and
himself is a victim of a smear campaign.

The person who could shed light on the authors
of the scheme is Korneyeva, who allegedly called and emailed Ukrainian media to
have them print the currency story for cash. But she was nowhere to be found.

She didn’t answer her mobile phone and didn’t
respond to e-mailed messages. Moreover, searches for PR agency Soobscheniye,
which she allegedly represented, found no trace of this agency either in the
online, or offline world.

Kateryna Shapoval, a journalist from Forbes.ua,
who was also mentioned in the table allegedly compiled by Korneyeva, said that she
was contacted by a woman who introduced herself by this name and offered money
in exchange for publishing stories about the “debt crisis of Ukraine and the
hryvnia’s fall,” also suggesting to refer to the analytical report produced by
Russia’s Sberbank.

Shapoval said Forbes turned down the offer but
she tried to track down the woman, without much success.

Shapoval said that the news based on the
Sberbank report came out days before Korneyeva’s call. Forbes.ua ran their own
investigation and suggested that the offer of cash for stories was designed to
make the whole Sberbank prediction look fake. Forbes.ua also quoted several
sources that pointed to Arbuzov as the person behind the plot by which
Korneyeva’s offer of cash to Pravda and Forbes was then laid out in detail on
other websites.

Ivan Narimanov, Executive Editor of From-UA
website, one of those who re-posted the table of media outlets, said that he
only reprinted a good story from the site Elite of Eurasia “which specializes
on revelatory stories,” as he explained.

“None of the courts has ever ruled that these
publications (by Elite of Eurasia) were false,” Narimanov added. Narimanov also
said that his website has no relation to Arbuzov, a connection frequently
mentioned by the media.

The Kyiv Post also spoke
with Svitlana Banas, marketing manager at regional newspaper Halytsky
Kontrakty, who confirmed that Korneyeva had contacted her to place an article
about the hryvnia currency as an “advertorial.”

Part of a bigger campaign

The alleged smear campaign with a phantom
public relations agent is not the only problem Ukrainska Pravda has faced recently.
On Sept. 4, Pravda said that a false namesake paper was printed and distributed
in several Ukrainian cities with a design identical to that of Pravda’s
original website.

A clone site of Ukrainska Pravda appeared online, called Ukrainska Kryvda (Ukrainian Lies).

Moreover, a clone site also appeared online,
called Ukrainska Kryvda (Ukrainian Lies), also identical in design. This is a
second copycat site that appeared in the last few months. In June, Ukrainska
Nepravda (Ukrainian Untruth) was also launched.

Media experts say that a series of scandals
that hit Pravda lately are a part of a campaign to undermine the publication,
which was launched in 2000 by its current editor Olena Prytula and Georgiy
Gongadze, the latter of whom was brutally murdered and beheaded just months
later.

“There’s a definite aim to discredit the media
that are impossible to buy or take under control,” Oksana Romaniuk, head of
Institute of Mass Information media watchdog said, adding she believes that
those in power are behind this.

It looks like more provocations are in the
works, as an online recruiting agency, MyWork, published a number of vacancies
advertised by the false Ukrainska Pravda newspaper to hire a few dozen people,
including editors and journalists, guards and other staff. The author of the
announcement is “Ukrainska Pravda news agency,” which was registered earlier
this year using the true Pravda’s brand.

Romaniuk said she believed this new agency
would probably start working soon under Ukrainska Pravda brand as a part of expensive
campaign against the website.

“Just paying the salaries for staff will cost
about $150,000 per month,” she said.

Kyiv Post staff writer
Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected].