Everything is relative, but it was still a cynical stretch for the good people of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry to claim that press freedom in the nation is improving.
With Ukraine losing its standing on all diplomatic fronts, West and East, it’s understandable that the Foreign Ministry is so desperate for good news that officials tried to manufacture some favorable publicity through a Jan. 27 press release.
It backfired.
Headlined “Ukraine seen as improving in press freedom rankings,” the ministry cites the most recent World Press Freedom Index by the international free-speech watchdog, Reporters Without Frontiers.
Correctly, the ministry notes that Ukraine’s ranking improved among nations from 131 to 116 out of 178 countries surveyed. But then it veers into disinformation with a spokesman’s claim: “Last year showed that journalists in this country are free to cover the important issues whether favorable or unfavorable to the government.”
We, of course, have our own experiences with restrictions on press freedoms and our opinion does not coincide with the Foreign Ministry’s view.
Reporters Without Borders responded that the 15-spot jump doesn’t mean that there has been improvement in press freedom in Ukraine. Instead, Ukraine got a higher ranking because press freedom worsened sharply around the globe.
Everything is relative, but it was still a cynical stretch for the good people of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry to claim that press freedom in the nation is improving.
“It is crucial to note that year 2011 was marked by widespread repression in many countries over the world,” according to the organization. “In this backdrop, the deterioration of press freedom has been general. So many countries have competed towards the bottom of the index that the states where the press freedom situation has stagnated were automatically pushed up.”
Moreover, Reporters Without Borders noted that Ukraine improved in 2011 only in the sense that no journalists were killed for their work, unlike in 2010, when Kharkiv corruption muckraker Vasyl Klimentyev disappeared.
But the overall picture is still an ugly one in Ukraine, Reporters Without Borders concluded, and we agree. “Journalists are facing growing violence from the law enforcement officers while performing their duties: 35 media professionals were attacked in 2011, most of them by police and security officers. Impunity of the perpetrators of attacks on journalists is far from ending.”
The organization also notes the secrecy of the murder trial involving a main suspect in the 2000 murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze and the scuttled criminal charges against ex-President Leonid Kuchma, a prime suspect in ordering the killing. Reporters Without Borders also cites official and self-censorship, as well as “deeply flawed” allocation of digital TV frequencies.
That’s not the whole story, but it’s a much more truthful one than the Foreign Ministry wants the world to believe.
