Please let me explain the newspaper’s language policy.
The English-language Kyiv Post has, for its entire 15 years, promoted Ukrainian statehood, democracy – and the Ukrainian language. That will not change, and I hope that never changes.
In practice, however, the Kyiv Post cannot ignore the Russian language and stay in business on its Ukrainian/Russian language version. So we use the two languages interchangeably on the site without discrimination. If the content or story comes to us in Ukrainian, we use that.
There are many reasons for this.
Most of the news services to which we subscribe provide the fastest and most complete content in the Russian language. These include Interfax and UNIAN news agencies, as well as others. We could not survive financially or stay competitive with other news sources by having all of this material translated into the Ukrainian language. The Kyiv Post survives on advertising revenue alone, not on any government or foundation grants.
Moreover, the aim of expanding from our English-language base is to attract a mass audience.
Ukrainian is, of course, the official language of Ukraine. But millions of Ukrainians prefer to get their information in the Russian language. Just ask any news kiosk operator which editions sell more – it is Russian-language publications over Ukrainian-language ones by a wide margin. Additionally, Russian remains one of the most widely spoken international languages – with some 200 million users in several nations, including millions in Ukraine, worldwide behind only English, Chinese, Hindi and Spanish.
The Kyiv Post has many staff writers who write stories in Ukrainian – not Russian – and this exclusive material is displayed prominently on the Ukrainian/Russian language website, along with Russian-language material. This is no different than the policy adopted by other Ukrainian news sources.
“Many Ukrainian media use two languages on one site,” Deputy Chief Editor Andrey Chernikov said. “We can see TV show hosts asking questions in Ukrainian and getting answers in Russian. Moreover, electronic publications and news websites are using two languages, even in a single material – the article or interview.”
Nonetheless, as Chernikov said: “The language issue in Ukraine is most painful. Debates about language, it seems, will never stop.”
So we have decided at the Kyiv Post to navigate the volatile language issue by becoming multilingual – English, Ukrainian and Russian – to reach the widest possible audience. We hire multilingual writers and editors and minimize use of translation services for both cost and quality reasons.
This policy, as we know, does not make everyone happy – especially those who are trying to promote Ukrainian more widely and regard Russian as the language of the oppressor.
One upset reader wrote: “It seems that [by] going into a Russian-only version of the paper and not even paying proper lip service to the Ukrainian language [the Kyiv Post is] placing itself in favor of the Russification of Ukraine. I am sad to say that your once fine newspaper will not be read by me anymore in any language unless you bring the Ukrainian language portion of your paper up to par with the obvious Russian and English versions of your paper.”
We certainly understand the sentiment. The hard reality is, however, that many Ukrainians have chosen in their daily lives to use all three languages – English, Russian and Ukrainian. And so will we.
To promote the Ukrainian language, we urge our readers to contribute material – opinion pieces and blogs, for instance – in the Ukrainian language. There these articles will find a home on the same website that carries all three languages.
Whatever language you prefer, we at the Kyiv Post believe that the quality of the content is what matters most – and we aim to deliver as much of it as possible, in languages that as many people as possible prefer and can understand.
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected]
