It is difficult to report on Ukraine’s Potemkin presidency, a realm in which all that is dark and gloomy is portrayed in gauzy, soft-focus images. It would be a “Kodak moment” were Kodak not headed to bankruptcy.
That is, it is difficult to report without the Kyiv Post appearing to be in opposition to the administration.
There are arguments that the ambitious Grigory Potemkin never constructed perfect village facades and dressed serfs as happy villagers to impress the 18th-century Empress Catherine. He was a showman, but not a charlatan.
The same cannot be said about the information cranked out by the administration of Viktor Yanukovych. One often wonders if the purveyor and the public reader are on the same planet.
Potemkin got a bad rap from jealous courtiers. The current regime is judged in the here-and-now by the multitudes. The president’s polls have tanked, and the people are saying that they are not better off than they were two years ago.
For the record, witnesses from Catherine the Great’s 4,000-mile epic journey down the Dnipro River – which included foreign ambassadors, no less – testified of flourishing communities. However, the false “Potemkin village” legend entered common lore.
Fast-forward to the 21st century: In Yanukovych-land, that which is gloomy and sad is rather gloomy and sad, though portrayed with a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland doublespeak suggesting that all is peaches and cream.
This is true whether one measures national well-being on a corruption, economic or freedom index. These, in my view, are the Big Three.
A few months ago, I posed the question: Is the Kyiv Post an opposition newspaper? I answered that question in the negative. I could almost hear giggles from every quarter. Great belly laughs, really.
Readers raised the old saw, paraphrased here: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it ain’t a hippopotamus. Hence, the Kyiv Post must be an opposition publication.
I prefer a more practical explanation.
Most issues of the Kyiv Post carry stories that would be rated negative by the administration. No argument there. However, my recollection is that Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko felt the velvet glove of the newspaper as well.
That’s political life. It’s rough and tumble. It goes with the territory.
Also, we at the Kyiv Post are smart enough to know that our words will not cause anyone to storm the barricades. We are, in large part, communicating with expatriates. In other words, we’re talking among ourselves.
We do hope, however, that our columns and editorial observations – and we strive to present all sides – contribute to honest and healthy dialogue.
The fact is that a sitting president will always get more scrutiny by a free media. Yulia Tymoshenko, the jailed former prime minister, had no invisible media protection shield during her head-spinning government.
Though I come from a political background, I left that suitcase at the border when I stepped into Ukraine in 1994. In business – and when representing multinational companies – I felt no compulsion to alienate any political side unnecessarily.
In fact, I took on all comers: The company of which I am chairman, Willard, has conducted speech and media training for representatives of three Ukrainian presidents and several parliamentary factions (We were not yet on the scene during the Leonid Kravchuk years).
I don’t have a favorite Ukrainian politician. I am an expat, and can’t vote. My geopolitical view, however, is that this nation should look both east and west. I am not sure that the basket-case economies of Europe offer great economic role models or tremendous opportunities for Ukraine
As for our chief editor, Brian Bonner, I really don’t know his Ukrainian political view. I do know him to be a liberal on most things, as am I.
I think we both support a man named Barack Obama. We both also believe passionately in freedom, and in a democratic, rather than an autocratic, government. I don’t believe that this is a partisan view, even in Ukraine.
In a recent meeting, Kyiv Post publisher Mohammad Zahoor noted that people generally believe most opinions expressed on the editorial page are his by virtue of the fact he is the publisher.
However, this is not necessarily so.
As owner, Zahoor has a right to influence editorial policy, but has not chosen to do so. He is, however, head of the editorial board and can step in and decide at his discretion. He is, indeed, a benevolent publisher. I have known editorial tyrants in that position.
In the dozen years that I have known Zahoor, I have not heard him express a preference for any politician. However, he did insert an important line into the Kyiv Post editorial policy:
“If any Kyiv Post reporter, editor or, in fact, CEO pushes a partisan political agenda, he or she will be fired.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s a pretty definitive statement.
Kyiv Post CEO Michael Willard can be reached at [email protected]
