The never-ending scandals over infringements on the freedom of the press in Ukraine seem to have finally dimmed the sense of the very idea of journalistic independence. Scandals in this field erupted around such projects as Kontinent, Obkom.net, Ukrayinska pravda, and Svoboda. By a strange coincidence of circumstances, none of these projects was neutral or unbiased in content or independent in the coverage of governmental activities: they suffered due to their one- sided critical assessments of President Leonid Kuchma’s actions. If impartiality is to be the main criterion and result of media independence (which Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University students are taught it is), then, from this angle, the opposition media, especially the newspaper Svoboda, stand side by side with the UT-1 and ICTV television companies and the newspaper Fakty i kommentarii, which excel in singing praises of the president. These are two sides of the same coin for the lack of objectivity. The opposition employs the same misinformation methods as government.
TRENCH MENTALITY
Of course, government does not like opposition media projects not because they are independent of oligarchs but because the former knows who finances the often unwarranted flow of criticism. It is also indisputable that Svoboda had its print-run impounded not because the Prosecutor General’s Office is unaware of the principles of democracy. Even a cursory analysis of this publication apparently shows that it was established with a view to discredit some absolutely specific persons. And, as these specific persons rule the state, Svoboda is considered an anti-state or, if you like, anti-regime publication. In any case, we see the struggle of those who use crude methods of defense against those who launch amoral attacks. Tellingly, after a press-run has been impounded or an libel suit filed, the sides switch places: government hurls its accusations and reproaches, while the downtrodden begin to scream about violations of the freedom of speech along with their honor and dignity. Moreover, they do this absolutely frankly, guilelessly, and as confidently as, for example, YuTAR journalists feel about the independence of their television channel. But did any of these journalists ever try to carry out an honest inquiry into the links between Pavlo Lazarenko and the United Energy Systems of Ukraine or to submit to Mr. Kuchma a couple of restrained positive assessments on the way the land reform began? This niche is filled by similar ostensibly independent pro-presidential media. In most cases these niches do not intersect.
The criticized bureaucrats, of course, dislike the unbiased media, but they nurture the ideas of a full-scale revenge as a rule only if they see that the publication is a deliberate attack made to order. It is this kind of situation that once engulfed Kontinent, Obkom.net and some other media that have something to do with the so-called opposition but, unfortunately, not with independence.
AWARENESS OF NECESSITY
The owners of absolutely all central television channels and newspapers seem to have concluded today a tacit agreement with the authorities that allows the information market to live on and develop. This agreement comes down to avoiding negative comments on Leonid Kuchma. From time to time, certain media outlets also place Mykola Azarov under a similar taboo. For any project can be wrecked by a banal confiscation of editorial office computers as part of a detailed investigation, as was the case with Obkom.net.
This weak compromise allowed the authorities to push the opposition-controlled anti-presidential media to the Internet, out reach for most Ukrainians, and low-quality television frequencies. In exchange for this compromise, some talented journalists and managers gained an opportunity to implement their ideas in a relatively democratic and almost completely permissive environment.
Yet, a considerable number of gifted creative people cannot fit in with the new system of coordinates. You will agree that being for or against Kuchma is too trivial a choice for a sound-minded individual. As the president works and can make mistakes, he must accordingly receive both criticism and praises. In the current system of coordinates, a newspaper that publishes first critical and then positive comments on, say, the government, is considered “unprincipled.” Isn’t it time to drop such principles?
NEW PRINCIPLES
The burgeoning advertising market, thanks to its ever-increasing quality of handling the customer and the ability to evade taxes, has provided Ukraine a chance it hitherto never had. In the interval between the elections, the popular central media outlets were allowed to become politically independent projects. When the owners of all television companies and some newspapers recover from election fever toward the end of summer, they will see that their information media have become self-financing businesses. Moreover, they are investment-attractive in the most serious, pecuniary sense of the word. It is now up to managers to take advantage of this attractiveness and win the information business over from politicians. This is quite a realistic chance because this kind of manager is available both the country and out. Will the politicians allow the media shares they own to be used like this? Perhaps they will if offered a high enough price. Most probability, such a price will be offered by foreigners, for, against the general background of Ukrainian television, only the cost-effective New and STB channels, whose controlling shares belong to Russian investors, seem to be independent. Still, Ukrainian banks will also be able after some time to appreciate the advantages of investing in the information projects of Ukraine’s managers.
Undoubtedly, growing advertising revenues will not automatically make the media politically independent. But if television companies and newspapers, which today have a chance to be fully cost-effective only as part of publishing conglomerates, stop being appendages to a certain business and become self-supporting profitable projects, then the prospects of true freedom of expression will assume concrete shape in this country. Obviously, only a financially-independent television company will be able to independently determine the degree of cooperation with one political force or another during the campaign, as is the case in Western democracies. In that case, it is these media outlets, rather than the venal opposition press services, that will have the right to debate about how free the press is. In a way this forecast might be too vague, but the present-day reality harbors risks too great not only for the information business but also for those in power.
