Last week a group of students from the Faculty of Journalism at Zaporizhia National University, which is known for its progressive initiatives, visited the exclusion zone, the area surrounding the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station from where residents were evacuated in 1986. The students also visited the Chernobyl Shelter, the zone still inhabited by returnees, and Prypiat. The town, located on the banks of the river of the same name, near the railway station, is also within the exclusion zone.
According to Viktor Kostiuk, the dean of the Faculty of Journalism, the desire to visit the Chornobyl exclusion zone appeared after the publication of The Day’s book Dvi Rusi. The journalism students and their lecturers read the book, which contains the text of Lina Kostenko’s speech “Ukraine as a Victim and Factor in the Globalization of Disasters.” The poet underscores the need to study the phenomenon of Chornobyl journalism.
The article provided an impetus to further serious studies. Professor Kostiuk says that the students and their lecturers began drawing up a list of Zaporizhia-based journalists who covered the Chornobyl disaster in 1986. Three were located in the city, and the only surviving one is Valeriy Fortunin. After interviewing him and the families of the deceased journalists, the students began to analyze press coverage and write papers on the subject.
Two students are writing papers on how the Kyiv and Moscow press wrote about the Chornobyl disaster, and a third student is writing about the stance of Zaporizhia’s print media. After their field trip the students and staff of journalism faculty plan to publish a book tentatively entitled Chornobyl Journalism.
