Den/The Day’s Editor-in-Chief Larysa Ivshyna was recently invited to Vitalii Zhuhai’s program “View” on the Ukrlife TV channel. It was about the latest challenges to Ukrainian journalism, the absence of such thing as reputation in the profession, inability or deliberate unwillingness to support a few high-quality projects the national information space produces, and the standards and priorities of the newspaper Den which the anchorman called “culturological phenomenon.” We suggest that readers get acquainted with some fragment of the TV interview which is particularly topical on the eve of Journalism Day, the professional holiday of Ukrainian media people.
The newspaper Den is not only a trilingual printed publication – it also means a powerful website, a library, and photo exhibits. It is a culturological phenomenon. Next year the newspaper will mark its 20th anniversary. It is, perhaps in the future, a certain analytical and decision-making center. In this situation, what priorities do you, as a chief, set to yourself and your team?
“We have grown a ‘Tree,’ an interesting and radiant one, with branches and fruits. We recently made an electronic version in order to illustrate, rather than just describe, our projects. Sometimes this foreword to a university class debate shows all the continuity and process of our work. These projects did not come up today – they go on living and developing. So, our job is to support and foster things, as well as to give a new dimension. Frankly speaking, it seems to me that many of our colleagues and, partly, society have not yet fully understood all that Den has done and offered. It may sound somewhat immodest, but I must say that I, as the editor, have been growing this ‘Tree’ for 18 years now. My formula was: some newspapers and projects are like advertising pillars. It is also a useful thing, especially at a time when all the talk was about pluralism and impartiality, when any viewpoint could be expressed and ‘hung onto this pillar.’ Then someone else comes with a different point of view which is also hung onto this pillar, and it’s good. Their logic is: we develop nothing, we are responsible for nothing, and this is right and quite in the spirit of the time. But I was convinced that the Ukrainian situation required a different way of actions. So, I will say that there are ‘advertising pillars’ as well as ‘trees’ that have grown out of the Ukrainian soil.
“Reconsidering our identity and transforming a lot of things, we published Ukraine Incognita as part of the Den Library. Our historical books were not perhaps considered sharp enough politically, but they helped pull out a brick from the ‘bottom’ of the post-Soviet structure, a continuation of the Ukrainian SSR. Incidentally, the now, unfortunately, late James Mace, who had contributed to the newspaper for eight years, said and wrote in the 1990s, when he came to Ukraine, that it was the Ukrainian SSR that gained independence. Mace was the American who revealed the truth about the genocidal Holodomor. He had done so well before Yushchenko made a contribution of his own, but it is a different story. So, it was a super-task to turn the Ukrainian SSR into Ukraine. We have undoubtedly done a part of the job and will go on doing it. This is our newspaper’s priority.”
I must broach again such a problem as information wars. I know that we should not narrow things down here and, naturally, no publications, even such as Den, can deal with propaganda, counterpropaganda, or counteraction only. But what should we do to resist this information onslaught?
“You know, Vitalii, I must say that the very existence of such a newspaper as Den is powerful counterpropaganda. It is a matter of tactics to repel some attacks today, but the fact that Ukrainian society has found strength and intellectual resources to increase and develop Ukrainian identity for so many years and show that it is attractive and viable, is a real challenge to Russia, a decaying post-Soviet ‘understate.’ We are accustomed to thinking that Russia is a big power, for it produces an extremely great deal of propaganda material. They are also having an impact on Europe. But, even having so many resources, gas, and so on, they are standing on a historical ‘shifting ground.’ Their problem is that they stole Ukrainian history, but a stolen history cannot be reproduced. I recently watched an interview at [the Russian independent TV channel] Dozhd. I understood why the Russians had carried out their plan to annex Crimea. They are saying that ‘our great Prince Vladimir was baptized in Korsun. And where is Korsun? It is in our Crimea.’ These simplified lines mix up everything. They in fact stole Crimea to prove the previous theft materially. Is this productive? This will depend not only on our feeling of being right, but also on our active political actions today. But there are major problems here, such as unrevised politics and an unplowed humanitarian field, – there’s a lot of work to do. But, in my view, this challenge is very effective, for we have done the book The Power of the Soft Sign, a real antidote to the ‘Russian World.’ I advise everybody to read this book because the Russians first planned a humanitarian invasion – they would send journalists and experts to our territory, who, aided by our central TV channels, were doing subversive work against eastern Ukraine. You perhaps remember an expert who used to speak on television for years about the attractiveness of the Donetsk-Kryvy Rih Republic. Frankly speaking, I would play back and watch all those tapes again. There was surely a center that dished out those heads to the channels. This work was well planned and orchestrated.”
Do you think the efforts to resist the informational aggression should be first of all aimed at the domestic consumer, i.e., citizens of Ukraine, or at foreigners? Should this be done simultaneously or in a proportion?
“First of all, we should make and propagate our own convincing informational products. In addition to the Ukrainian and Russian versions, we also have an English-language one, The Day. I think the Ukrainian state should be interested in seeking ways to deliver this information to the European Parliament and all kinds of headquarters, cultural and political centers in Europe. If they are so far unable to produce this, let them help deliver it. But this raises again the problem of ignorance. Our politicians feel very uncertain in this field. For example, we at Den have named 2015 the Year of Yaroslav the Wise. It is very logical because this year marks the 1,000th anniversary of the beginning of his rule. Yes, he began in the then Novgorod, also part of the Kyivan Rus’ state. But, after all, that was the year his father died and he began to reign. This is important if we are to reproduce a thousand-year-long connection of civilizations here and show Ukrainians that they have a colossal-dimension history, they have what to defend and show to a cultured Europe. Surely, this does not mean that we will automatically consider ourselves ancestors – it is continuity, but still we must reproduce this. Our media space lacks this kind of information, which I think is wrong. It has a direct bearing on today’s political events, for Russia is fighting against us not only for territory, but also for our place in history. They want to push us to the fringes, but they won’t succeed because this brazen aggression has scared the world.”
DEN/THE DAY’S EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LARYSA IVSHYNA / Photo by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day
You hold the Den School of Journalism, stage photo exhibits, and publish books. In other words, it is a powerful educational and cultural activity. Is it possible to broaden this impact? Did you mull over doing something like Likhachov Readings?
“I like the way you are thinking: you are doing this and that, but do you want to do something else? You can use various words to speak about the newspaper and call up various associations. Somebody said that Den is a newspaper for a nonexistent country. We often used this in the pre-Maidan era. The Maidan events, full of major stress and acuity, brought out the people who can lay the groundwork for a future Ukraine. But this should be defended and learned, so we are trying – endlessly and in various forms – to put across what we can and what we have learned. One must hear and read always. We have held a superb online roundtable on the intellectual heritage of Ukrainian emigration. More often than not, Ukrainian TV programs contain a lot of unnecessary information but fatally lack what is considered a ‘sanitary standard,’ a must. I often quote our collections ‘Armor-Piercing Political Writing’ and ‘Subversive Literature.’ Among the 15 thin books of ‘Armor-Piercing Political Writing’ is George Shevelov’s Moscow. Maroseika. It’s am extremely valuable piece. He wrote in the 1950s about Ukraine’s three enemies: Moscow, ‘Kochubei mentality,’ and provinciality. The Ukrainian intellectual community must have a program for each of these fields. Moscow, as a political decision-making center aimed at ruining the Ukrainian state, needs to be opposed. The ‘Kochubei mentality’ is collaborationism which has always been Ukraine’s sore point. It is still strong today – both covertly and overtly – and provincialism is what makes us look backward in the eyes of the whole world because the cultural level and attitude to life values are now assuming an altogether different shape. Do you remember a Vinnytsia video clip about a couple of swans that were taking their chicks across a town? What is more, a police car escorted this procession. I said I had never seen a more elegant escort than this. How different it is from the situations when ‘gangs’ of the politicians of all calibers would rush down the streets, making passersby lean against fences! It was not a European tradition.”
On the other hand, we can see how many of our guys show amazing humaneness in the war. So, our society must switch to other values, such as environmental awareness, a humane attitude to all the living creatures, and, what is more, a high level of exactingness towards politicians. One can speak endlessly about the danger of corruption, but I don’t think there is corruption in Ukraine, which once shocked my colleagues. What we have is not corruption but a particularly cultivated way of life. Ukraine has not always had and must not have it. Even if we surrounded the country with a barbed-wire fence and put them all to prison, it would still be extremely difficult to find a crystal clean businessman or politician in Ukraine. The main trouble is that post-Soviet property has not been distributed under any laws. So, it would be wrong to say that we can pick out and punish a few people and this will change the situation. This principle must be abandoned. Kolomoisky once said: let everybody go with me to the privatization commission and make an additional payment – it is one of the options. Moreover, this idea was born in a milieu from which this could not be expected. Whether or not to like this is a different thing. The main point is that we must finally turn over the page of the 1990s, for it causes new ‘infections’ all the time.”
Now, Ms. Ivshyna, about the problem of reading. We even know a joke – an entry in the diary of a present-day person: “I read the pager yesterday and thought a lot.” Do our politicians read at all, and have you seen at least one of them holding a Den?
“Yes, I have, there are this kind of politicians. I have a Facebook photo that shows Vitali Klitschko reading our books at the last year’s Lviv Book Forum. Clearly, most politicians have not read these books. Those who studied in the Soviet era had one problem: they did not read these books because they were considered undesirable and banned. But now that the USSR had broken up and Ukraine is free, it would be a good idea to take and read these books. And even if somebody has missed the start, he or she should say frankly: I haven’t read but I want to, I will take this, I will arm myself with this, and I’ll be an absolutely modern-day Ukrainian person. This is becoming, albeit very slowly, a necessity. I once noticed that most programs about parliament and its margins say what and at what price the MPs eat and drink. But I have seen not a single piece of news – now, after the second Maidan – about what they read in addition to the IPads they use during sessions. And when I saw what the parliamentary newsstand was selling, I was surprised: things had changed since the early 1990s. I was a parliamentary correspondent in the early 1990s and very often saw many MPs buy and read newspapers – not only because there was no Internet. I think the habit of reading was still alive at the time, and it was good. For our newspaper to make its way into the new parliament, we had to invite Lilia Hrynevych and Mykola Kniazhytsky, chairpersons of two parliamentary committees, to our office and discuss with them our publication’s humanitarian program which might also be of use for MPs. If we conduct a survey of the quality of their education, we will see that MPs also need some courses in their spare time – in the language, history, and basic things of society.”
In-service training of sorts…
“Yes! Why not? I am convinced that you should always study and restudy if you failed to learn something in good time. So, our newspaper finally found itself in the parliamentary newsstand after such Herculean efforts. Is this a normal practice? This only means that we should not expect too much from the people who still do not fully understand the necessity of the development of political thinking. It is this background that our newspaper is trying to lay.”
To what extent is our press in general and your newspaper in particular being read abroad?
“Abroad is abroad. Do they have no other things to do than to read our press?”
And the diaspora?
“The diaspora also has things to do. We all exaggerate our importance to the diaspora and the world. People live in a complicated and competitive world; they have to care about their wellbeing, children’s schooling, traveling, and a host of other things. The world and all the sides of life are open. Naturally, some people are aware of a duty towards the country of their forefathers, and these people are doing quite a lot. But it is very naive to expect too much from the diaspora because it is now the time when we ourselves have to encourage the diaspora – for example, to set up a Ukrainian cultural club in Poland, Hungary, or Norway. For in some of our regions, especially on the frontier, people are in a situation when the premier of a neighboring country (say, Hungary) has visited them three times in the last while, while his Ukrainian counterpart has done so not a single time. In other words, we must show clearly and openly that we are prepared to pay for ourselves rather than walk around cap in hand. We must set ambitious goals to ourselves and say, stage by stage, how we are going to achieve them. The Ukrainians all over the world should receive all kinds of support and signals from the Ukrainian state. This will overturn the consumerist and lumpen-oriented matrix that always stifles Ukrainians with its humiliating primitiveness. There’s no need to wait for something – it’s time we began to help the diaspora. We ourselves must make sure that our best people realize themselves and occupy the places they really deserve. For the one who knows how to create an atmosphere, in which everybody becomes three times more clever and talented, is invincible. But the atmosphere, in which everyone is busy begging plaintively for money, is disheartened. At the very outset, James Mace wrote a lot of articles for us, which also comprise the opinion that the most unproductive position is that of a victim. Nobody in the world will pity or help us. This was clear back in 1932-33.”
There are about 40 journalism departments as well as many specialized projects in Ukraine: foreign trainers are coming, books are being published and translated… So, there are some changes. But still what subjects, now off the curriculum, do you think should be taught at university journalism departments?
“I am not much of an expert in this field… We must see what is being taught now. I used to ask university rectors and journalism school deans if they were clearly aware of what kind of a country they were training journalists for. For, looking at their graduates, I did not feel that their curriculums were aimed at the Ukraine that must be created. It has always been a cliche of sorts: there is a state, and everything inside it should be done to meet the ‘BBC standards’ of impartiality and pluralism. This has brought us to a catastrophe because there were, so to speak, a Ukrainophobe and a patriotic botanist next to him, and they were trying to create the illusion of a debate. Journalists themselves did not understand that it was unnatural. There was once a debate like this with a foreign foundation’s trainers at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy. I said then an important phrase: before creating the BBC, one must create Britain. I am convinced that we had the illusion of a Ukrainian state, that it was the Ukrainian SSR that gained independence, and that the Ukrainian SSR was to be transformed. It is impossible to achieve this by way of impartiality and chats between the victim and the executioner. We should have first chosen the true values by applying, of course, the BBC’s right methods. The debate should be between those who want a Ukrainian state but perhaps have different visions of this. This would provide a complete pluralism and a broad range of arguments and instruments. But this has not occurred so far.”
We are used to talking about impartiality. But there are instances when the author has the right to have a view of his own. For example, Larry King never hides his opinion during an interview.
“We are just in the condition of a ruined state, a not fully ruined Ukrainian SSR, a not yet built European-type Ukraine. This transition needs journalists who cherish the idea of a Ukrainian state. This does not mean that they must lie or turn a blind eye to certain things for the sake of the state. But this will mean a vector. I even polemicize with our well-known figures who keep saying that there is no newspaper like Gazeta Wyborcza in Ukraine. Have you heard this?”
This kind of debates are…
“Do you think we have such a newspaper and what is the situation around this?”
This is very subjective – in order not to hype somebody or pass judgments.
“But why? We are always afraid to hype somebody. We must speak about and hype or put down anybody – it is an absolutely free talk. For the Poles were really in a different situation. They had Gazeta Wyborcza, but they also had Solidarity, a political partner. They had a society with the same church and language, and Pope John Paul II who did his utmost for the world to understand and warmly welcome Poland. Ukraine should have created its citizens the way the Italians once did. They said: we have Italy, and now we must create Italians. After gaining Ukraine in 1991, we should have created Ukrainians as a political nation. We had all kinds of Ukrainians: ethnic, patriotic, Soviet, post-Soviet, but Ukrainian political citizens who aim to live in a free Europe should have been created in all these years. They were in fact created somewhere. This occurred contrary to, rather than owing to, the purposeful work of the population’s intellectual stratum. It is no accident that I presented all our books in universities because I wanted to find a ‘thinking audience’ among professors and students who could understand the time we are living in. This was a more difficult challenge than the one Poland and Gazeta Wyborcza had to face.”
What is your attitude to public television? Will it help finish ruining the old system and build the one that should be built?
“Public television is a good thing if it is made by educated and wise people. For any nice thing can be ‘turned upside down’ and result in something totally opposite with the same name. People used to ask what prevented the First National Channel from being public television. And is it not public television? When the state pays you money, it takes it from our taxes, not from the prime minister’s pocket.”
That’s right.
“It should have been so in all the past years. But this depends on the leadership’s nature and willpower. Some people can also come to public television and promise some bonuses and preferences… I believe Ukrainians are more exacting to one another, which will help create new images of journalists. We will see people who are concerned about their reputation. It is very important. The institution of reputation does not practically work in this country, due to which very many journalists, who had begun in a very promising way and tried to conduct major investigations, then very easily took steps that absolutely sullied this reputation. But society is overburdened with problems and often does not have enough time to react to this.”
What do you think are criteria of the quality press?
“Society is now in a situation when what is dished out free of charge is also eaten free of charge. It is the ‘quality press of a trash dump.’ If you can imagine a trash-dump-like community with this kind of culture and mentality, then it is their ideological publication. Self-respecting people should first of all think: can I pay for this, and if I want this, I must pay for it. I want our country to have the quality press, which means that it should be stimulated by the hryvnia. All depends on society’s sound-minded demand – the desire to have all things of its own. It’s a good economic trait of Ukrainians. Where has it gone? What is free of charge is poisonous and humiliates Ukrainians, and I don’t believe in any quality because this is being done with technological intentions.”
Many journalists have gone into politics. It may sound awkward, but have you ever been invited into politics? And would you like to do so? For it is a trend now: many people make a start in journalism and then…
“I am out of this trend. When I was very little, aged about 4 or 5, I would say to my beloved uncle (which provoked jokes): ‘Uncle, let’s go and talk politics.’ In all probability, interest in this kind of things was formed by the fact that I had never gone to a daycare facility owing to extreme individualism and spent a lot of time with wise adults. I used to listen to the radio, watch and think a lot. There must have been some bent for this. I also read a lot of historical literature. That was my proportion of time and space. The politics that we have seen over all the past years is not the place I would like to be in. This is why I haven’t been there. I would like to encourage the forces that will create the politics in which I’d like to be. Some ‘prototypes’ are gradually emerging somewhere in our society. And when I was once asked why I was not going now... I don’t exactly like the man who asked me this, so I answered that I would like to bring up ‘grave diggers’ for this political class by means of the newspaper and our summer school… I want this politics to give way, in a true competition, to a quality alternative which I am trying to cultivate.”
Incidentally, does the summer school consist of university and school students?
“It is a high-quality alternative! When the first students came to our summer school, I asked them who Petro Hryhorenko was. They gave me a puzzled look: why are you asking this? I said to them: if you don’t know who Petro Hryhorenko was, you have nothing to do in Ukraine’s journalism. I take them to the Samizdat Museum in Podil, and we speak about why it is important. And here is a very recent example that confirms the importance of this. On May 18 Ukraine encouraged Crimean Tatars on the day of their sorrow, and it happened so dramatically that it was in fact their second deportation. But the very formula in social networking sites – ‘We, Crimean Tatars’ – sounds insincere. For Ukrainians should assume more responsibility on their own land. And if everybody had read the biography of Hryhorenko and known him… Incidentally, we published him in our library because he was just a fantastic person: in the Soviet era he sacrificed the career of a brilliant general and defended the Crimean Tatar people in their quest to repatriate. Sakharov supported this much later. And when Ukrainian journalists do not know this and do not think in these categories, they become very vulnerable. Yet everybody could have said ‘we, like Petro Hryhorenko’ at the time. We, Ukrainians, are defending Crimean Tatars. The Tatars were victims because they were unable to do so at the time, while we, Ukrainians, are now capable of this. The difference between the two statements means that there is an array of unprocessed information and unread good literature. It is easier in those universities where devotees of education know this and give their students a list of this literature. We show all the rest at our summer school – we seem to be carving a good gem. Otherwise, there is neither quality nor intellectual horizons in journalism. I think the pop-culture-style inertia of the media, the habit of receiving a dished-out freebie, has brought Ukraine to a humanitarian disaster, to a war. And only an absolutely different type of behavior can help us recover from it.”
A joke says that a pessimist is a well-informed optimist. And, as part of your work, you daily analyze and process materials on the political and economic situation. Do you think that Ukraine is now full of apathy, the fear of military conflict escalation, pre-default expectations, discontent and disappointment, which may lead to a third Maidan?
“We must draw conclusions from information. Indeed, when we had the first Maidan, we failed to understand and still cannot explain what conclusions the Ukrainians drew from it. Later, various processes and individuals kindled the second Maidan. It was quite fair in the desire to overthrow the Yanukovych government, but at the same time, oddly enough, the one against whom the first Maidan rose up is feeling very good in the second Maidan’s period. You must remember that the first Maidan went on under the slogan ‘Down with Kuchma!’ And now Kuchma is handing out autographs… Look at what I think is a very dramatic story – the faction leader of Samopomich, the most progressive youth force, takes Kuchma’s autograph.”
I saw this photo. I thought he was signing a document…
“He said he was taking an autograph. The point is that he (Mr. Oleh Bereziuk) feels no embarrassment in this situation, and, in principle, this is easy to understand. Journalists rarely ask them about reputation, the public pressure is small in this area, and it is much better to benefit from a friendship with the powerful and the rich than to invite troubles by asking a question that will damage your reputation. This is an illustration to the fact that our political thinking is almost immobile. We keep getting lost like a baby in the woods, bumping into each of the trees, and coming back to square one. It is the problem of journalism. We must teach ourselves and society and pressure politicians. It is not an easy job, and nobody promises any bonuses. Speaking of bonuses, there was a dramatic situation in the early 1990s and the 2000s, when markets began to form. At first Ukrainian journalism looked very promising and encouraging. There were fresh projects and good TV programs. Then, during Kuchma’s second term in office, all this began to decay. Our Ukrainian journalism is now like a ‘shipwreck cemetery.’ Buried there are the projects which nobody recalls, has written about, or mulled over. We need new textbooks on history in general and on the history of contemporary journalism in particular. We have been suffering, but we have found the light and our own way. And until we do so, the good and bad neighbors will be tempting everybody, and the journalist will be thinking not about the overall societal interest but about their narrow history in order to be liked by one customer or another. I can recall the late Buzyna’s story. It is really very dramatic also because, even though he was a man of adventurous nature (he was very young, when he came to the newspaper in which I was a deputy editor), he might have ended up not so sadly, but it was a period when, to quote Olha Herasymiuk, ‘love for Ukraine was bad business.’ Only the people to whom this was natural could do so. And, contrary to this, they experienced shortage of money and pressure. It was a period at Den when the presidential elections were in progress and a tax inspector was sitting in our office and watching. In spite of this we held out. Yet many people failed to hold out because there was a neighbor who paid for not loving Ukraine. In particular, this should be said to Ukrainian citizens if they do not support their own, if they don’t want to spend a few hryvnias to keep the Ukrainian press, public radio and television afloat.”
Ms. Ivshyna, we have a tradition to ask program guests to forecast what awaits Ukraine.
“All I have been doing all the time is to make forecasts. I have already told you something from my life story – I began to think of all this too early. I saw in the early 1990s that, 20 years later, Russia would solve the Chechen and other problems and take on Ukraine again. So, our forecasts will be very successful if we come to understand our own value and assume responsibility not for 20 years but for a 1,000-year-long Ukrainian civilization, for a history that draws inspiration from numerous sources. The common assumption is that this task is very far away from today. I think this is interesting, progressive, and contemporary. This will give us a real drive, and we will know at once whom we should elect. It takes one format of world perception to assume responsibility for 20 years, but it will take a slightly different format for you to be able to serve your people. Therefore, we should be more exacting to one another and, above all, to our own self and only then to politicians. Then, I think, a state, which I would like to see and design virtually, will be realistic. This is my forecast, and it may as well come true. It is more difficult now to make forecasts. It was easy for me to forecast a crisis, but, as far as prosperity is concerned, it depends on whether we will really want it.”
