It is not often that Viktor Yanukovych appears live on air on domestic channels. Even his recorded interviews with Ukrainian journalists are a rarity. Instead, the president prefers meeting the representatives of influential international mass media. Yet on the occasion of the first anniversary of his inauguration, at 11 a.m. on February 25, Yanukovych is to appear in a direct broadcast. This was announced by the presidential press ser-vice, with reference to the Presidential Administration Chief of Staff Serhii Liovochkin.
The television project “Conversation with the Country” is to be simultaneously broadcast by six nationwide TV channels: Inter, 1+1, ICTV, TRC Ukraine, National Television Company of Ukraine (NTKU), and Channel 5. For three hours, Yanukovych will answer questions suggested during live television links from various regions of Ukraine, as well as via phone and the Internet.
The submission of questions and remarks began on February 15.
Ukrtelecom JSC has created a call center to receive citizens’ questions and opinions (call number 0 800 50 20 11, all calls are free). Questions can also be submitted via the websites of such information agencies as UNIAN or Interfax-Ukraine.
The incoming messages will be passed on to the president on a daily basis. At least, this is what the press service of the Presidential Administration maintains. Then, all the questions will be analyzed. None of them will remain unanswered, the administration promises.
So, the president will appear live on air with the people.
What prompted this advanced method, this “new format of live talk of the president with the citizens” (according to the Presidential Administration chief of staff)? The answer is obvious. This format had already been tested and tried out by the Russian television. “Sincere” communication with the people on various levels is one of the Russian prime minister’s favored genres. In particular, at the end of last year Vladimir Putin spent a solid four hours speaking live to Russian citizens. Two million questions — and yet among them there wasn’t a single awkward one. And all “sharp” questions were strictly administered, according to the script.
This project, “Conversation with the Country,” might be a “continuation of the policy of transparent government,” but it essentially leaves out one of the major prerequisites of such transparency — journalism. Isn’t it up to journalists to come up with thought-provoking, sharp questions which worry the nation?
Isn’t it journalists who should formulate and pose these questions to the president, prime minister, members of government and parliament? However, in the “advanced format,” journalists will have to content themselves with being sidelined…
There is another curious aspect to this story.
Six major nationwide channels are co-organizing “Conversation with the Country.” Their resources will be employed to enable television links from the regions to Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Studio, where Yanukovych will answer the questions. In this project, Ukrainian television channels have demonstrated unprecedented unanimity and concord. But why, while uniting to enable the president’s communication with the country, won’t the most popular nationwide TV channels (by all appearances, it is a matter of will, not of ability) unite to enable talks between countries? Or, for instance, for the sake of raising the standards of television products?
Maybe, the president can suggest this idea to the television channels?
Let this be our question to him.
