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Protests in Ukraine have inspired numerous articles in the local and international mass-media. The way news and comments are written or broadcast tells connaiseurs a lot about the political affiliation of journalists, censorship or self-censorship in the Ukrainian press, and the degree of lucidity or sensibility of media professionals.
Vladyslav Golovin of Forbes Russia (until recently employed by Forbes Ukraine) wrote about notable changes in the editorial policy of some Ukrainian media outlets as a result of last weekend’s clashes between protesters and the Berkut special units in Kiev.
Inter TV channel, which has one of the largest audiences in the country, has radically changed the tonality of its news reports, Golovin writes. The journalist finds that while the channel’s policy before was somewhat detached from protests, it started covering the opposition in a much better light in newscasts. Golovin specifies that Inter belongs to billionaire Dmitry Firtash and head of the presidential administration Sergey Levochkin.
Ukraina TV, whose owner is the magnate and friend of president Yanukovych Rinat Ahmetov, covered the protests without criticizing authorities, but it did not cushion their actions either, according to the Forbes journalist. 1+1 TV channel, which belongs to two other magnates, Gennady Bogolyubov and Igor Kolomoisky, also gave a more objective coverage of the protests.
The media outlets belonging to Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of ex-president Leonid Kuchma, also changed their policy. While on Friday, after Ukraine failed to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, ICTV television avoided criticizing authorities' actions, after the protests in Maidan the news coverage became more objective, without showing authorities in a favorable light, Golovin adds.
One of the theories for changes in editorial policy, voiced by the author’s sources, is that Ukrainian magnates were satisfied with the pro-European orientation of the country, and Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the Agreement was interpreted as becoming too close to Kremlin, whose methods are not quite friendly towards business people.
Vladyslav Golovin worked with Forbes Ukraine from 2010 up to November 2013, and was one of the 14 reporters and editors, along with the editor-in-chief, who resigned from the magazine after it was bought by businessman Sergey Kurchenko, who is close to president Yanukovych.
Immediately after the purchase of Forbes by Kurchenko, editor-in-chief Vladimir Fedorin resigned. In his resignation letter, he gave the following reasons: “I view the sale of Forbes Ukraine as the end of the project in its current form. I am convinced that the buyer pursues one of the following three goals (or all of them at once): 1. to shut journalists’ mouths before the presidential elections; 2. to rehabilitate his own reputation; 3. to use the publication to address issues that have nothing to do with the media business”.
