NEWS ANALYSIS

Freedom of press and information still under threat in Ukraine

by Serhiy Naboka

CONCLUSION

In recent years several programs that covered the work of the Verkhovna Rada have vanished from Ukrainian television. A series of anti-Parliament programs and programs that acclaim the work of the executive bodies have appeared in their place.

News programs have been especially affected. Almost exactly a year after President Leonid Kuchma was elected, the program UNIAR News went off the air. It was practically the only news program that received no financial support from commercial sources or from government structures, and had the ability to most extensively portray the political realities in an objective light.

In the fall of 1996 the news program "Vikna" on CIT-3 went off the air for what Internews called "being too objective." In 1995 it had been recognized as the best news information program on television. However, it was also considered loyal to ex-Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk, who had recently been removed from office.

The fall of Vikna was extensively commented on in the Ukrainian press. Allegedly, Zinovii Kulyk, then president of the National Television and Radio Co. of Ukraine, had voiced disapproval with a specific program "and suggested that the show not broadcast any more programs without his approval or that of a person appointed by him," wrote the newspaper Den on July 4.

Viktor Petrenko, the head of the Council of Radio and Television, eventually admitted that the council was used to destroy the show. Control by the executive over the most popular and highly rated television channels that are broadcast over all of Ukraine is virtually total.

In an interview published in Den on July 26, Mr. Kulyk, now minister of information, made clear "just what the executive branch holds."

"Half of channel TB, even less on UT-2 - four hours of programming; the private company Studio 1+1 has the other four hours; a third channel, which is also non-governmental. With regard to the printed media, here it is even more straightforward - besides Holos Ukrainy and Uriadoviy Kurier, the government controls nothing," said Mr. Kulyk.

More painstaking search reveals some differences. Channels 1,2 3 and the ICTV channel are the highest rated and their airwaves capture the entire viewer audience of Ukraine. There is much evidence to assert that they all are controlled either directly or indirectly by the executive branch, the ruling government, and more precisely, by the president.

Today's minister of information long ago explained the concept behind UT-1: it is the president's channel. Nobody doubts this, just as nobody doubts that the National Television and Radio Co. fully serves the president and the government.

UT-2 is essentially filled with the programming of the private company Studio 1+1. But the license was awarded after very heavy lobbying by the president's administration and has resulted in several controversies. One such controversy involved claims by Perekhid television, which held the contract until then, that Studio 1+1, an American firm, paid off government officials in return for the award. This has all been extensively covered in the mass media and by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Television and Radio.

Lately, several well-known political journalists have left Studio 1+1, including its top news reporter, Volodymyr Skachko, their decision motivated by pressures to "work for the president" or face censorship of their materials.

The influential newspaper Zerkalo Nedieli has also concluded that Studio 1+1 is controlled by the president. It alleged so in an editorial, to which government officials never responded.

UT-3, the third all-Ukrainian channel, on which the Inter network broadcasts, was formed with the direct involvement of Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Volodymyr Horbulin.

It is interesting that it is now run by Mr. Horbulin's former aide. The national security secretary has admitted that he "did much to create the television channel Inter" and was forced to admit "I have been accused of a commercial interests in the formation of Inter. Even a monetary figure was named, which I supposedly received," said Mr. Horbulin in the magazine Nova Khvylia in 1997.

The general director of Inter, Oleksander Zinchenko, has never concealed his ties to Mr. Horbulin and the security council; in fact, he has done just the opposite. The station's programming openly supports the activities of the government.

The pro-government newspaper Moloda Ukraina wrote on July 26, that "the analyses on Inter carry a pro-presidential character," and it surmised that one need not worry about the electoral viewpoint of its audience.

Several of the programs on the Inter channel feature members of the president's administration. Furthermore, Inter, as well as the commercial television network ICTV, have several news and information programs financed by Privat Bank, a commercial bank headed by Vice Prime Minister for Economic Reforms Serhii Tyhypko. This was also revealed by Minister Kulyk in the aforementioned interview.

In any case, in another interview granted Zerkalo Nedieli on September 7, 1996, Mr. Kulyk stated that commercial television companies would be "edited" to rid them of "critical mistakes and indiscretions." He never clarified what that specifically meant.

Printed mass media

The situation with newspapers is also absolutely different from that painted by the minister of information. The Ukrainian Media Bulletin (published by the European Mass Media Institute) in issue No.3 observed: "The official state press finds itself in a privileged position from an economic point of view." This gives it the ability to reach the masses more extensively and cheaply. Thanks to several presidential decrees (for example, decree No. 48, from February 24, 1996) and proclamations, and Cabinet of Ministers resolutions some publications founded by commercial structures or private individuals have found favor in the government. Analysts at the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Study believe that such a situation contradicts the Constitution, specifically, statute 42 (against wrongful use of a monopolistic position and against limitations on competition) and statute 92 (taxation).

There are approximately 5,500 publications in Ukraine, of which about one-quarter are state-controlled. However, a portion of the publications that are registered with the government but not state-run do not appear for varying reasons (but basically economic ones). According to a study conducted by the Kyiv Center for Political and Conflict Studies in autumn 1996, more than 50 percent of government publications have a circulation of more than 50,000, while only 26.6 percent of non-governmental publications can say the same. Government newspapers appear on average three to four times a week, while non-governmental ones are published once or twice weekly.

According to statistics supplied by the assistant chief editor of the newspaper Silski Visti government publications "make up three-quarters of gross circulation" (Parliament hearings, April 10).

An analysis of the 20 largest newspapers by subscriber circulation showed that although only three government publications consistently appear in the top 20 newspapers, they make up 40.9 percent of the gross subscriber circulation of Ukraine, data that appeared in a 1997 analysis by the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies called, "Freedom of Speech and Authority in Ukraine."

The UCEPS report states that most alarming is the type of economic manipulation the government employs that forces independent publications to temporarily suspend operations, or to find themselves "dependent on a whole slew of government structures" and "to find themselves under a much more intense pressure than any sort of political censorship - internal control - or to outwardly demand government financing," as a result of which the mass media loses its "unbiased view on the acts of government."

However, the government's standard modus operandi is one of control: from pressure on and manipulation of the printed mass media to the calling out "onto the carpet" of chief editors by government leaders after publication of controversial pieces.

The development of a large arsenal of varied levers and means of influence, has given the government the ability to directly control the editorial politics of certain publications. This includes administrative pressures on the creators of publications (the most vivid example of this: the unprecedented ruinous pressure by taxation and power organs of government put on the commercial concern Dendi, the creators of the newspaper Kievskiye Viedomosti, which was provoked by severe criticism of some ministers and of the president); psychological pressure brought to bear on chief editors (frequent reprimands, etc.); timely release of information to some news services and informational blockades against others, access or non-access to sources of information, additions to or deletions from lists of journalists scheduled to travel with officials.

There also exists the practice of creating various foundations, ostensibly independent, to which money from government budgets is transferred for the purpose of furthering financial support for the obedient press. Besides state newspapers, television channels and information agencies, this privilege is principally granted to loyal publications that actively work with the executive branch.

There also exists a well-developed system of subsidies for "their own." This can consist of the giving of credits for subsidies, financial aid, tax exemptions and customs exemptions, guaranteed subsidization of newsprint or means of communication, etc. Traditionally, these are not made public and, therefore, are not widely known. Better known are other types of control.

For example, this year an illegal attempt by the government's Audit and Review Administration to financially audit the books of the more popular newspapers, which to varying degrees were considered either opposition papers or insufficiently loyal, received much public attention. A review of this type is sufficient to halt the presses, irregardless of whether improprieties are found. Thanks only to the efforts of the deputies to the Kyiv City Council was this illegal action halted, even though to this day it is not known who gave the order for the audits. Most people who were in anyway involved with this believe that the order came directly from the president's administration, specifically from the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Mr. Horbulin, who is considered President Kuchma's right-hand man.

It is interesting that Mr. Horbulin was first among the representatives of the executive branch to publicly formulate a thesis regarding the incompatibility of a multi-party system democracy with the interests of state security (in a well-known interview in Kievskiye Viedomosti). In this context it looks as if accusations by opposition forces regarding the unchecked and closed nature of authority, whether at the highest levels or at the local or regional level, and of a desire by President Kuchma to go the "Belarusian route," is not without some basis.

The president's latest decree

A meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, which received very little attention, was held on June 17. The president signed a decree in late July regarding the resolution of the Security Council from the June 17 meeting. The president's decree, titled "On the undelayable measures regarding the regulation of a system for achieving government political aims and improvement of government regulation of informational relations," touches a series of issues which relate to the mass media as a whole, including print and the electronic media. In the decree, specific mention is made about control over the contents and the quality of information; splitting the press from gray or underground sources of capital; the formation of a special judicial organ on questions regarding information operations; maintenance of state secrets and the creation of special organizations to track them; about the necessity to legislatively establish responsibility for "acts based on the dissemination of information which is not based on trustworthy data, constrains the rights of individuals, damages their reputations or the state interests of Ukraine."

One can only agree with Ivan Bokii, the assistant chief editor of Silski Visti, the largest newspaper in Ukraine, when he notes that the decree is not merely "a desire by the state to control the press ... but an attempt to once again make the mass media subservient to the state."

An analysis of this decree, the pronunciations of leading representatives of the regime, especially the executive, the mood in the presidency, all give the basis to believe that the situation for freedom of speech and information in Ukraine will continue to worsen.

Serhiy Naboka is first vice-president of the Ukrainian Media Club as well as chief editor of the Ukrainian News and Information Agency Respublika (UNIAR).

PART I

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, September 7, 1997, No. 36, Vol. LXV

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