Intelnews celebrates a decade of service (12/02/01)

Intelnews celebrates a decade of service

by Yana Sedova
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - One of the oldest English-language news services in Ukraine celebrated its 10th anniversary just over one month ago. First published in October of 1991, Intelnews has provided its readers with the latest information on economic life, the investment climate and political events in Ukraine.

Founded by Christine Demkowych, a U.S. citizen of Ukrainian origin, Intelnews began as "The Intelnews Daily," an information bulletin of "hot news," which also covered business, ecological and sociological events and was published three times a day.

Since then two more services have been added: The Intelnews Business Journal, a weekly that includes analysis of the current economic situation in Ukraine, interviews with investors and presentations of foreign company missions; and The Intelnews Weekly Digest, a summary of the journal and the daily.

Current publisher Marharyta Lukecha, who bought Intelnews from Ms. Demkowycz in January of 1998, said that Intelnews, currently prepared for an exclusively English-language clientele, will soon become multilingual as it enters the Internet highway.

"We are going to present our Internet portal with information in four languages: English, French, Ukrainian and Russian," said Ms. Lukecha. "So far, there is no project of this kind in Ukraine," she added.

Readers will also have an opportunity to order exclusive materials in any of these languages. Intelnews is also planning to publish special issues dedicated to the economic situation in various regions of Ukraine.

New projects are intended to widen the circle of readers, which now includes ambassadors, diplomatic representatives in Ukraine, businesspersons and politicians. In the jubilee issue of the Intelnews Business Journal several long-time subscribers, including the ambassador of Japan, explained why they have been long-time subscribers to the agency.

"[It] has proved an indispensable asset in the information flow that we monitor, enabling us to effectively follow both the breaking events in Ukraine and the commentary on the topics of interest," said Ambassador Hitoshi Honda.

Ms. Lukecha explained that integrity and clientele trust has been a key to the success of Intelnews over its 10-year existence.

On October 11 Intelnews was commended by the Ukrainian association of businessmen Nova Formatia ("New Formation") for its accuracy, objectivity and trustworthiness in covering issues dealing with the private business sector.

Intelnews celebrated its first decade of existence with a jubilee dinner on October 26 attended by ambassadors, journalists, clients and friends.

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