An introduction of award winner Mark MacKinnon of Globe and Mail (09/04/05)

An introduction of award winner Mark MacKinnon of Globe and Mail

Below is the text of the introduction by Olga Andriewsky, associate professor of history at Trent University, of Mark MacKinnon, winner of the John Syrnick Award for Journalism.

The Orange Revolution was, in many ways, a journalists' revolution. It began, in effect, in the summer of 2000, when Heorhii Gongadze, a young journalist established Ukraine's first online newspaper, Ukraynska Pravda (Ukrainian Truth) and began exposing corruption at the highest levels of Ukrainian government and business. It was an act of tremendous courage that he subsequently paid for with his life.

That act of courage was followed by others. In 2003 two journalists, Andrii Shevchenko and Roman Skrypin, who had earlier quit their jobs on other stations to protest against government censorship, helped found a small, independent TV station which became known as Channel 5. For over a year, in the run up to the presidential election, despite tremendous pressure from authorities - and knowing that Ukraine was a dangerous place to practice journalism - they fearlessly broadcast the only uncensored news and analysis in Ukraine. At one point, they went on a hunger strike when the assets of Channel 5 were frozen.

And then, last November, after the second round of the presidential election, on the first day of what we now call the Orange Revolution, when the outcome of the protest was still entirely uncertain, Ukrainian journalists began refusing en masse to announce the falsified results of the presidential election.

The story of Natalia Dmytruk, who signed the news for deaf viewers on the state-owned television station, is by now legendary. Ignoring the script she was supposed to read, she signed to her viewers that "the results of the Central Electoral Commission were falsified. Do not believe them..."

The international press corps played a critical role in the outcome of the Orange Revolution. By throwing a spotlight on the events, by covering every move of a very complicated chess-match between the government and the opposition, by telling the stories of ordinary people caught up in the events, by soliciting and broadcasting the reactions of world leaders, the international press corps, in its own way, helped reduce the likelihood of violence during a very tense standoff.

Mark MacKinnon, to his credit, was one of the very first Western correspondents to begin reporting on the dramatic events taking place in Ukraine. As he himself explained last January during a roundtable discussion in Toronto, his fellow journalists in Moscow were at first very skeptical about the significance of the story. Later, of course, they rushed to Kyiv, begging Mark for his contacts. But Mark had been The Globe and Mail's Moscow correspondent since 2002. He had covered the revolution in Georgia and had been to Ukraine and written about Ukraine many times. He had written about Gongadze. He had written about Channel 5. He knew the issues.

In fact, as Paul Knox, the former foreign editor of The Globe and Mail told me, Mark MacKinnon's transfer to the Middle East had already been approved last fall. It was Mark himself who asked to remain through the presidential election in Ukraine, who had an intuition that this was going to be a big story, and who wanted to see the story through to its conclusion. [His prescience had been demonstrated in an article published on October 30 titled "Is Ukraine facing a massive uprising?"]

Mark MacKinnon brought this background, this intuition, this experience to his coverage of the Orange Revolution. He also brought a special feel for the human side of the drama, history as seen through the eyes of ordinary people - students, workers, police officers, pensioners; people on both sides of the barricades. His coverage included the story of the 37-year-old construction worker from Kyiv who stood on Independence Square waving a Canadian flag day after day because his friends in Toronto had passed it along to him. And, of course, it included the story of the many hundreds of Canadians who came to Ukraine as election observers.

This Canadian dimension was a big part Mark MacKinnon's telling of the story, not only because Ukraine is a country of special interest to a large community of Ukrainian Canadians but also because, in a larger sense, Canada has a very special relationship with Ukraine. This is something he himself had written about. During his earlier travels to Ukraine, he had discovered, much to his amazement, how much Ukrainians liked Canadians, regarding Canada as a special friend to Ukraine. From ordinary villagers, to people on the street in Kyiv, to people at the highest levels of politics - Ukrainians received him very warmly because he was Canadian. "How are they, our Ukrainians in Canada?" he was constantly asked everywhere he went.

And it gave him a unique foothold among journalists from the very start. In September 2003, much to the astonishment and envy of his colleagues, Mark was able to get a rare interview with Viktor Yushchenko, then the leader of the opposition. The word "Canadian" was repeatedly emphasized in negotiations with the Yushchenko people. And, in his own words, he said, "it worked like a charm."

In this respect, Mark MacKinnon's work was noteworthy not only because he was among the first journalists to recognize and write about the importance of what was happening in Ukraine, but also because he understood why what was happening in Ukraine should be and was important to Canada and Canadians. He reminded us of the special role that Canada plays in the world, the special role that journalists play in our society. And, for this, he certainly deserves our acknowledgement and gratitude.

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