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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

WILL THE PRESS ENDURE GOVERNMENT PRESSURE?

17 November, 1998 - 00:00

Presidential campaign will show Ukrainian media's real worth 

(Continued from previous issue)
MASS MEDIA AS

THE GOVERNMENT'S

PRIVATE PROPERTY

Larysa Ivshyna: An interesting point of view, one very much characteristic
of the existing system, I should say. Mr. Kulyk, you seem to have implied
that "nongovernment" television channels cannot guarantee unbiased coverage
of political developments, because such channels are financially dependent,
and that they are in for even harder times. However, talking about the
folding up of the democratic process, we do not emphasize that it will
happen using authoritarian means or some power structures. This could also
happen because of our inadequate legislation, and because our economic
situation is going from bad to worse. In other words, we have practically
approached another important issue, namely that our legislative institutions
have apparently failed to carry out their primary mission: we do not have
any vehicles capable of developing Ukraine and our legislature's doings
these days testify to only one thing: we are getting back to the old propaganda.
We will have to live through a period of turmoil before the next presidential
campaign. From morning to night we will hear television and radio hosts
babbling on about how we could not have possibly had a better President
than we do now, and that we must vote for his reelection if we really love
Ukraine.

You also gave your opinion of a certain part of the presidential election
bill. I am certain that even this attempt to broach the subject is the
first option for backing the corporate interests of journalists. We will
live in a new or old Ukraine, under the current or a new President, but
we must have standing rules of conduct. Hence, I would like those in charge
of today's television channels to speak their minds. What must we do so
that your pessimism will not become the reality?

  Mykola Kniazhytsky,
President, Ukrainian National Television Company:

Look, you have just accused Mr. Kulyk of failing to provide favorable
working conditions. I disagree because he has provided them for me.

If we talk about realities, then what are elections? Or democracy? What
condition is our civil society in today? Which political forces will compete
in the next election campaign? Let's face it: we lack a party system just
as we lack a civil society. Actually, the ongoing processes are all related
to the stage of primary capital accumulation. This process is still going
on. Some have already "accumulated," and some are just building their fortunes.
For many this is precisely the criterion determining their attitude toward
the authorities; whether to support or oppose it. There are those who want
to take their capital out of Ukraine make themselves wealthy for life,
and there are also others who want to create conditions so that capital
can invested here in Ukraine. I think that it is these two groups who are
now struggling for power, and this struggle is far stronger than any going
on among presidential candidates. Neither of these groups has chosen who
to bet on in the coming elections. And our current President has also not
made up his mind which group he should bet on.

I think that this period will have a crucial impact on Ukraine. For
if finally people win who want to change this country and think not only
about accumulating capital and taking it away, then we will have real prospects;
Ukraine will be able to proceed on the road which we began talking about.
It has already begun; that totalitarianism is no more is a hard fact. But
if this doesn't happen, we will have to live under our current unfathomable
half-oligarchic system.

The role of the media in this? Unfortunately, neither the legislature
nor the executive seem to have bothered about its legal framework or about
asserting its stabilizing social role. Why? I guess for reasons best known
to themselves. If we speak of nationwide television channels, we have only
two [1+1 Studios and Inter - Ed.]. Are they independent? I don't
think so, because we still have not built a law-governed state. They are
directly dependent on the state in which they exist. Is there any danger
of either of them being used for some not very democratic purposes? Yes,
there is, because they have large audiences, quite serious influence on
public opinion, are private, and could be bought by certain groups. Today,
they have one master with his own priorities and moral dictates. Tomorrow,
they could change hands; no one knows what would happen then. Can this
be legally regulated? No.

If we speak of the government channel, it is struggling to remain objective,
but the problem is that a state-owned channel has to have certain criteria
and guidelines. Ours has none whatsoever. I worked for that channel for
several days. What were the basic conflicts? First, with Verkhovna Rada.
How and in what way should its sessions be covered? Clearly this is Parliament,
and there have to be some mechanisms. I think that the relevant parliamentary
committee should invite experts in the field to work out a consensus. But
nobody is inviting anybody; no one seems to be doing anything in this direction.
Instead, we have a de facto commercial agreement between Parliament
and National Television, to the effect that legislative sessions should
be televised regularly. Parliament is supposed to pay for this. Within
what parameters? What creative concept should be employed? No one is really
interested. Under the circumstances, there should be rules of the game
acceptable to all the parties concerned. There are none, but I promise
to do my best so that there will be.

If we talk about news programs, it may seem funny but the news on UT-1
are not controlled by anyone. Often an item gets not to the chief editor,
but right to production where a given feature is edited and released. News
crews are dispatched to locations, assigned to interview certain executive
or legislative figures, and they go without informing their immediate superiors.
This is just ridiculous! Corruption in the media is no secret. Some journalists
are known to receive envelopes from certain People's Deputies who want
to see themselves on television. Can such people be expected to have an
unbiased approach? This is not police affiliation or the government trying
to exert a pressure. This is a nationwide mess, with all the official vehicles
of livelihood being out of commission. Take ORT [Russian Social Television].
It has a staff of 450, including all correspondent stations, all over the
globe. UTN [Ukrainian Television News] employs 500 people, each being paid
token money - I mean something one cannot live on. How, then, can one discuss
the Ukrainian government being genuinely concerned about a strong, real
public television network? I would like to pose this particular question
to Zinovy Kulyk who has dwelt on these topics at this round table.

He says that our television channels are not independent. He is right,
because this is the only way they can exist. If we wanted them to receive
capital to become self-accounting entities, the state would have to help
them somehow.

L. I.: We seem to have broached the issue of tools which we need
and which our state has failed to provide...

M. K.: That's right. We have a huge television complex in Syrets
[a new residential district of Kyiv - Ed.], 90,000 square meters
of floor space with modern equipment, all of which somehow remains deserted.
No television companies are granted access, meaning that companies with
what our officials refer to as "nongovernment ownership patterns" have
to build their own pavilions. We have people from 1+1 Studios here. They
had to use cold Dovzhenko Film Studio sets to shoot their programs. Such
sets could be rented out, bringing profits to the lessors and budget. Or
take Inter. They are barred access, period, and the same is true of ICTV.
They write letters asking it and are invariably refused. They have to spend
their money building and equipping pavilions, with such pavilions ready
and waiting, but left empty. Our television companies have to invest in
such projects to keep afloat somehow, and forget all about prospects for
company development. They become all the more dependent on those who give
them money and are interested in the stations being dependent on their
money.

L. I.: You mean they will let you loose now? We are all used
to regarding public television not as something made and functioning using
taxpayers' money but as private property in the hands of authorities, of
the bureaucrats hired by and working for certain organizations.

M. K.: No, I do think that our public television network belongs
to the people and is private property held by precisely those three thousand
people on its payroll. Everyone has his or her share.

L. I.: All right, suppose they have their little shares. What
about all the others who want to have the global share and use it as an
instrument of influence? Can we say, in this context, that our public television
is a tool of certain political groups? If so, do their audiences stand
a chance, ever, to find out the truth about what is going on in Ukraine,
rather than watch 20-minute news releases featuring top bureaucrats visiting
and receiving other VIPs, handing out or receiving diplomas of honor or
accepting letters of credence? Is this really how people in Ukraine now
live?

UKRTELERADIO

AS A MIRROR

OF THE STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF AIRTIME

Zynovy Kulyk: I agree with much that has been said. Under current
political, economic, and legal realities it could not be otherwise. Thus,
I don't think that wondering about either of the branches of power failing
to do something would amount to much. Government allocations for public
television get smaller every year. The premises and equipment we have on
Melnykov St. are thirty years old. In that time television technology has
progressed greatly; modern equipment allows one to use little room to accommodate
the studios and audio/video/editing equipment. UTN staffers were not paid
much even during Soviet times. The UTN public television network has not
received production money for the past two years. Naturally, some of the
people have gone into business as best they could.

Under the circumstances each and every bureaucrat placed at the head
of a government television network will offer his/her concept of its subsistence
and/or reorganization. I hope Mr. Kniazhytsky will live to see an end to
all such "reorganizing measures." Now anyone attending a Cabinet or Verkhovna
Rada session may shout about such measures and the need to receive government
subsidies, only to hear in return something like, "OK, we'll give you the
subsidies you want, just tell us who we should take them from." Lack of
adequate information begets all our problems, including media corruption.
But this is not news. What's new is the way to combat it. I have for the
past two years suggested that public television network expenses be handled
not as a budget item, but that government contracts be instituted, providing
for certain types of official coverage, proceeding from budget capabilities.
This approach would insure transparency and fairness. One such example
is a contract with Verkhovna Rada; the budget envisions Hr 6.1 million
to be spent on media coverage of Parliament's activities. In fact, this
is standing procedure in many countries.

However, this and other such proposals are absolutely unacceptable to
the Economy and Finance ministries. If implemented, they would allow us
to hire popular program hosts, journalists, experts, and so on. These people
would be paid two or three times more than the company president. This
would give rise to dark envy in the executive domain: "So you want to allocate
and distribute the way you please, leaving us out? No way!"

M. K.: Are you in opposition to the executive branch?

Z. K.: No, but I am a supporter of a certain system of my own
views.

M. K.: I now want to improve the public television network, working
jointly with you. Now the question is: Who do we have to fight in the executive
branch? You [Zinovy Kulyk - Ed.] have two years of experience. Performance
of our government television has worsened over that period. I have worked
for UTN since before the USSR collapsed. At the time I was paid 240 rubles
a month which was quite good. And I think that you must have been paid
about the same as a "political observer." But how much exactly?

Z. K.: About 320 rubles as Candidate of Science.

M. K.: Indeed, now people are paid an average of Hr 100. If the
authorities are not so bad and not to be blamed for this situation, who
is?

Z. K.: It's the Finance and Economy ministries. They disallow
government contracts according to actual budget capabilities. The 1999
budget provides for three times less than what we actually need to secure
regular 22-hour UT-1 coverage, and I mean at the lowest conceivable costs!
Hence, I suggest another option: first we must determine exactly how much
we can receive from the state budget to cover our needs, and then how much
we can get in terms of a budget contracts. Try to secure such 22-hour coverage
on the Hr 58 million planned. What I suggest is such government contracts
planned by both our executive and legislative branches, proceeding from
the actual budget capacities and considering specific subjects and airtime.

M. K.: Who'll give more?

Z. K.: Wait a minute, who will give money in general? A line
item in the budget law does not guarantee we'll get the money. That was
why we arrived at the idea of reorganizing the National Television Company,
Radio Company, RRT Concern, and several other components of the Ukrteleradio
(Ukrainian Television & Radio) network as public joint stock companies.
We now have RRT [Ukrainian acronym for Radio, Telecommunications &
Television] Concern. It is working rather effectively, meaning we have
to allocate the revenues within a single state-run company, allowing for
the production of programs, TV series, and so on. What I mean is, we have
to set up a system of financing public radio and television networks so
they can adopt a genuinely unbiased approach, and this is possible only
when we can dispose of such money freely, without being influenced from
outside, within the framework of a single public joint stock company. After
all, whichever hand feeds us, public or private, will do so only as long
as we lick it, not bite it.

M. K.: A public joint stock company should be established based
on RRT, because it can service public and private channels. Today, its
more than thirty departments function under policies that lack coordination
and mutually agreed control. This is how I interpret the way the President's
Ukrteleradio edict is being implemented. This approach would allow us to
retain the legal status of public television and radio networks, and we
would have thus avoided the current situation with Verkhovna Rada blocking
this edict, incidentally, an attitude I also detest.

L. I.: A rank and file viewer or listener can come to only one
possible conclusion: something is wrong somewhere.

  Natalia Lihachova,
The Day:

There can be no unaffiliated or totally independent media, just as
there can be no totally objective viewpoint as such. The state should develop
the national business environment so there would be as many different biased
and dependent television channels and periodicals as possible. Then we
will have competition and competing views. If the idea of setting up Ukrteleradio
and reorganizing RRT is directed toward this end, fine. Now we do not have
competing views on any channel. Such a reorganization would foster the
development of small and medium television companies without monopoly status.

(To be continued)

 

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