Electronic Media Representatives Are Offered Clean Internet Declaration

Ukrainian Internet journalists have put forward a suggestion that dotcom publications be considered full-fledged media outlets bound by all the rules of professional journalism, including journalistic ethics. On January 30, members of the Committee on Journalistic Ethics presented their Clean Internet Declaration calling on journalists “to jointly defend (their) professional interests.” This, they believe, will “make it possible to create a corporate mechanism of non-governmental regulation of the Internet in Ukraine and will prevent the state from intervening in this sphere,” reports Interfax-Ukraine. Committee Chairman Volodymyr Mostovyi opined that on the eve of parliamentary elections the web will be extensively used for mudslinging, and this is why journalists should be at their most ethical and constructive. “We do not aim to sterilize the Internet. We only want dotcom journalists to adhere to certain ethical standards,” he explained. Ukrayinska pravda editor Olena Prytula accentuated the problem of copyright infringement on the Internet. She believes journalists should work out common rules for attribution of sources both in the mass media and the Internet. UNIAN Director Mykhailo Batih stated that Internet journalism does not even exist “in legal terms.” He believes that legislators could well pass a rather strict law regulating the relations in the Internet that will be hard on the journalists and is confident that such a law will be passed in the near future. Marat Gelman, Internet journalism guild manager of the Russian Media Union, voiced concern over the adoption of new laws regulating the Internet, which, in his opinion, “will be incomplete in one way or another.” He believes the importance of the worldwide web should not be too overstated.