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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

MASS MEDIA

12 May, 1999 - 00:00

About Things that Smell
Except for Serhiy Naboka, UT-1 TRK "Era" author and host, Ukraine's television
audience tuned in May 3 on World Press Freedom Day would have never learned
about the Ukrainian President being condemned among the world's worst enemies
of the press by the New York Committee to Protect Journalists. The very
next day, however, most Ukrainian channels (UT-1 and 1+1 included) announced
that Mr. Kuchma might sue the committee. Granted: Ukraine's media is in
a noticeably better way than their colleagues in Cuba, but the fact that
none of the national channels found it possible - or necessary - to inform
the public about the Chief Executive's reputation as a democrat  being
so lowoverseas (although proceeded on the enemies' list by Slobodan Milosevic,
Jiang Zemin, and Fidel Castro) speaks for itself.

Unfortunately, Ukrainian television failed to advise its viewers on
all of the US committee's grievances against Mr. Kuchma warranting the
listing. All we watched and heard was that the Americans blamed our President
for bad taxation. Yet this alone prompted the President's Press Secretary
Oleksandr Martynenko to allege that the US side has a poor knowledge of
Ukrainian laws, stressing that taxes are Verkhovna Rada's prerogative.
Alas! Even if bad tax policy were all this President had to refute, in
the unlikely possibility of defamation proceedings, he would stand little
chance posing as Prince Charming. Suffice it to refer to the ill-famed
law On the Printed Media (Press) in Ukraine, specifically article 2 stating
in black and white that the Cabinet is to determine which editions will
receive economic support from the executive and in what amount - and this
cannot but involve taxation. If such "support" were to rely on the principle
of equal opportunities for all media entities, Mr. Martynenko would not
have had to try so hard to pass the buck to the legislature. The sad fact
remains that such "government support" appears to be rendered the media
pro rata their "loyalty" - and "correct" executive membership, of course.
Likewise, the Ukrainian executive pulls all tax authority levers, allowing
some of the media to act as they "choose" while bringing the ax down on
"dissenters."

Under the circumstances the notion of free press in Ukraine looks ridiculous,
mildly speaking, especially considering certain articles carried by certain
periodicals. Several weeks ago, Ukraine's most popular tabloid Fakty i
kommentarii [Facts and Commentary] came out with a letter strongly reminiscent
of the 1937 NKVD period. The author, a certain Andrei Arkhangelsky, blames
Fakty for publishing the article titled "Two Young Female Students Felt
Disappointed by Male Company and Decided to Find a Different Way to Amuse
Themselves - Using Male Rats." Mr. Arkhangelsky, sounding dead serious,
warns the "inexperienced" reader that the phenomenon has sinister predecessors,
one worse than the next, among them Lenin who decided that the newspapers
must be not only "an agitator, but also propagandist and organizer"; as
a result, the epistoler continues, "eventually... many of us would learn
the truth from late newscasts on Radio Liberty, listening to our radios
after closing ourselves in our bathrooms; and we had to read Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in bed, under the
blanket, using flashlights." Or take Adolf Hitler. He also disliked all
those "perverts." He also struggled for the purity of the nation. And so
he ordered his fellow human beings massacred by the million (this one is
also from the Fakty).

And then Andrei Arkhangelsky penned another article about girls having
sex with male rats. Its ratings matched those of television programs showing
"blood, mutilated bodies, and ruins" in Yugoslavia or Chechnya. Why not
simply forbid Ukrainian television to air such scenes? "You have the right
to assess our material," Mr. Arkhangelsky finally deems to admit. "But
we are within our rights and obligated to familiarize you with such facts,
telling you that things like that really happen." "It is our immediate
responsibility," he writes two paragraphs further, "to seek and provide
our readership with interesting and important events taking place elsewhere
in the world and in Ukraine."

I expect that the reader has already guessed that citing these quotations
was the only way to make the reader fully aware of the "wealth" and "elevated
spirit" of all such program statements made by our media colleagues. There
is the notion of tabloids or yellow journalism known universally in the
West. People - millions of them - reading such editions are prepared to
digest all kinds of nonsense appearing in print. In a normal society readers
are not the only ones aware of the true worth of such periodicals. The
publishers know it, too. Now coming out for having articles about perverted
sex reduced to special, rather than regular, editions, doing so in the
freedom of the press context, referring to Solzhenitsyn, is possible only
in a country like Ukraine where totalitarian myths are now replaced by
those of petty hucksters aspiring to oligarchic status. By forcing the
media to act as bidden, they try to manipulate public opinion, coming up
with allegations that, say, woman-rat sex is precisely one such "important
and interesting event," something every reader has to know all about. Was
it for the sake of such publications and editorial policies that perestroika
and glasnost were launched and came to their respective ends? Or human
rights campaigns? Well, this might as well be filed away as yet another
method of self-preservation, given the most unfavorable status of genuine
news showing how this country and its people really live. Perhaps because
the current Ukrainian media status is the way we all know it is.

Indeed, "high" ideology and politics have a special aroma, especially
when all it amounts to is an ordinary citizen's ordinary desire to have
him/herself and his/her family protected against the downpour of obscenity
and other dirt that we are now exposed to day in and day out - something
never found in any truly civilized country where public opinion and personal
rights really mean something. Indeed, those using dish antennas can attest
to what is being shown in the West: there are different programs meant
for children, teenagers, and adults. Also their newscasts show all those
macabre scenes but without the masochistically vivid details we readily
have on our home screens.

In fact, the Fakty excerpts mentioned ought to be entered into journalism
history textbooks. As a case study in all those ethic and intellectual
guidelines being welcomed and upheld by Ukraine's powers that be, seeking
not only to manipulate public opinion, but also reduce it to the old Soviet
debilitating notion of "the masses."

Now take "Era," as compared to the Golden Era national television awards,
currently well down the slope in terms of national channel ratings. Another
sure sign. There are no high-rate domestic projects on any of the domestic
channels - something commonly attributed to the prevalence of ads and commercials,
along with the ever-present financial crisis. However, UT-1 night shows
are not likely to bring in especially high dividends, as evidenced by the
channel's scarce assortment of regular commercials and low ratings. Which
means that all those working out the scenarios have other, far better income
sources. What sources? Political advertising in the first place. We all
know that it pays extremely well, at least not lower than regular video
clips. In addition, here one has an apt opportunity to place the stuff
and expect the undemanding audience to swallow it all. Here the benefit
opportunities double at least. The smell? Take, for example, People's Deputy
Vitaly Zhuravsky hosted by "Era" precisely forty days after Vyacheslav
Chornovil's tragic death. This politician has never been known as a special
friend or enemy of the deceased, yet he has always somehow appeared at
the right time and place - with regard to the right people. And then there
was the smell of the commercials that really took the cake! Hryhory Surkis
being advertised as the best candidate for Kyiv Mayor on the three channels
broadcast nationwide! Here every clean and dirty trick was used to best
advantage, including care for all those poor elders having to live on meager
nonexistent pensions. And INTER, the United Social Democrats' media bulwark,
with its much-advertised May 9 project (of which even the television company
people say, off the record of course, that the whole thing is meant to
get the surviving war veterans to cast their votes "for us, not the Reds,"
even though washing this dirty linen in public would be officially referred
to as an especially rough commentary by a cynical analyst).

By Natalia LIHACHOVA, The Day

 

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