New Journalistic Initiative organization founded

In the wake of the Saturday’s action, To Speak Quietly is Forbidden, held on Independence Square (photo) with the purpose of attracting public attention to the disappearance of Heorhy Gongadze, well-known journalists took to more strategic and coordinated actions.

On Sunday the organizing committee of the Journalistic Initiative social organization was set up. The difference between this event and all previous actions is not only that Ukrainian journalists make an attempt to unite informally to safeguard their interests. The point is that for the first time ever they are trying to raise the issue of political guarantees for the freedom of expression within the context of their own responsibility for supporting the principles of professional ethics. Journalistic Initiative by consensus of the organizing committee members will fight for the canons of impersonal, unbiased journalism to gradually become the norm for all Ukrainian journalists. Only this kind journalism can become a really influential and authoritative power in the country. Only in this way can we resist attempts to use us to clean up sullied reputations, as propagandists and agitators, and possibly as accidental victims of political games. Of course this does not mean that Journalistic Initiative will oppose the party press or press funded by certain political and financial groups. For even the most farsighted mass media owners even now realize that the elementary norms of the profession — to show different viewpoints on events, to give those criticized the right to answer, etc. — only strengthen readers’ trust in a publication. And it is the job of journalists to initiate the broader introduction of the norms of the civilized democratic press into the Ukrainian mass media.

The motto of the new informal association is “Don’t keep silent, don’t lie, don’t be indifferent.” Its organizational committee includes the renowned journalists Yevhen Hlibovytsky, Kateryna Horchynska, Alla Mazur, Iryna Chemerys, and Olena Prytula.

The top priority tasks of the association include both the search for Heorhy Gongadze, and provoking journalistic discussions on issues of professional ethics. The members of organization intend to discuss controversial publications and publicize cases of incorrect journalism.

P.S. The author views his participation in Journalistic Initiative as a direct continuation of the work that The Day has been doing for years. Our discussions of the problems of political tendentiousness (including opposition) by the press, murders of journalists, “freedom to kill,” etc. have evoked wide response from The Day’s readers. Hopefully, the creation of the JI will help us to develop our journalism in the truest sense of this word.