Suffering Because of Openness?

“Ukraine is a state of unprecedented openness,” Chairman of Ukraine’s State Television and Radio Committee (STRC) Ivan Chyzh said at a press conference in Dnipropetrovsk, describing the present condition of the freedom of expression and the press. As he put it, Ukraine’s legislation is “ahead of all Europe” in this sphere. “There is no other country where one could register his media outlet with no conditions at all, no matter whether he or she is a Ukrainian citizen,” he said. “Just try to register it in Great Britain or Germany,” told the journalists. “And here it’s done for pennies!”

The STRC chairman informed journalists that today 16,700 print media outlets are registered in Ukraine, and it is expected that by the end of 2003 their number will exceed 17,000. Of these less than 9% are founded by state or local government bodies, while the rest belong to either political parties or commercial structures and private persons. In the view of the STRC head, the situation with the electronic mass media appears no less democratic. In all, 830 television and radio companies are registered in Ukraine, 3.1% of which have state or community status. A year ago, Mr. Chyzh remarked, there were 3.8%, meaning that the number of state and community electronic media is gradually declining. “This is our response to the politicians who tour the world telling everybody that the media in Ukraine are oppressed and nobody can breath free” he said, adding, “I took part in the work of the Council of Europe for seven years, and nobody spoke more harshly on the freedom of expression and the media than I. However, I did this only to improve situation in Ukraine, not to erect barricades.”

Speaking about Ukraine’s informational openness, Ivan Chyzh mentioned both “positive tendencies” and “critical situation” in book publishing. He believes positive the drastic growth in the number of the books published in Ukraine: 12,274 titles for 2002 alone. However, he also stressed that we are still four times behind the Soviet period in pressruns. He considers disturbing the fact that of ten books sold in the Ukrainian market only three were published in Ukraine “and even fewer in the Ukrainian language... Even worse, now we have only one Ukrainian books for every six children. This is abnormal, and we have to make every effort to at last give Ukrainian children a chance to read Ukrainian publications in their native language,” he concluded.