Larysa IVSHYNA: “Journalism is to blame for the distorted coordinate system”

The following interview with The Day’s chief editor Larysa Ivshyna was occasioned by the March 29 European Court ruling in a suit brought by The Day. The ensuing discussion was fruitful and this well known journalist shared a few thought-provoking opinions.

Telekrytyka is willing to provide print space for dissenting opinions on issues broached in this interview.

Speaking of the European Court ruling in the suit brought by The Day, what is the background to this conflict, as well as its lessons for and impact on Ukrainian journalism?

Ivshyna: I consider it a truly extraordinary event and a precedent for Ukrainian journalism.

Let me give you a brief overview of the conflict.

In the heat of the 1999 presidential race we published two articles that were of principal significance to the newspaper. The fact is that the make- believe oppositionism and noise created by Petro Symonenko and Natalia Vitrenko were just a front for the 1999 election scenario that was played out by presidential spin-doctors working under the then National Security and Defense Council chairman Volodymyr Horbulin and deputy presidential chief of staff, the late Oleksandr Razumkov, who was the brains behind the election scheme, according to which Kuchma would be pitted against Symonenko and Vitrenko as the bellwethers of left-wing voters, embodying the threat of a communist comeback.

It was a subtle game. I think many sentimental Ukrainian voters have yet to fully comprehend the game that was played with them back then. I still believe that 1999 decided the course of all political events in Ukraine’s contemporary history.

At the time, ours was the only newspaper to write about this. These articles contained rather harshly worded judgments, and Symonenko and Vitrenko filed defamation suits against us.

You know the outcome of those presidential elections. The scheme was a success. After those elections Kuchma and the people who brought him to power became convinced that they could get away with treating Ukrainian voters and politicians this way. They felt absolute impunity. I remember the night after the elections. I was in the One Plus One television studio and saw a widening gap between me and other journalists who were blithely adjusting to the new circumstances. The next day I went to the editorial briefing, for which almost nobody from the politics section showed up, and said: ‘They have won, but the truth is on our side.’ We also tried to prove our case in court.

Maybe our confidence appeared bizarre in Kuchma’s Ukraine because we lost all the hearings all the way from district courts to the Supreme Court. Not being the kind of people to take a beating lying down, we filed a suit with the European Court, and on March 29 of this year the European Court ruled in our favor. And now we can stick our noses in the air because we got our way. I’m happy for my colleagues and our lawyers, but I also feel it is my responsibility to make sure that the implications of this event are interpreted correctly. It follows from the European Court ruling that Ukrainian politicians must understand that they are public figures and thus much bigger targets for criticism than ordinary citizens. At the same time, Ukrainian journalists must also understand that if we want to feel safe, including from prosecution, we must maintain high professional and ethical standards.

These are European standards, which allow for even the most biting satire, but only when it is justified and not used for mudslinging.

What could be the formal legal consequences of the European Court ruling?

Ivshyna: I’m totally surprised that our Ministry of Justice hasn’t issued an official statement about this. In the last while we have published journalists’ opinions of the European Court ruling, and now we need to know the opinions of politicians. I, for one, would like to discuss this issue with Mykola Tomenko and other veteran and new politicians to find out where they stand.

There is another situation. The court has allowed three months to appeal the ruling and for the recovery of our legal costs. Because the losing party has to pay all the legal costs, many people have spoken in defense of the nation’s budget, even alleging that The Day has done Ukraine a bad turn. In reality, we are talking about the dismal situation in the Ukrainian courts. Why should Ukrainian taxpayers pick up their tab? Furthermore, it is an alarming signal for the new leaders, who must look into why no one has acted on the European Court ruling, which requires certain legislative changes. How sincere are their declarations about defending free speech?

It’s a shame that this event has had no impact on the journalistic milieu. This fact characterizes the community, and to a certain extent it is its diagnosis. It shows the need for serious reflection and open discussion at least among those lucky enough to have been spared in this profession. Journalism has suffered substantial damage in recent years. We can still pull some journalists out from under the debris, but we must realize that we have irretrievably lost many others.

Notably, many of them had a very promising start to their careers and for a while they were even crystallization centers in the professional environment. But later they experienced a horrible metamorphosis.

Are you referring to anyone in particular?

Ivshyna: Let me tell you something. For a long time I had a good relationship with Interfax, which was a “forge” of information journalism. I have known Oleksandr Martynenko for a long time. Now I don’t understand what makes him do certain things, like airing the “sensational” information from former FSB colonel Lytvynenko about Yevhen Marchuk’s alleged involvement in taping conversations in Kuchma’s office. This wasn’t an exclusive scoop for Interfax. I think it was just part of a special operation to discredit Yevhen Marchuk and distract the public’s attention from the people who had ordered Gongadze’s assassination. First the FSB guy appears on Interfax. Then Dzerkalo Tyzhnia publishes a full transcript of his interview, and that same evening it’s the main story on One Plus One television. Surprisingly enough, the news editor at One Plus One was Andriy Kulykov, who worked for BBC and is familiar with the principles of impartial and balanced reporting.

Of all people, he couldn’t see it for the deplorable mistake it was. How did this happen? The story began with a voiceover. The words of the FSB officer with his absurd accusations were accompanied by a video of him, which was done to create greater credibility. People with no understanding of these events got the impression that this was true information. It was sheer manipulation of public opinion. Of course, nobody ever questioned the source of this information or offered a different opinion. The BBC people would probably die of shame if they knew that one of their people handled reporting like that. As far as I know, the Svoboda Party’s press secretary contacted Kulykov that night, but he was unable to air an alternative viewpoint the same day. Now tell me, does this mean that journalists are being harassed again, or did they repent, only to regress to their old ways? Or are temnyky [secret government programming instructions — Ed.] at fault again? Apparently, it makes no sense to cherish one’s reputation because so far in our country a good reputation is not rewarded.

Meanwhile, willingness to do anything is rewarded.

All the Ukrainian channels have the same old owners. Most of the managers are the same, while the new managers on the job can’t change very much, judging by that unprofessional story that was broadcast by One Plus One.

Network owners often behave like standoffish artists who pretend not to be responsible for what’s happening downstairs. It’s none of their concern that their actions put somebody’s life at risk.

Picture a Ukrainian special services officer who pops up with similar hearsay about a former Russian premier. All the major Russian channels would expose this as a well-bankrolled conspiracy.

In our case, because of these kinds of journalists, a person who created the Security Service, preserved the Crimea for Ukraine, implemented a number of crucial foreign policy initiatives, passed a package of Defense Ministry laws within one year, and began a genuine reform of Ukraine’s Armed Forces was judged by the same yardstick as some little known FSB officer.

Ours is an open society. But it’s not an open house. In our information society we should view all events through the prism of the interests of Ukrainian society. This is not happening, and it’s a very grave national problem. If we at least begin to reason along these lines, this will help us single out those who have not lost their professionalism and conscience.

“I think that people who say that [former]
President Kuchma should be forgotten are being more realistic
than those who say he should be convicted”

Politicians know who can do what and for how much, as well as who can be used to plant false information. They know the strings they have to pull to promote the necessity information. I regret to say this, but we haven’t mentioned specific names and facts for far too long.

Air time and print space in Ukraine are still filled with many things of secondary importance, while significant things are often hidden on small islands in the Internet where there are still brave people, who are an amazing phenomenon in Ukrainian journalism. If anything, it lacks masculine features.

There are few people who can give their word and keep it and who understand the meaning of truth. As the late John Paul II said, “There is no freedom without truth.”

For example, Yevhen Lauer, whom I don’t know personally, interviewed Yuriy Kravchenko’s aide, who was with him the night before he died. The aide offered arguments that absolutely convinced him that Kravchenko had been killed. Did this interview surface anywhere else, in some other publication or on television? Isn’t that sensational news? Or take Yeliashkevych’s 10 sharply worded questions, including whether it were true that Berezovsky had been promised the telecommunications operator Ukrtelekom, One Plus One television, and an aluminum plant for his involvement in the elections. Doesn’t anybody find this interesting? Meanwhile, there was no response or even an attempt at a refutation.

Volodymyr Boiko wrote how they tried to bribe him and Serhiy Sholokh to publish a misleading story about who had ordered the kidnapping and murder of Gongadze. These are not Kipiani’s fabrications. This is serious work with official records. But nobody ever quoted them either on television or in the papers. Our newspaper has launched a column called Top-Net to showcase real journalists who are not engaged in PR activities.

We are witnessing the beginning of an inevitable change of guard in journalism, not in terms of age, but in terms of values and attitudes toward the profession. Everyone has had enough of people who pose as journalists while providing exclusively political services. For only politicians have the money to provide journalists with the opportunity to wheel and deal and score some points in high places.

Unless we remove the metastases with which such journalists have been infiltrating our society since Kuchma’s presidency, they will corrupt everything.

There’s bound to be a tough struggle leading up to the 2006 parliamentary elections. I’m certain that the new leadership is interested in turning Yanukovych into the kind of opposition force that Kuchma once created out of the communists. They will again find spin-doctors who will prevent fresh blood from entering the political arena. Isn’t it unfair to society when those who create a new party with a view to running in the elections never make it to the election stage because of spin- doctors and biased media? They carve up the electorate in such a way that you never make it to parliament no matter what you propose or how smart you are.

And this is a catastrophic injustice. It is an inverted pyramid in society. Values that should be at the top — quality and merit — are disregarded, while pecuniary interests come to the fore. It’s no accident that the already played “Moscow trump card” is being played again. An incredible rat race has begun in the “Moscow direction.” Everybody is elbowing his or her way to be the first to please Moscow. I support good relations with Russia. My only regret is that the leaders in Moscow are invariably betting on people in Ukraine who will dance to their every tune, but beyond that they don’t view us as serious partners. The Orange Revolution has given us an opportunity, but if we fail to prevent our politicians from slinging mud at each other, we will lose it. Will we ever learn from the experience of Mazepa, Petliura, and Konovalets? It upsets me to see what is happening, and I think it is time for us to decide and state firmly how we are going to live from now on, because we are being drawn into a very complex situation.

I think that those who say that [former] President Kuchma has to be forgotten are being more realistic than those who say that he has to be convicted, because given the current state of our politics, the axe will drop not on those who were responsible for creating the system of evil, and there will be more deaths, like Verediuk’s [Yuriy Verediuk was accused and subsequently cleared of killing the journalist Aleksandrov, but died suspiciously of heart failure a month later, which cast suspicion on the police — Ed.]. The new leadership will be discredited.

Why did the late Pope John Paul II visit his would-be assassin in jail and forgive him? Because he understood that it wasn’t the specific individual but the system of evil that was aimed at him.

Likewise, the system of evil created under Kuchma — the result of century-long slavery, the filthy Augean stables, and the unventilated nooks and crannies of our past history — swallowed a lot of people. And eliminating it by forceful means alone would be tantamount to disemboweling the whole system.

At the same time, this doesn’t preclude discussion of the moral responsibility of numerous individuals for what they did at the time.

But it could happen that by refusing to bring the Gongadze case or other high-profile cases to their logical conclusion, we will be creating a few more “unventilated nooks and crannies” in our history.

Ivshyna: Serhiy, this is a complex situation, and obviously I am approaching the resolution of this problem from the philosophical angle. On the other hand, the solution can just as well be quite realistic.

When I speak about the possibility of stopping the legal prosecution, I mean that we should not place all the blame on the few alleged suspects under investigation, while Pukach is somewhere at large, and somebody else is who knows where, and so on. Now word has it that the trail to those who ordered and organized Gongadze’s murder is very long, especially after Kravchenko’s death.

Meanwhile, Melnychenko’s tapes are shocking. And knowing the names of those who really ordered the killing, Ukrainians are now faced with the dilemma of whether they should pretend not to know or demand a trial. In the latter case the list of defendants would be staggering. But I don’t see any willingness to take this painful path of truth. I can’t picture Yushchenko’s aides taking this path. Maybe he is ready himself. General Prosecutor Piskun’s interview in Komsomolskaya Pravda showed a glimmer of hope. But it is only a signal. There are very few brave men who can prove it in public.

There is also another kind of business known as information dumping. Everybody has become used to it and considers it part of Ukraine’s political reality. So, Ukrainian newspapers and roundtables discuss everything except things that people are genuinely concerned about.

Even though the Orange Revolution was undoubtedly a challenge, when I was discussing its roots, I said that it wasn’t a new wave but a geyser. It erupted from ancient depths because Ukrainians have always aspired to freedom. Indeed, many people came to Independence Square not for the money, but because they were really seeking greater freedom. They were fed up with the unprecedented, brute actions of Kuchma and Yanukovych. The revolution graphically demonstrated this aspiration to freedom. However, this geyser has subsided just as unexpectedly after conveying to official positions individuals who would have never made it there under normal circumstances. We now face many challenges. On the one hand, Ukraine is staking a claim to regional leadership. This is a powerful idea that requires a strong team. It’s not about politicking, leftist populism, or government quotas. The team should be made up of the best experts in various spheres. Only then can this goal become realistic. On the other hand, whom does Ukraine want to lead? The Poles, Czechs, or Turks? Those who have been NATO and EU members for a long time? Those who have different standards and a different press, for that matter?

What is your appraisal of the role The Day played after 1999, in particular during the 2004 election campaign? What kind of relationship do the editors have with the newspaper’s owners?

Ivshyna: We’ve agreed with the owners that we will not change the course on principle: The Day is an influential civic and political periodical intended for the thinking segment of society. Of course, this requires maintaining high professional standards of journalism and the newspaper’s reputation. Otherwise the brand name would become devalued.

As I mentioned before, after 1999 it became largely uninteresting to write about politics. In 1999 we predicted everything that would happen just like it did. One of the “farewell” materials on the elections was entitled “The Titanic Sets Sail.”

The Orange Revolution in and of itself is not a wave
of a magical wand that will take our journalism, which
has been torn apart by confrontations and all kinds
of unseemly acts, across a bridge to a bright future.
This bridge has to be built first. When we were children,
we used to build such bridges by joining hands.

After 1999 I focused all my editorial efforts on projects aimed at helping society to develop: history (the three books in The Day’s Library Series), contacts with students, civic drives, photo contests. I must say that our shareholders did not object to this.

As for large-scale issues of national interest, we defended them in a more radical way than any other opposition periodical: the EU, NATO, Ukrainian language issues, and our position on the proposal to reverse the oil flow in the Odesa-Brody pipeline.

Of course, not everything went smoothly. Right before the 2004 election campaign, attempts were made to influence editorial policy. But the staff made it very clear that they wouldn’t tolerate this kind of treatment.

You oppose the idea of lustration, or vetting journalists, at least in the moral and ethical sense. Why?

Ivshyna: Not quite. I see no effective lustration mechanism. Even dissidents say that instead of the desired result lustration breeds more injustice. But public discussions of lustration criteria, specific wrongdoings and their condemnation, require people who would be entitled to hold such discussions and be prepared for a frank discussion. We must find the heart to do it, or else we will be forever stuck in this quagmire.

I have told my colleagues: ‘Why are you so obsessed with this lustration thing? If it was impossible in 1991, how do you picture it now?’

On the other hand, lustration is not about firing or punishing those who voted for Yanukovych. Completely different criteria should be used. Many of those who now side with Yushchenko have done many despicable things. And they have not changed.

The absence of specific criteria for separating journalists from PR activists, propagandists, and “information killers” breeds confusion in society. Everybody has zeroed in on Pikhovshek, but he never tried to conceal his position. He admitted to being a soldier who worked for President Kuchma. He can easily ask his bashers: ‘Who among you is in a position to reproach me?’

In 1999, we at The Day were the first to challenge Kuchma’s regime and speak about troubling signs indicating that things would get far worse. For various reasons society was not ready to support us. Meanwhile, with few exceptions the journalistic beau monde, which is now positioned as extremely “orange,” was then largely on Kuchma’s side. Prytula was in the presidential pool, Martynenko was the president’s press secretary, while Mostova was helping Kuchma in every possible way to win a second term. I recall a front-page cartoon in Dzerkalo Tyzhnia: a tied-up Gulliverian Kuchma is surrounded by various small blood-suckers, the likes of Moroz, Marchuk, Rukh Popular Movement deputies, who are torturing him with saws. All of this took place. Later, as “Tapegate” gathered steam, they all scurried away from him to a safe distance. They had a unique opportunity to enhance their image and show that they were different. I would say, thank God they awakened to the truth, late as it was. But as subsequent events showed, this was nothing more than a successful maneuver that had nothing in common with the search for truth, principles, and high standards of journalism. The question arises: How do we live from now on?

Journalism is definitely to blame for creating a distorted coordinate system. While the former leadership must be blamed for focusing all of its efforts on preventing the emergence of strong competition, some of the journalists used this opportunity for personal enrichment. They kept ferreting out facts to spin sensational stories, rumors, and gossip. I repeatedly described it as “manure heap analysis.” It contained nothing that would serve to develop society. What social interests did it serve? What do we have as a result of these “titanic efforts?” I hope this kind of journalism becomes a thing of the past.

Ukraine’s journalistic corps suffered great losses under Kuchma. Now there are no moral gurus. Ethics is our weakest point.

It was cynical of the oligarchs to get together and name their party Labor Ukraine (without reference to its new leaders). It was super-cynical to create a journalists’ ethics commission and do so in an obscure and unethical manner.

Such things should not be done. Some things in the country must remain untouched. Given our current state, let us not tamper with ethics. If we honestly diagnose ourselves, we will understand that it is too early for this.

Yet we must create conditions for the emergence of influential columnists and politicians who would be trusted. We desperately need them. They will emerge from a bona fide competition. They will not be products of political expediency.

Now imitation is in progress. Instead, we need an open discussion of what is happening in our journalism. The level of contamination in journalism is so high that it threatens the whole organism. We must speak the truth, but not the kind of truth that is reflected in the saying ‘everybody has his own truth.’ We know the objective facts and should discuss them. At the present time we can’t look to politicians for help. They have their own designs on journalists. They don’t need a corporation of journalists. They want to see price tags on them. There are no politicians who want to promote the creation of new journalism. Or rather, there are some, but they don’t have enough resources to do this.

I observe the journalistic community in Warsaw and even in Moscow. Their journalists mingle nicely. They have their own clubs. You may have differing opinions, but if you extend a friendly hand, it might be interesting to talk to you.

They have a common cause that unites them. Our common cause is to raise Ukrainian journalism to a new level. This is where we should start.

We will face new temptations. Politicians will again be drawn into new rivalries. If we want Ukraine to have decent representatives, we must ensure the victory of the best, most competitive, and effective, those who will achieve the desired result in every direction, regardless of whether somebody likes them or not. In all other respects we, journalists, must be a corporation that should respond to the fact that, for example, Yeltsov is now being harassed or Boiko ignored. They are representatives of a new breed of journalists who made their names in Internet publications. They will replace the “whitebeards” who had it all but lost it.

New publications and channels will be launched before the elections. There’s talk of public television, which, in my view, risks turning into a modern version of old government-controlled television. These are our prospects and reality. Nobody wants to recognize that they should match up. Nobody is defending anyone. Nobody is attributing the source: most often they simply crib materials and present them as their own. Who can do something about this? The Journalists’ Union? Some new union? New donors? Who will finally make us into something?

Still, some individuals in the journalistic community became especially distinguished as information killers during the last presidential campaign.

Ivshyna: There were many things about Dmytro Kiseliov that irritated our journalists. From the outset I treated Dmytro in a friendlier manner than our entire journalistic community. Much later I was his co-host on a television program for a brief period. I think this needs explaining, because people here tend to seek out sentimental undertones. I was interested in him primarily because of his good education and practical experience. It was very interesting to observe his first steps. His daily program was very popular. Incidentally, he was the first to draw attention to many of the people who were being ignored by our journalists. There was also a period before the last elections when, in my view, he behaved incorrectly. But, he is entitled to his own opinions. After arriving in Ukraine he, unlike many Ukrainian journalists, traveled across the country and tried to study it and work as a professional. The political reality turned out to be much more dramatic. Nonetheless, he is still a very interesting journalist who’s popular both here and in Moscow.

There’s one more thing. During the frame-up against Yevhen Marchuk when charges were laid in a Turin court, I, speaking as an editor, must say that none of my colleagues was willing to air the views of the opposite side, i.e., Yevhen Marchuk’s. Everybody was dumping information without any regard for informational parity, despite the fact that Yevhen Marchuk was then National Security and Defense Council chairman. Meanwhile, Dmytro, who was working for Pinchuk’s channel and had no apparent interest in the matter, behaved in a manner befitting a man and aired what Marchuk had to say.

In general, I think we needed irritants. In our provincial “swamp” with its “frogs” we need to build a system in which journalists would learn the ropes from colleagues with high standards, knowledge, and skill.

Or take Olha Herasymiuk: she does something and right away I come across an article in Ukrayina Moloda entitled “Herasymiuk in a Creative Coma” by some girl that I’ve never heard of, and this despite the fact that she has been slaving away in social journalism for many years. Of course, like many others she might have decided to try her hand at political journalism. But this doesn’t minimize her wonderful potential: look at all her European prizes. All these small-town “frogs” are preventing the formation of elite journalism along with a system of criteria and public opinion. Public opinion in Ukraine boils down to attaching the label of “star” to everyone that appears on television.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian producers do not cultivate their own stars. They find it easier to hire Tina Kandelaki. And what are they discussing? Once again we are reliving the lives of Russians. Where can we get our own personalities if we show no interest in our own life? I constantly travel to regional centers and smaller towns and meet people who are interested in many issues. But the nation never sees itself on television.

Don’t you think that this discussion format of analyzing past mistakes and miscalculations might also prove to be quite brutal and turn individual journalists — guilty or not — into “moral corpses?”

Ivshyna: I don’t want to see any corpses, moral or otherwise. We have too much cannibalism as it is. I keep seeing manifestations of this servile habit of pitting one journalist against another. We are talking only about what we want to achieve in our journalism. First, I would like to be able to salute and respect most journalists.

I would like them to earn good money legally, so that they wouldn’t be forced to accept payoffs with much blushing and suffering. Some no longer blush or suffer, though. I would like them to cherish their reputations. I would like television network and newspaper owners to understand that a person with a reputation deserves a higher reward. Then all information killers would be known, much like the politicians who pay them. And this information would be passed to citizens, because the ultimate recipients are the voters. Then it would be clear why certain things happen and for what purpose.

The new leadership is facing the choice of whom to side with, what path to choose, and what kind of relationship to build with journalists. I would propose a kind of pact on safeguards against especially dangerous manipulation weapons (which act like bacteriological weapons) in political wars. Perhaps we should forget our past enmity and minor grudges, while all grave insults should be examined. We must put an end to made-to-order materials, mudslinging, and information killing. “Dump tanks” come at a very high price to society.

But there is still a demand for them.

Ivshyna: There is, but this means that we must unite against politicians who resort to such methods. What about transparency, morals, Independence Square, etc.? I want us to practice what we preach. In principle, this can be done. If we work in the right direction, those who share the same principles will join us. If we do nothing but dirty things, it will end in complete degradation.

The Orange Revolution in and of itself is not a wave of a magical wand that will take our journalism, which has been torn apart by confrontations and all kinds of unseemly acts, across a bridge to a bright future. This bridge has to be built first. When we were children, we used to build such bridges by joining hands.