My Newspaper

Writing a jubilee material is a very thankless task, especially when it is about something personal, for example, the newspaper you have been working for since its first issue. In the life of a professional journalist, who has been in the media for years and contributed to many newspapers, one newspaper or another plays no special role. The more so that all newspapers, as professionals say, generally look alike and can only be distinguished by their titles or formats. And if the titles of newspapers are suddenly displaced, for example, due to a mix-up at the printer’s, the reader will not notice it at all. We leave aside as a distinguishing characteristic the newspaper’s political course, which has a clearly seasonal nature.

For me, however, everything is totally different. The point is Den’The Day is the first newspaper in my life, so deep in my consciousness the words day and newspaper have long become synonyms. And I view all the ups and downs of the Newspaper, that is, The Day — please don’t laugh, dear reader — as my personal successes and failures. I feel so distressed over every mistake on its pages (not only in my articles) that I have long stopped — in order to keep my peace of mind — reading The Day. I exclusively read other newspapers (not capitalized) just to keep in form. For their errors, lack of logic, and inconsistency are an inexhaustible source of abundant spiritual pleasure. I only am joking. For it is not only my own but also other, “foreign,” Ukrainian newspapers that successfully generate a feeling of acute shame.

As we all know, periodicals — newspapers and magazines — unlike belles-lettres, do not lay claim to perfection of form, nor do they require that journalists be guided in their writings by Boileau’s rules and preserve the unity of action, time, and place. But how sensitive to this form is the individual to whom we attach a somewhat disdainful label of rank-and-file reader! This is evidenced by the hundreds of letters The Day has received in the past five years. The readers skillfully analyze all our gaffes, slips, and careless style, but they also point out — with disproportionate gratitude — every modest success by a journalist. These readers’ letters, both critical and complimentary, from Ukraine and abroad, are one of greatest gains of the Newspaper, a sign that it is not just a rolling stone, for it has struck roots, clung to the ground, and become part of the field.

What do I esteem the Newspaper for? This is quite simple: it has given me a happy chance to serve — if only quite invisibly to the naked eye — the cause of promoting this country and laying a microscopic brick of my own into the lining of its walls (which perhaps exists in my imagination only). What is also quite valuable and valued is that, working at The Day, I can afford the great luxury of expressing precisely what I think and what I consider important and needed. Over the long five years of its life the Newspaper has cut my materials a lot, as often happens in our work. But I cannot recall at even instance when somebody — Editor- in-Chief, Editorial Board, et al. — forced me to write something against my own convictions or simply on demand. I has thus been lucky with the Newspaper.

Also quite essential is the fact that journalists are not ashamed — in spite of all the unexpected metamorphoses, gaffes, and mix-ups in its pages — of working here; they do not feel tainted (There are a host of newspapers that cannot so boast). For all its drawbacks, The Day is clearly oriented toward enlightenment and spiritual values even in quite difficult political situations. We are obliged for this only to our Editor-in-Chief. The result is that even people who categorically reject the Newspaper’s political line read and even contribute fine articles for The Day.

One of the things that make Newspaper attractive is its traditional (five years long) proclivity towards historical materials. Just imagine how many historical stories, unknown to the public at large, we have printed! A reader who has carefully studied them has an indisputable right to be awarded an academic degree in history. There is no need to emphasize the importance of historical knowledge precisely today, when the unknown — forgotten or once forbidden — pages of our past are coming in out of the cold, when history is in fact being rewritten. To crown all this, what can be more gripping than a well researched and written historical novella?

And one the last thing. If newspapers had their own coats-of-arms or colors, ours would have to show the motto, religious tolerance above all. A very short time ago Ukrainian newspapers paid little attention to this country’s religious life, which is now making such a notable impact on other spheres of public life, i.e., politics, education, history, and art. Still fewer were those newspapers, which unequivocally professed tolerance of faith, respect for the confessional choice of every individual, and were not afraid to go against the grain, against the so-called common opinion (which, however, can never be common to all). Today, the situation in the media has radically changed for the better. Moreover, The Day has taken this stand since its first issue, “without fear or favor.” Thus I say with pride, long live The Day!