Guidelines set at journalism congress

Last Thursday saw the opening of the 11th Congress of the National Union of Ukrainian Journalists. On the eve of the gathering we asked our experts to define the three main objectives of Ukrainian journalism.

Ihor LUBCHENKO, head of the National Union of Ukrainian Journalists:

“The union’s first objective is to defend the right of journalists to exercise their professional duty according to world standards. No matter how much we claim that we have had increasingly more freedom of expression in the past few years, let’s face it: a lot of journalism teams are groaning under the pressure of national and local executive bodies. There have been attempts to deprive editorial offices of their premises, strip journalists of their founders’ status, and replace chief editors whose ranks already include a physical training instructor, a farmer, and a retired policeman.

“The saddest thing is that there is no political force in today’s Ukraine that sincerely craves freedom of expression: all parties, including Our Ukraine, the Party of Regions, and BYuT, continue to meddle in media affairs.

“Another problem that the union should address is the development of journalistic excellence. In general, this would be our main objective if the state performed its function and properly defended the rights of journalists.

“As of this year, there are 91 newspapers and magazines by subscription, as well as about a thousand TV and radio stations. But many of them are very far from journalistic excellence. I like the fact that The Day and, above all, Larysa Ivshyna, are deeply concerned about this and trying to change things for the better.

“The journalists’ union should organize a network of specialized schools, workshops, and courses run by leading journalists and media personalities. The system of retraining journalists has been lost over the years of independence. We must do our best to restore it and bring it up to date with budget funding, because the state should be primarily interested in journalistic excellence, as well as through various foundations and grants.

“This is connected to the union’s third objective: we must carefully groom talented young journalists, who are going to replace the current ones in the mid-21st century.”

THREE MOST IMPORTANT OBJECTIVES OF UKRAINIAN JOURNALISM

Volodymyr PRYTULA, National Commission for Freedom of Speech and Information Development under the President of Ukraine:

“Ukrainian journalism is a child that has just stood up and is learning to walk. The traditions of free pre-Soviet journalism, which are studied at university journalism departments as the history of Ukrainian journalism before the October Revolution, were eradicated by 70 years of oppressive communist dictatorship, when there was nothing but Communist Party-controlled journalism. So the current period is a time when new traditions of the free word are being created. And since journalism cannot help being part of the economic system and heavily depends on a society’s economic condition and awareness, I would like to set out, with a pinch of humor, three economic laws for all the Ukrainian media:

1. Try to avoid being sold.

2. If selling is inevitable, sell yourself at a handsome price.

3. If you can’t avoid being sold, even at a handsome price, do not lie even in this case.

That’s it!”

Oleh KHOMENIUK, print media advisor, IREX-UMEDIA:

“The Ukrainian media are going through a period of transition from totalitarian rule to freedom of speech. Transformations like this cannot proceed smoothly and painlessly because they are determined not only by social conditions, which change rather slowly, but also by the resultant social awareness and professional level of journalists, which cannot change instantly either. So Ukrainian information outlets are faced with the following three most important tasks: Bring professional standards up to the world level and introduce world information standards into the practice of Ukrainian media; Denationalize all the media as successfully as possible so that all publications are in the same economic, social, and professional state; Encourage as much professionalism as possible in the ‘journalist-owner- government’ relationship.

“I hope the Ukrainian journalistic community will discuss these objectives at the congress of journalists and adopt a decision that will promote a solution for these problems.”

Kateryna KUZICHEVA, editor in chief, Komsomolskaya pravda (Donbas):

“Competence and impartiality are the two crucial elements of contemporary journalism. These should be the basic laws for any article on any subject. Another law is the journalist’s personal qualities (I mean, of course, professionalism) of which I would single out boldness, which sometimes borders on impudence. Unfortunately, our work is often associated with unhappy events, so one usually tends to get rid of media people. But if you aren’t insistent you won’t get any information, while high-quality and ample coverage of facts is the main component of good on-the-spot reporting.”

Snizhana SHEVCHUK, assistant to the chairman of the Volyn Oblast Administration:

“In my opinion, reporting remains the most crucial purpose of our national journalism. I don’t know much about subjectivity and objectivity because that is a philosophical question, but these two elements should also be part of the number- one objective. It is impossible to speak of national journalism without touching on national problems: these are ignorance and lack of culture. It is journalism that can try to solve them, because in fact people don’t read books today, but they still watch television and read newspapers. And what is very important for Ukrainian journalism today is the function of enlightenment.”

Borys POTIATYNNYK, professor at the Faculty of Journalism, National Ivan Franko University (Lviv):

“One can, of course, speak about the current purpose of Ukrainian journalism from the angle of moral and intellectual objectives. And there are many objectives like this that are significant for our society because honest and unbiased coverage of current events, bold analyses of Ukraine’s socioeconomic realities in comparison with European living standards, and the building of a still fledgling civil society are what makes Ukraine’s development and further civilization-related processes possible. So it is difficult to overestimate the role of the media.

“However, for journalists to be able to fulfill their duties, certain cardinal circumstances should be changed. First of all, we have stand on our own two feet because, with the exception of a few newspapers and TV channels, the absolute majority of media outlets are either barely surviving or posting losses. Their print runs leave much to be desired, and the number of subscribers is insufficient to have a serious impact. Dependence on parties and political sponsors is a stage that the countries of so-called sustained democracy passed in the 19th or early 20th century. But we still have a funny situation: an election campaign has started because journalists are starting to smoke their own cigarettes instead of bumming off each other. I can see the agitation that the prospect of a fresh election is triggering in our journalistic circles. So it is of paramount importance to stand on one’s own two feet economically and financially. Only then can one speak honestly.

“Second, I think Ukraine needs a high-quality national newspaper. I don’t mean, of course, an eye-catching design, I mean a meaningful newspaper, like Le Monde for the French, Gazeta Wyborcza for the Poles, or The Daily Telegraph for the Brits. Every European state had this kind of newspaper that to some extent unites the nation. In Ukraine such a publication cannot reach the circulation size of these newspapers, but between 100,000 and 150,000 copies would be realistic for Ukraine. This task can stand over for another three to five years, and then we will have to create electronic multimedia resources because the era of printed newspapers, as a dominant media, will come to an end. There will still be newspapers, but they will cease to be the number-one media for intellectuals.

“The third problem is training journalists. Ukraine has about 30 institutes, faculties, and divisions that train journalists. (I will not discuss my faculty because I am an interested party.) But in general, it is not clear whom these 30 educational institutions are training. Journalism is now on the list of specialties for entrepreneurs, the so-called fashionable specialties. Faculties of law, economics, international relations, and now journalism are the most attractive for applicants. But the situation is that these 30 faculties and institutes, on the one hand, and practical journalism, on the other, live separate lives. Some serious top managers and TV personalities even say that a degree in journalism is considered a flaw, a drawback. I think that’s an exaggeration because our faculty and Lviv keep sending journalists to Kyiv, where they carve out a successful career — maybe because they have a Ukrainian-language environment in our city. But an overall problem still exists. “I see two ways of solving it. One is to grant faculties and universities more autonomy. If we adjust to ministerial plans, this adversely affects the quality of training; we would have to train journalists on an interdisciplinary or even inter-faculty basis. It would be ideal to do it the way it’s done in the West, i.e., to offer two — major and elective — specialties, for example, a journalism-economics, journalism- political science, and journalism-foreign languages.

“We also need private schools. Last year, thanks to the Goethe Institute, I visited a number of European universities and editorial offices. I will confess that I was most impressed when I visited a private school in Hamburg — a free one at that, where 50 applicants complete for one spot. Schooling lasts for two years, and it is free because its owners know whom they are training and for what. A powerful newspaper and a large publishing house train specialists for their future posts.

“Unfortunately, the Ukrainian media are still not prepared for this, but they should start doing this. In other words, the media industry should display more interest in training specialists. It should collaborate with faculties and perhaps open private schools, which will have a positive effect on state-run universities because it will spark competition, and, as we know, competition is a good thing.”