Vyacheslav PIKHOVSHEK: "I HAVE NOT YET USED MY MAIN DOSSIER ON POLITICIANS. BUT NOW I WILL" 

"I WANT TO MAKE
POLITICAL EVENTS ON MY SHOW"

"The show's main goal is to influence the presidential elections," Vyacheslav Pikhovshek says.

"We will pick the topic of every program bearing in mind the influence of an event on the presidential race or simply the event's being in the context of the elections. Twenty eight weeks will pass from the moment the first program is aired to the first round of the elections, and now we are talking of the block consisting of twenty eight programs. What will be next, on the eve of the elections, I can tell without going into details: the debates will not resemble the debates held before the presidential elections of 1991 and 1994."

The Day: Do you think that your show will be the main one on this subject on Ukrainian television?

V. P.: To say so would be presumptuous and even over-confident. Though I will do everything in my power to make it so.

The Day: What will be in "Epicenter" - toughness and the persistent desire to dig in depth?

V. P.: I will practice what I have never done before. It will be a process of brainstorming. It will be a show not of television but political activity. I want to make political events in my show.

The Day: And, this way, go beyond journalism as such?

V. P.: Yes, there is a problem here. But a great deal that is happening in our country disturbs me, so I think that intervention, active intervention is needed. We have to actively interfere in order to elucidate the situation and to help people become oriented, including those who got us into this situation.

The Day: But there is a real problem here. Either you as a journalist see some problems and show them to the viewer as if to make him think and in this way influence the formation of public opinion, or you actively interfere in the process and try to manipulate public opinion.

V. P.: Manipulation is a question of words, not technologies, I would say. It depends on what goal one sets oneself. If one works as an active participant in someone's election campaign, then, of course, one is manipulating public opinion for the sake of a certain campaign. But if one shows the situation in its diversity and tries to influence it for the sake of changes which one considers positive, I would not call that manipulation. Yes, it is undoubtedly subjective. But subjective is not necessarily wrong. The more so that my journalistic colleagues will be very different, with different political principles and degrees of involvement - from absolutely independent to active participants in somebody's election campaigns. Our show will be quite versatile, objective, and very dangerous for all the politicians who come to our studio.

The Day: But not be the only ono agree of Vyacheslav Pikhovshek alone will take part in creating "Epicenter." Hence you, too, will depend on, let us say, interests, rules of the game in the domestic news for the very same 1+1 station.

V. P.: Structurally, our organization is like this: 1+1 creates the studio and provides for video and producing (Iryna Ionova). Our Ukrainian Independent Center of Political Research, financed 100% with American money will take care of information and analysis. The money is provided by the National Endowment for Democracy; these are open regional grants of the foundation, which has been financing me since 1990. Britain's Westminster Foundation is also taking part in financing "Epicenter."

The Day: So foreign investments provides some guarantee of your personal freedom. But 1+1 is still connected with the interests of a number of structures supporting it.

V. P.: The presidential race is not the best time for any journalist to realize his or her principles who considers himself to be not even completely independent but at least selfdependent. This is why I had the option of going through presidential race without appearing on television. But 1+1 needed such a show, and thus "Epicenter" emerged. Under current circumstances we chose the following form: the show is entirely mine. That is, it is not connected in some way with other people's responsibility. 1+1 and I will work together, will talk, and talk a lot about these 28 programs. But I am responsible for everything.

And it is the best balance of what can be done today in Ukraine and how one can work with American foundations. I often run into the situation when our political elite is constantly looking for a big brother. Big brother in Moscow or big brother in Washington, or - where is he, that big brother? In any case, stating the problem this way demonstrates a certain intellectual narrowness. People look for a big brother instead of being normal, self-sufficient Europeans. I want to produce an impression that we are a small European country. We are not a big country to be afraid of. But neither are we a country ignored by one and all. We are a country like most other countries in the world - like Belgium, Poland, Canada. We are trying to be such a country. For we are choosing not just some generalized European way - we are choosing the path of building a civil society, and it is in general the same everywhere, and it does not matter how we call it. It does not mean that there are no intrigues among top officials. But Washington intrigues are ten levels higher than Kyiv ones, because in Washington the graduates of the best American colleges and universities are making their careers there. Comparing corrupted politicians in Washington (there is corruption there, too) and in Kyiv I would definitely say that we are talking of a corrupt aristocrat and a village thief. The difference is in quality. But at the same time I proceed from some postulates that are hard to deny, and they are like some firm ground in Brownian political movement. I work to make contact with elected officials, not appointed by somebody but elected. Because I think that the electorate should be responsible for their choice. And people sooner or later have to understand that they have to be responsible for what they choose. You want to live like that - be free to live. But your choice will de decisive.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE SECOND WAVE FROM DNIPROPETROVSK

The Day: But do we have a real choice - that is the question! Our press totally depends on those in power, television is monopolized, and top officials openly do everything to discredit their opponents.

V. P.: Now we can see that the legislative power of the USA supports their President's actions toward Yugoslavia. They act as a whole. And the American mass media work in unison with them. Our political elite interprets this in a very specific way: look how American press approves of Clinton's actions. My answer is: this is because Clinton does what the American people want, because opinion polls confirmed it, and even Congress, Republicans - even they say that yes, it should be done. And whose press is it? The press also reflects the nation's opinion. This is an axiom that works.

The Day: And our situation is absolutely different.

V. P.: Our situation is the opposite, and the infrastructure is distorted. The biggest problem is the distribution of newspapers among financial-industrial clans, the distribution of television among them. Why do I insist that the second wave from Dnipropetrovsk has caused degradation of Ukrainian press? Because strange as it may seem, when Pavlo Lazarenko came to Kyiv he made a most valuable contribution to the development of democracy in 1996. He bought those mass media outlets nobody else wanted to buy, and this is what the representatives of another oligarchic clan are doing now: they buy those television stations and mass media no one needed earlier. And reacting to such actions by Mr. Lazarenko, all the other politicians started founding their own mass media outlets. And this is an ironic form of freedom of the press.

It is a press that depends not on the balance of public opinion but on the balance of interrelationships of oligarchic interests and mass media related to them. In this case, as President Kuchma said, the press becomes a battering ram of financial groups fighting among themselves. This is a pluralism under which every financial group can voice its position, and it will certainly be published. And such a situation can develop to the level of free press, the more so that in Ukraine the relationship between journalists and the owner of a media outlet is such that journalists come and say: we want to work for you, your policy suits us; we understand that there are some taboos but othetwise we can be free. Thus I worked on "Fifth Angle" within the structure of the Alternative Television Company owned by Hryhory Surkis and Viktor Medvedchuk. And for two years and a half they never, not once, tried to pressure me. Now I have a similar understanding with Rodniansky. But the second wave from Dnipropetrovsk made the possibility of such relations null and void. They started oppressing everything more or less independent, and recognize only the principle of an order and its being carried out unconditionally.

"I SEE POSITIVE TRENDS IN THE SHADOW ECONOMY"

The Day: What do you see as possible ways to change the situation of our mass media that are directly tied to political and economical processes?

V. P.: The situation can be changed in only two ways: the first is immediate privatization of the land, and the second is liberating everything possible from licensing and registration - to make it possible for people to work and create normal family businesses. If this does not happen, a second phase of the Ukrainian nomenklatura revolution will begin. I consider the students' hunger strike to be the result of the first phase. The regime in the country has not changed. People who worked under the Soviets in all the power structures have simply switched rooms. By the way, I am not sure that something would have been different if the regime had changed. This does not mean that I am a pessimist. I am an optimist. If I had not been an optimist I would have left this country long ago. Strange as it might seem, I see positive trends in the shadow economy. Why? Because it is a generation of people who do not expect the government to give them something. They go out and get it themselves. Yes, they do not pay taxes, on paper all their enterprises are unprofitable, and their money is God knows where. Yes, there are such problems as crime, drugs, white slavery, and all of these are painful. But these people say: we do not want to be dependent anymore. And there is again a logical paradox: will people respect such a country, will they be its patriots, will they defend it if the state simply ignores them? Will people vote in such a country? Obviously not. This is why I agree with those Ukrainian politicians who say that now the most important thing is to restore the electorate's trust in the country. When we started the students' hunger strike and when we conduct research projects in our center and broadcast them on television, we do it in order to change something. I see so many people willing to change something in the country. And I have a feeling that if President Kuchma or someone else does not take necessary steps - we will see the second phase of the revolution. And what it will be like in details, I think, no one can now say.

The Day: Are there politicians who, as you see it, can change the situation without throwing the country into a cataclysm?

V. P.: There are both politicians who can do it and reasons why each one of them might not be able to do it. Moroz, for example, has very big problems with land sale. But no one is talking of the arbitrary sale of land or of restoration of feudal estates. We are talking about the contemporary variation of capitalism, post-industrial society, which has learned a great deal from idiotic Soviet socialism with its violations of human rights. Finally, there is global experience of reserving the right to land property only for Ukrainian citizens who would lease the land to anyone and make money from it. Or, for example, I was alerted when I heard Yevhen Marchuk's statement on Tsendrovsky's "Dialogs" show. Mr. Marchuk, talking about the necessity to reinvest the capital sent abroad in Ukraine, said that businessmen should be forced to do it. If he meant by the word force creating the necessary legal mechanisms, it is one thing. But if he meant non-democratic ways of reform, then that is something else. However, Mr. Marchuk's activities as Prime Minister demonstrated his responsible attitude toward the law. And I do not belong to that part of people who criticize him for working in the KGB. It was his job, and he did it the way he could in those days. And none of the toughest dissidents could say that he has any important compromising evidence on Marchuk. It is clear that there are no simple ways to get out of that deepest of holes the Ukrainian state has dug itself into. And if either Moroz or Marchuk is ready to work in the situation when there are no simple solutions, it means we have a chance. And if not...

The Day: And you created "Epicenter" as a project that might create - at least virtual - situation of choice for the voter?

V. P.: I start with the assumption that it is very hard for me as a voter to choose between one or another. I understand: whatever television does, whatever it distinguishes itself with during elections - either with its activity or inactivity - it is impossible to fail to get pensioners' votes in polling districts. Muckraking television that uses overtly false materials - I call it killer-television - is leading to a fascinating situation. It is not leading to giving someone an advantage over other politicians but to discrediting our internal politics in general. I do not want to discredit politicians and politics as such. I do not want everyone to be brought down to the same level, and this inexorably happens on muckraking television. I have never done it and never will. I will try to show my guests' positions objectively, and it will be the way to create not propagandistic television but one that influences the electorate's conscious choice - conscious, for it will be made with the best possible information and the maximum responsibility for the choices made.