PR- decreased. There was four time less of paid materials. However, the campaigns of glorifying Rinat Akhmetov’s charity and criticizing Andriy Sadovyi and his party «Samopomich” did not stop. Pinchuk’s channels joined the campaign against Kolomoyskyi. “Opposition Block” did not stop paying for news either.

Daily news from October, 27 – November, 1 (detailed monitoring)

Inter

During the week, “Podrobnosti” paid a lot of attention to the fraud against “Opposition Block”, the struggles for single-member districts and criticism of the coalition formation. These materials present the representatives of "Opposition Block" such as Yuriy Boiko, Oleksandr Vilkul, and Nestor Shufrych. There are also unjustified comments of representatives of this political force in the materials they have no direct relation to. For example, there is a comment in the video about gad negotiations on October, 31.

In the video about elections results in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhya, "Inter" keeps on criticizing Ihor Kolomoyskyi without balance and uses harsh subjective evaluations.

In its traditional material about illegal production of amber, “Podrobnosti” call Volyn tragedy “Volyn slaughter” (this term was created by the ex-deputy from Party of Regions Tsariov). Besides violating the standard of separating facts from opinions, the videos also violates the standard of balance of opinions since it does not present comments of the police and region’s leaders who were mentioned.

On October 29, "Inter" began the issue with the accusative material against the government; it spoke about the combatants in Donbas who are treated at their own expense without government assistance. There is no balance in the video because there are only comments of volunteers and soldiers, but no position of power ministries.

Three (!) materials in the issue are about interferences in broadcasting "Inter". There is also a material with numerous accusations against Ihor Kolomoyskyi and, as always, without balance.

After a short pause, “Podrobnosti” restarted its defamation of “Samopomich” and its leader, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi. This issue aired the material that violated such standards as separating facts from comments, reliability, and accuracy, not to mention the balance:

ICTV
“Fakty” violated the standard of separating facts from opinions. When speaking about the ex-members of Party of Regions who joined new Verkhovna Rada, the journalist evaluates one of them: “Anton Yatsenko is called the godfather of tender mafia”, and then, she adds: “And now, Moscow will have its ears in Ukrainian Rada”.

In the material about the parties that failed to get into the parliament, the channel provided Vira Ulyanchenko, the leader of the party “Zastup”, with an ability to thank her voters. The representatives of other political forces did not have a chance to promote themselves.

On October 28, ICTV also started accusing Kolomoyskyi. As a proof for accusations, journalists show the comment of a political commentator and regular participant of “Opposition Block” events Kost Bondarenko. On the next day, unanswered accusations against Kolomoyskyi continued on ICTV.

On October 31, “Fakty” violated the standards of balance and separating facts from comments in the material about Ukrainian grain that had to be exported to Bangladesh. Vasyl Pazyniak from “Batkivshchyna” comments this situation, but there are no comments of officials who were accused.

As a tradition, ICTV airs paid news with the corporate advertising of Viktor Pinchuk.

STB

The nature of the violations and paid materials in “Vikna” is identical to ICTV. STB joins “Opposition Block” support group in the materials about problematic districts. STB also airs the materials with accusations against Kolomoyskyi and repeats unjustified comments of "Opposition Block." In addition, the news had corporate advertising in favor of the channel’s owner Viktor Pinchuk.

"Ukrayina"

“Sobitiya” on “Ukrayina” also support “Opposition Block”. In the material about 59th district, Boyko accuses Kolomoyskyi in election fraud. Kolomoyskyi’s position is not shown in the material.

Just like before the elections, “Ukrayina” keeps on glorifying charity acts of its owner Rinat Akhmetov. On October 28 and November 1, the channel dedicated two materials to its owner.

On October 28, "Sobitiya" on “Ukrayina” also presented “Opposition Block” as winners in 60th district. As usual, “Sobitiya” promoted good deeds of Rіnat Akhmetov in this issue.

On November 1, "Ukrayina" joined the battle for the 59th district supporting “its” candidate Serhiy Sazhko. The channel also talks about the 60th district where it abandons balance in favor of Oleksandr Ryzhenkov (previously supported by “Inter”) and shows unjustified comments of “Opposition Block”.

First National

First National keeps on presenting its news as a television newspaper. The only full material is about shooting the car with Mustafa Nayem and Serhiy Leshchenko (the candidates from Petro Poroshenko’s Block). Other materials are followed with parquet videos, and some have low-quality videos. Despite that, we did not notice violations of journalism standards in the materials on First National.

During the week, we recorded 43 materials with signs of paid news. This is four times less than last week. The biggest amount of paid news appeared on "Inter" (19), followed by "Ukrayina” (13) and ICTV (7). We did not see any paid news on First National and 5th Channel. "1+1" has materials without the balance of opinions, but generally, it was neutral until Saturday, when it began to respond to attacks against Kolomoyskyi.

The main purpose of paid materials was to support the fight of “Opposition Block” for a few single-member districts where close to that political party candidates (including unaffiliated candidates) try to seize the victory.

Sixteen materials with paid news features defended the interests of "Opposition Block". Ten materials were devoted to good deeds of Rinat Akhmetov. Eleven materials were criticisms of Ihor Kolomoyskyi, and two were against Andriy Sadovyi. Thus, with the completion of the elections, the news preserved the main lines of the domestic information war.

Weekly programs on November, 2 (detailed monitoring)

The elections harvest has ended and journalists finally started working, although the good old tradition of oligarchs’ war using media remained. The channels started giving more analysis of both political and economic situation in Ukraine. The newsrooms began gathering and presenting all the “small” information and presented it in generalized material about the front, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. The main topics of the week covered in the final weeklies were coalition discussions, so-called elections in the self-proclaimed "DNR" and "LNR", and the messages from the combat zone.

In the analysis of coalition’s vicissitudes, the hostess of “Fakty tyzhnia” on ICTV Oksana Sokolova compares the coalition of 2014 to the one in 2005 calling it "deja vu", and she also explains it as the reason for Yanukovych to come to power. The journalist Oleksandr Vizhin uses evaluative judgments, calling the result of "Samopomich” to be the biggest sensation. The correspondent does not mention the number of votes for the parties "Batkivshchyna" and "Opposition Block". The comment of political scientist Oleksiy Haran is used for the manipulation in favor of Petro Poroshenko’s Block.

When speaking about coalition formation, "Sobytiya Niedieli" on "Ukrayina" pointed out that the coalition talks were intervened by the president and the prime minister, although as the executive branch, they should remain independent. Interestingly, the day after the broadcast, Poroshenko made a statement in which he distanced himself from the coalition creation. Comparing to the other weeklies, “Sobitiya niedieli” were more responsible and used factual evidence to talk about the differences between the winners. The journalist Anastasia Obraztsova does not present a comment of “Samopomich” representative while comments of other members of the coalition negotiations are shown.

“Ukrayina” also airs “killer” material about problematic districts where the votes have not been counted yet, and “Kolomoyskyi’s hand” that was supposedly responsible for that.

In "Podrobnosti niedieli", "Inter" paid nearly half of the time to pseudo-elections in "DNR" and "LNR". According to      the host Dmytro Anopchenko, this voting was the main topic. The issue showed a short comment of the separatists’ leader Oleksandr Zakharchenko after which Dmytro Anopchenko spoke about the rule of “not giving the word to terrorists" and explained why the channel made an exception this time. Inviting Oleh Lyashko to talk about the “elections” in the self-proclaimed republics was not justified. "Inter" has prepared its own video from Luhansk.

In "TSN. Tyzhden" on "1+1", the topic of coalition formation was almost in the middle of the program, and the military information was in the beginning. Similarly to Oksana Sokolova, the hostess Alla Mazur talks about the threat of repeating 2005, although she only hints about it. In the review of potential coalition members, there are comments of the representatives of all political forces, except for Radical Party against which "1+1" led anti-campaign before the elections.

To highlight pseudo-elections in Donbas, "1+1" sent a correspondent Ruslan Kharchenko, who prepared a report from there that was filmed on a mobile phone.

Also, the channel aired a material of Ivan Hrebeniuk about migrants protesting against these elections. However, in the beginning, in a somewhat manipulative manner, the journalist said that the voice of pro-Ukrainian migrants was real, although different sides of the conflict could treat this definition in a different way. "1+1" was the only channel that highlighted the protests across Ukraine, not only from Kyiv.

 “Chas. Pidsumky Tyzhnia” on 5th Channel also chose coalition vicissitudes as the priority topic. The host Vitaliy Haydukevych resorted to somewhat biased analysis and not quite correct historical parallels to the events that took place 100 years ago. In the material, Oleksiy Bratushchak (just like Oksana Sokolova on ICTV) presented incorrect reasons and causes for Yanukovych to become the president in 2010.

5th channel did not cover the so-called elections on the territories controlled by the militants.

“Chas. Pidsumky Tyzhnia” on 5th Channel just like “TSN. Tyzhden” presented information about 32nd checkpoint as a review. Also, the author of the material uses a new term for the other party that was not used before by the channel - "the enemy". The notion that "the enemy" does not want peace is combined with the comment of the member of battalion “Azov” where the latter actually speaks about the desire to put pressure on the other side and resume fighting. Thus, because of the journalist, the fighter of the volunteer battalion becomes this supposed "enemy." Overall, the journalist makes informational "seed" for the viewer so the latter sees the reasons to resume fighting. The journalist also focused on demoralizing state of the soldiers who do not understand what they are fighting for.

Monitoring of compliance with professional standards in the information services of Ukrainian TV channels was carried by NGO "Telekritika" with financial support by USAID, provided through the "Internews Network". The purpose of monitoring is to increase media literacy of Ukrainian society, motivate media to be just and responsible, respect professional standards, and improve the quality of media products.

Monitoring of compliance with professional standards in the information services of Ukrainian TV channels was carried by NGO "Telekritika" as a part of the project “Strengthening informational society in Ukraine” supported by Council of Europe. The purpose of monitoring is to increase media literacy of Ukrainian society, motivate media to be just and responsible, respect professional standards, and improve the quality of media products.

 Monitoring is an independent expert assessment of the NGO "Telekritika." All conclusions and opinions expressed in all monitoring publications may not necessarily reflect the views of Council of Europe.