The amount of "sponsored" materials in broadcast news is growing steadily as well as the frequency of hushing up information important for the society but unfavorable for the authorities. This can be clearly seen in Telekritika's monitoring performed on weekly basis with the purpose to analyze the news and weekly summing-up programs of the eight leading TV channels of Ukraine. The analysis is performed as a part of the project ‘Monitoring Journalism Standards and Increase of Media Literacy of a Broad Circle of Ukrainian Citizens' initiated by Internews Network U-Media Civic Organization.

During the month of May, the daily newscasts at the monitored TV channels featured the following number of materials characterized by "sponsorship" (censorship) or hushing-up.:

* For technical reasons, the monitoring of 5 Kanal commenced only since May 24th, so its position at the bottom of the list is not fairly representative; it we took average weekly values, 5 Kanal would probably occupy the place between 1+1 and Ukraina.

The lion's share of "sponsored" materials in May was made up by "political sponsorship". Topics advertising businesses were comparatively fewer (none at all at Inter and 5 Kanal):

Here, the obvious ‘anti-leaders' are Viktor Pinchuk's Group channels, at which the inclusion of business-sponsored materials into newscasts has already become a tradition, as it were. Most of the topics advertise businesses belonging to the channel owner. However, there are certain sponsorships by third party businesses as well. At Ukraina, non-political sponsorships are exclusively advertisements of businesses belonging to Rinat Akhmetov, the channel owner.

Political sponsored materials at TV channels have the following features now.

The channels are holding two simultaneous campaigns; ‘good authorities' and ‘evil opposition'. Most effort is made by the censors to advocate the ‘success' and ‘right direction' of the ‘good authorities'. For that purpose, domestic and foreign policy of the authorities and their attitudes are being covered actively. However, the channels do not speak about the activities or opinions of the opposition. The opposition is mentioned only in cases that illustrate the theme of ‘dissemination of opposition'. Among the opinions of opposition representatives, only those are selected that are either purely emotional, or concern unimportant aspects of any topic. In other words, this simple device makes the audience build up a disdainful attitude towards the opposition as to the people who ‘are not sure what they want' or ‘cannot agree even between themselves', etc.

NOTE: The sum may not be equal to the total number as there are materials covering both themes as well.

During the reported month, the main topics, in which those propaganda devices were exercised, were the following.

• 1. Ukraine-Russia Political Dialog. The channels were actively promoting the attitude, according to which all agreements between the supreme authorities of Ukraine and Russia were correct, competent, farseeing, and favorable for Ukraine. For example, an ICTV newscast explicitly called them ‘catching up with what previous authorities have missed', thus violating basic standards and ethics of journalist appraisal in news.

• 2. ‘The Feast of Nostalgia'. A large amount of materials dedicated to the preparations to celebrating Victory Day (9th of May) were based on the nostalgic ‘good old Soviets' motif. Also, the ‘Ukraine and Russia are fraternal nations' theme was largely emphasized. At the same time, the staffs of state-owned TV channels were given recommendations not to mention OUN-UPA in that period.

• 3. ‘The Authorities Work Hard and Care for Everything' During the month, the audience was observing uncritical coverage of actions and decisions of the authorities with the floor taken by their key representatives (mainly Yanukovich, Kolesnikov, Azarov, Tihipko, Seminozhenko, and Tabachnyk), who speak ‘correct' things. There are more vapid news covering the authorities' formal activities like meetings, conferences, and visits.

• 4. ‘Disseminated Opposition'. Even such informational occasions as the creation of Committee for Protection of Ukraine are being used solely for relaying facts and opinions that confirm the idea of dissemination and discord among the opposition. The thesis of the opposition having to be ‘strong but constructive' is repeated regularly; as an example and alternative to Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Arseniy Yatseniuk's Front of Changes and other less popular political forces are being proposed. The opposition's protest actions are covered from such points of view that make them appear poorly attended and make participation of people in them appear paid for. The incident of the police blocking motor traffic and banning sales of railroad tickets to Kyiv on the eve of a meeting of Committee for Protection of Ukraine on May 12th was covered only by STB and 1+1; other channels ignored the incident that affected thousands of citizens. Inter did not mention the protest actions when covering Victor Yanukovich's visit to Lviv on May 27th; however, a small group of the President's supporters was shown.

5. ‘Criminalized Opposition' The idea of the opposition ‘being solely to blame' for the events in the Parliament on May 27th was advocated actively through the topic of institution of proceedings against Deputies Parubiy and Hrymchak. The other topic was the charges for misapplication of budget funds set forth by Prosecutor General and the Accounting Chamber against Tymoshenko's government. Both topics were sustained diligently by a number of channels all through the month. Besides, the ‘Artek case' was reminded of regularly.

6. ‘Everything Was Bad with the Previous Government; It Is Getting Better with the New One' The key subjects were preparations to UEFA Euro 2012 (mostly spoken for by Kolesnikov) and additions to pensions. At the same time, the Government's intentions to obtain a new loan from International Monetary Fund were almost not covered and not commented at all as the accusations of excessive loan-taking pressed against the previous government were among the arguments for Yanukovich's team during the electioneering.

Another important proof of censorship is hushing up topics that are controversial or undesirable to the authorities (or omission of certain facts in those topics).

Here, the most prominent example is hushing up the events in Kharkiv where the authorities demonstrated the manner they were going to react to any protests against their actions (according to the ‘Russian scenario'). On the 28th of May, the detention of 12 activists and aggravation of confrontation concerning the cutting down of Gorky Park was covered only by Ukraina, 5 Kanal, and Inter. Only 5 Kanal presented opinions in a balanced way. However, Inter quoted only the police; Ukraina's coverage included two voiceovers ‘for' developers versus one remark form a protester. On June 1st, STB and Ukraina found a more important event that took place in Kharkiv to be covered; that is the erection of a dinosaur-themed park at the city's central square. None of the channels mentioned the Gorky Park confrontation at all. Only on June 2nd, after the rally was broken up by the security service and the police, TV channels turned their attention to that event, though the coverage was incomplete even then.

And, last but not least, if we analyze the ways of violating standards of informational journalism through which new censors work, we can see that their methods have become much subtler than they had been in the times of President Kuchma's ‘temniks' or during the latest elections campaign.

Now, the aims of censors are attained chiefly through ‘correct' selection of materials, both fact and commentaries. The channels rarely practice more obvious ways of violation such as journalists' opinions and judgments merged with facts and hardly ever violate the standards of integrity and accuracy for censorship reasons.

Most emphasis should be placed on the two mutually interconnected standards; i. e. balance of opinions, which provides not only for quality coverage of arguments presented by all sides of a conflict but also qualified expert appraisals, especially when it concerns very complex and controversial subjects. However, there was quite a number of such events both in the foreign policy (latest agreements with Russia) and in domestic affairs of the new authorities. The channels are no longer searching for expert judgments at all.

On the other hand, in all topics of that kind, comprehensiveness of information has great importance, which means not only quality coverage of facts essential for understanding of the news by the audience, but also presenting quality backgrounds. The channels do not present backgrounds because in most cases those background are not favorable for the ‘good authorities' thesis. They also do not present important facts that might ruin that thesis.

More information on violation of standards in newscasts is to be found at http://detector.media/ in the Media Literacy section. 

Monitoring Violations of Journalism Standards in the Newscasts of Central TV Channels in May 2010

The amount of "sponsored" materials in broadcast news is growing steadily as well as the frequency of hushing up information important for the society but unfavorable for the authorities. This can be clearly seen in Telekritika's monitoring performed on weekly basis with the purpose to analyze the news and weekly summing-up programs of the eight leading TV channels of Ukraine. The analysis is performed as a part of the project ‘Monitoring Journalism Standards and Increase of Media Literacy of a Broad Circle of Ukrainian Citizens' initiated by Internews Network U-Media Civic Organization.

During the month of May, the daily newscasts at the monitored TV channels featured the following number of materials characterized by "sponsorship" (censorship) or hushing-up.:

* For technical reasons, the monitoring of 5 Kanal commenced only since May 24th, so its position at the bottom of the list is not fairly representative; it we took average weekly values, 5 Kanal would probably occupy the place between 1+1 and Ukraina.

The lion's share of "sponsored" materials in May was made up by "political sponsorship". Topics advertising businesses were comparatively fewer (none at all at Inter and 5 Kanal):

Here, the obvious ‘anti-leaders' are Viktor Pinchuk's Group channels, at which the inclusion of business-sponsored materials into newscasts has already become a tradition, as it were. Most of the topics advertise businesses belonging to the channel owner. However, there are certain sponsorships by third party businesses as well. At Ukraina, non-political sponsorships are exclusively advertisements of businesses belonging to Rinat Akhmetov, the channel owner.

Political sponsored materials at TV channels have the following features now.

The channels are holding two simultaneous campaigns; ‘good authorities' and ‘evil opposition'. Most effort is made by the censors to advocate the ‘success' and ‘right direction' of the ‘good authorities'. For that purpose, domestic and foreign policy of the authorities and their attitudes are being covered actively. However, the channels do not speak about the activities or opinions of the opposition. The opposition is mentioned only in cases that illustrate the theme of ‘dissemination of opposition'. Among the opinions of opposition representatives, only those are selected that are either purely emotional, or concern unimportant aspects of any topic. In other words, this simple device makes the audience build up a disdainful attitude towards the opposition as to the people who ‘are not sure what they want' or ‘cannot agree even between themselves', etc.

NOTE: The sum may not be equal to the total number as there are materials covering both themes as well.

During the reported month, the main topics, in which those propaganda devices were exercised, were the following.

• 1. Ukraine-Russia Political Dialog. The channels were actively promoting the attitude, according to which all agreements between the supreme authorities of Ukraine and Russia were correct, competent, farseeing, and favorable for Ukraine. For example, an ICTV newscast explicitly called them ‘catching up with what previous authorities have missed', thus violating basic standards and ethics of journalist appraisal in news.

• 2. ‘The Feast of Nostalgia'. A large amount of materials dedicated to the preparations to celebrating Victory Day (9th of May) were based on the nostalgic ‘good old Soviets' motif. Also, the ‘Ukraine and Russia are fraternal nations' theme was largely emphasized. At the same time, the staffs of state-owned TV channels were given recommendations not to mention OUN-UPA in that period.

• 3. ‘The Authorities Work Hard and Care for Everything' During the month, the audience was observing uncritical coverage of actions and decisions of the authorities with the floor taken by their key representatives (mainly Yanukovich, Kolesnikov, Azarov, Tihipko, Seminozhenko, and Tabachnyk), who speak ‘correct' things. There are more vapid news covering the authorities' formal activities like meetings, conferences, and visits.

• 4. ‘Disseminated Opposition'. Even such informational occasions as the creation of Committee for Protection of Ukraine are being used solely for relaying facts and opinions that confirm the idea of dissemination and discord among the opposition. The thesis of the opposition having to be ‘strong but constructive' is repeated regularly; as an example and alternative to Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Arseniy Yatseniuk's Front of Changes and other less popular political forces are being proposed. The opposition's protest actions are covered from such points of view that make them appear poorly attended and make participation of people in them appear paid for. The incident of the police blocking motor traffic and banning sales of railroad tickets to Kyiv on the eve of a meeting of Committee for Protection of Ukraine on May 12th was covered only by STB and 1+1; other channels ignored the incident that affected thousands of citizens. Inter did not mention the protest actions when covering Victor Yanukovich's visit to Lviv on May 27th; however, a small group of the President's supporters was shown.

5. ‘Criminalized Opposition' The idea of the opposition ‘being solely to blame' for the events in the Parliament on May 27th was advocated actively through the topic of institution of proceedings against Deputies Parubiy and Hrymchak. The other topic was the charges for misapplication of budget funds set forth by Prosecutor General and the Accounting Chamber against Tymoshenko's government. Both topics were sustained diligently by a number of channels all through the month. Besides, the ‘Artek case' was reminded of regularly.

6. ‘Everything Was Bad with the Previous Government; It Is Getting Better with the New One' The key subjects were preparations to UEFA Euro 2012 (mostly spoken for by Kolesnikov) and additions to pensions. At the same time, the Government's intentions to obtain a new loan from International Monetary Fund were almost not covered and not commented at all as the accusations of excessive loan-taking pressed against the previous government were among the arguments for Yanukovich's team during the electioneering.

Another important proof of censorship is hushing up topics that are controversial or undesirable to the authorities (or omission of certain facts in those topics).

Here, the most prominent example is hushing up the events in Kharkiv where the authorities demonstrated the manner they were going to react to any protests against their actions (according to the ‘Russian scenario'). On the 28th of May, the detention of 12 activists and aggravation of confrontation concerning the cutting down of Gorky Park was covered only by Ukraina, 5 Kanal, and Inter. Only 5 Kanal presented opinions in a balanced way. However, Inter quoted only the police; Ukraina's coverage included two voiceovers ‘for' developers versus one remark form a protester. On June 1st, STB and Ukraina found a more important event that took place in Kharkiv to be covered; that is the erection of a dinosaur-themed park at the city's central square. None of the channels mentioned the Gorky Park confrontation at all. Only on June 2nd, after the rally was broken up by the security service and the police, TV channels turned their attention to that event, though the coverage was incomplete even then.

And, last but not least, if we analyze the ways of violating standards of informational journalism through which new censors work, we can see that their methods have become much subtler than they had been in the times of President Kuchma's ‘temniks' or during the latest elections campaign.

Now, the aims of censors are attained chiefly through ‘correct' selection of materials, both fact and commentaries. The channels rarely practice more obvious ways of violation such as journalists' opinions and judgments merged with facts and hardly ever violate the standards of integrity and accuracy for censorship reasons.

Most emphasis should be placed on the two mutually interconnected standards; i. e. balance of opinions, which provides not only for quality coverage of arguments presented by all sides of a conflict but also qualified expert appraisals, especially when it concerns very complex and controversial subjects. However, there was quite a number of such events both in the foreign policy (latest agreements with Russia) and in domestic affairs of the new authorities. The channels are no longer searching for expert judgments at all.

On the other hand, in all topics of that kind, comprehensiveness of information has great importance, which means not only quality coverage of facts essential for understanding of the news by the audience, but also presenting quality backgrounds. The channels do not present backgrounds because in most cases those background are not favorable for the ‘good authorities' thesis. They also do not present important facts that might ruin that thesis.

More information on violation of standards in newscasts is to be found at http://detector.media/ in the Media Literacy section. 

Переклав Геннадій Шпак

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