In this hard period of transformation, freedom of press has a crucial meaning for Ukraine. Despite the fact, that there is no censorship in Ukrainian media de jure, de facto the question is more complicated. Let us start with considering the laws. The basic article that declares freedom of the press is 34th, which reads: “Everyone is guaranteed the right to freedom of thought and speech, and to the free expression of his or her views and beliefs. Everyone has the right to freely collect, store, use and disseminate information by oral, written or other means of his or her choice”. Also in the 15th article of Ukrainian Constitution, it is stated “censorship is prohibited”. However in fact situation is different. It is not an exaggeration to say, that almost all media in Ukraine are more or less controlled by their owners. Usually media belong to big businessmen and oligarchs. As the same time, media property is not even close to transparency. The owners of “Inter”, the most popular Ukrainian channel, are unknown, but it is sure, that the third part of the channel shares belongs to Russian companies. Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who is one of the richest Ukrainian businessmen with his $1400 million, is the owner of the second popularity channel “1+1” and many other media. The richest person of Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, is the owner of the third most popular TV-channel “Ukraine”. Last but not least – another milliardaire Viktor Pinchuk, who controls “New channel”, “STB”, “ICTV” and “M1”. Moreover, president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko controls “5th channel”. It is necessary to understand, that who pays – decides. For instance, let us consider “Inter”. As it is financed by Russia, it has prorussian position. The channel supports “Opposition bloc” (where many politicians from Yanukovych’s former party came). Nevertheless, this support is not open and obvious – it is attained with the help of manipulations. For example, when there is a reportage from the parliament, correspondents of “Inter” speak only with deputies from “Opposition bloc”, breaking the fundamental journalistic principle of the balance of thoughts. In the similar way, “1+1” is used for covert advertising Ihor’s Kolomoyskyi property and for promoting his interests. Covering the same event different channels will make it look completely different. Concerning printed media, there are also some problems. For example, with the “Vesti” (“News”) newspaper. Every morning it is given to people in the stops of public transport for free. This newspaper is concerned to be financed from Russia, and it contains many covert manipulations. It is important to understand, that people in Ukraine do not want to pay money for media. Therefore, if they can get a newspaper for free – they do it. In this way, “Vesti” newspaper demolishes the market of the press. To draw a conclusion, one can say that the most important task for now is to make Ukrainian media market more transparent. Only when people will know the owners of all media and understand how they influence their rhetoric, it will be possible to speak about the freedom of press in Ukraine. The new bill about media transparency can solve this problem. However, it is still far from being perfect and has disputable points.
Yana Stepaniuk (Яна Степанюк), 19 from Ukraine
