From The Globe and Mail, 11/26/04:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041126.wmediauk27/BNStory/Front
'We're not lying any more,' defiant media in Ukraine say
By MARK MacKINNON
Kiev --
It was one of the bravest acts of rebellion in a week that has seen
many.
Natalia Dmitruk, a sign-language presenter with Ukraine's state-owned
television channel, UT-1, decided she had translated lies for too
long.
On Thursday, in the middle of another broadcast that did its best to
laud the establishment candidate for president, Viktor Yanukovich,
while ignoring the mass demonstrations that have gripped Kiev and
other cities, she stopped following the script.
"The results announced by the Central Electoral Commission are rigged.
Do not believe them," she signed, an orange ribbon showing her support
for opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko tied around her wrist.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have demonstrated all week in the
centre of Kiev, believing the commission rigged the results of a
presidential election to deny Mr. Yushchenko victory.
"Our president is Yushchenko," Ms. Dmitruk went on, her
Ukrainian-language colleagues still oblivious to what was happening.
"I am very disappointed by the fact that I had to interpret lies. I
will not do it any more. I do not know if you will see me again."
When the newscast was over, she walked out of the station and joined
more than 200 other UT-1 journalists on a strike they said would not
end until they were allowed to report the news accurately.
Within 24 hours, UT-1 had ended a decade of serving in effect as the
bugle of President Leonid Kuchma's regime.
While Ms. Dmitruk's act of defiance was understood by only a few who
know sign language, it was quickly followed by others at her station.
One correspondent, in the middle of last night's evening news, said
live on the air that she and the entire news team were going to join
the protests on Independence Square as soon as they finished work.
"We're not lying any more," she said.
A mood of defiance has suddenly gripped much of Ukraine's normally
docile and pro-government media.
On Thursday night, the managers of the privately owned, but
government-controlled, Inter and 1+1 networks struck a deal with their
employees, who were threatening to resign in a body.
As a result, the huge protests in Independence Square and elsewhere in
the country were broadcast nationally yesterday for the first time.
For the long-beleaguered journalists at Channel 5, which had been the
only station giving the opposition significant air time, it was a late
but very welcome signal that they had been on the right course all
along.
The station, demonized by Mr. Kuchma and his powerful aide Viktor
Medvedchuk, has been crucial in convincing Ukrainians that Sunday's
election was fixed, running clips, often without commentary, of
apparent polling-day violations.
More recently, it has played a key role in mobilizing opposition
supporters into the streets, and its news broadcasts are shown live
every hour to the crowds gathered on Independence Square.
"It's great that they're doing it, but it's a little late," said Anna
Pastuch, producer of a hard-hitting investigative magazine called
Forbidden Zone that frequently exposed official corruption.
She said that if the other stations had done proper journalism during
the election campaign, rather than acting as propagandists for Mr.
Kuchma and his hand-picked successor, Mr. Yanukovich, the country
would not be in crisis now.
She believes the east, Mr. Yanukovich's support base, voted for him
only because it was given misinformation on television.
Channel 5's signal is blocked across the east of the country.
"It would have changed things a lot," if Channel 5 had been broadcast
in cities like Kharkiv, Odessa and Donetsk, Ms. Pastuch said.
"They're normal people out there like anyone else. They want the same
things."
Canadian Ambassador Andrew Robinson complained during the campaign
that UT-1 and other channels owned by businessmen close to Mr. Kuchma
gave heavily biased coverage that either ignored or ridiculed the
opposition.
Journalists at those stations say they were regularly issued
instructions from the government about how to cover stories.
Channel 5 itself, which is owned by businessman Petro Poroshenko, a
member of Mr. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine faction, is hardly a bastion of
neutrality.
While journalists who work on camera make an effort to appear as
neutral as possible, off-camera staff at their Kiev broadcasting
centre wear orange ribbons to show their support for Mr. Yushchenko
and the street demonstrations.
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Harry
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