Conflicting stories over removal of TV news item about the President

On 25 February one of the news items about President Yanukovych’s “Talk with the country” was removed from air on TV STB.  This was reported by Telekritika which quoted its own sources at the television channel.  According to the information received, National Deputy from the Party of the Regions, Olena Bondarenko had rung Volodymyr Borodyansky, General Director of the channel and accused his journalists of flagrant twisting of the events. Borodynansky took the item off air at 18.00.

The previous day the Party of the Regions Press Service published a statement accusing one of the national television channels which it effectively names, writing “S..B”,   of setting up events and circulating false information.

It claims during the television project “Conversation with the President” that one of the film crews attempted to create a “well-planned false item about people’s attitude to the Party of the Regions, the President and the political reform carried out by him”.

The journalists from STB who spoke with Telekritika denied the accusation.

Telekritika’s report said that it hoped to receive an explanation.  There were two responses, admittedly, somewhat contradictory.

Olena Bondarenko confirmed that she had rung the General Director of STB, Volodymyr Borodyansky.

The Head of STB’s Information Service, Oleksiy Mustafin denied that the news item had been removed by Borodyansky, and said that he had ordered it removed.

He asserted, however, that he did so without speaking with anybody from the Party of the Regions, and that “the strange demonstrations organized by the Party of the Regions on that day are in no way an event of national scale and do not deserve a separate item in the news”.

He advises the party whose name “begins with “p” and ends with “regions” to not bother itself with nonsense.  If they saw some kind of provocation, then let them record it on video and put it on YouTube as proof”

From an earlier report at Telekritika and one here http://osvita.telekritika.ua/material/1748