Ukrainian media: problems at regional level

A meeting organized by the Lutsk Press Club for Reform has been held to discuss problems experienced by the media in the regions.  It was attended by representatives of the Volyn Media, the TV company “Saturn” in Mykolayiv, the newspaper for young people “Chetverta Vlada” in Zaporizye, the newspaper “Novy Den” in Kherson, “Torg-media” from Odessa, the agency “Pro-Media” in Odessa, the network of press clubs of the Ukrainian Educational Centre for Reform in Kyiv, and others.

As became clear from the discussion, each region of Ukraine has problems with regard to journalists’ work, lack of attention to which are holding up the development and strengthening of the media. First and foremost this is the issue of relations between journalists and the authorities which is taking on new significance with the denationalization of outlets proposed, as well as the issue of journalists’ access to information, the issue of the status of publications, their ability to compete, etc.

The participants in the meeting also gave attention to the lack of journalists qualified to write on particular subjects and general to the shortage of professional journalists, as well as to problems with colleagues not adhering to the norms of journalistic ethics, and considered ways of eliminating such problems. 

Окремо учасники засідання акцентували увагу на відсутності кваліфікованих журналістів з певної тематики і загалом на бракові професійних журналістів, недотриманні колегами норм журналістської етики та розглядали можливі шляхи усунення цих проблем.
As the Volyn journalists and their colleagues from other cities said, such meetings are extremely interesting and useful since they give them the change to get to know each other better, and overcome the information vacuum which, we must acknowledge, exists between many regions.  This is also promoted by the campaign launched by the Ukrainian Educational Centre for Reform “East and West together!”, as part of which journalists from both “ends” of Ukraine have the opportunity to visit each other, exchange experienced, find out about the process of reforming social life at the regional level.