All colleagues after all …

The Media Trade Union calls on press services to stop putting pressure on journalists

The Kyiv Independent Media Trade Union says that a number of conflicts have arisen recently which cast a shadow over cooperation between journalists and employees of press services. It calls on colleagues in the press services to work together, and not apply pressure.

“Friends and colleagues, don’t forget your profession! Even in a government post, you remain journalists. We are all representatives of the same profession and even if we become bureaucrats, this is only for a time”, the statement reads.

It goes on to cite some examples of conflict.

On 15 May the President’s Press Secretary Iryna Vannykova criticized journalists of the newspaper “Sevodnya” [“Today”] and claimed that by taking an interview of Volodymyr Satsyuk, the author had aimed at distracting the investigation’s attention from seeking the objective truth about Viktor Yushchenko’s poisoning.

On 28 May the Prosecutor General’s press service accused TV Channel 5 of biased coverage of the work of the Prosecutor General Sviatoslav Piskun and on “moral pressure” on the criminal investigation agencies (cf. http://khpg.org/en/1180379140 )

On 5 June the Socialist Party’s press service criticized the newspaper “Dzerkalo tyzhnya” [“Weekly Mirror”  of placing “anti-socialist material” aimed at convincing the voters of the Party’s political and electoral bankruptcy.

The Media Union therefore, while congratulating all journalists with their festival, “calls on press services to remember that the Ukrainian media has the right to independent editorial policy and to refrain from any forms of pressure on journalists.”