An expert seminar “Role of the national media regulators in ensuring compliance with legislation during coverage of electoral campaigns in media: international standards and best practices” took place in Kyiv on 19 February 2019 for the representatives of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine”, including representatives from the regions. The event was organized with the support of the Council of Europe Project “Strengthening freedom of media, access to information and reinforcing public broadcasting system in Ukraine”.
In the opening remarks Mårten Ehnberg, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine, stated: “The Council of Europe as a standard setting body has recommendations for the members states on measures concerning media coverage of election campaigns. These standards are based on key principles - like non-interference by public authorities, editorial independence of media, encouraging self-regulation and professional and ethical standards of the media etc. The Council of Europe remains committed to support Ukraine in the electoral and media fields as well as in many other areas”.
Olga Herasymyuk, First Deputy Head of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, expressed gratitude to the Council of Europe for the support provided not only to media regulator as a partner, but to Ukraine in general in its way to the democracy, and mentioned that the topic of elections is of utter importance this year. Also she said: “Unfortunately, we are cooperating within the out-dated legislation, which we need to amend using our joint efforts. Moreover, we need to support these amendments and convince of their necessity and what is more important of their benefit for the society, because the later should make its electoral decision transparently and openly without being confused”.
Two Council of Europe experts - Rasto Kuzel (Slovakia) and Jelena Surculija Milojevic (Serbia) shared their experience on the topic.
In particular, Rasto Kuzel described the role of the media monitoring as an instrument for detecting violations, including the violations of the legislation, committed by the broadcasting companies. Also, he presented a methodology of the media monitoring of the Presidential election campaign 2019 in Ukraine which is being carried out by the monitoring specialists and a coalition of the civil society organisations with the support of the Council of Europe projects.* First interim results of the above mentioned monitoring activity for the period of 14 January – 3 February 2019 were presented at the seminar. Preliminary results from the first three weeks of monitoring show significant differences in the way candidates have been portrayed so far.
Jelena Surculija Milojevic focused her presentation on the Council of Europe standards, case law of the European Court of Human Rights, legislation of the European Union with regard to role and responsibility of media in ensuring electoral process information-vise in the historical perspective and on the current stage.
All participants of the seminar received hand-outs translated into Ukrainian – standards of the Council of Europe on media and elections.
The Council of Europe Project “Strengthening freedom of media, access to information and reinforcing public broadcasting system in Ukraine” aims
*Monitoring of media coverage of the Presidential election campaign in Ukraine 2019 is being carried out by a coalition of the civil society organisations – “Commission on Journalism Ethics”, “Human Rights Platform”, “Ukrainian Media and Communications Institute”, “StopFake” with the support of the Council of Europe Projects “Supporting the transparency, inclusiveness and integrity of electoral practice in Ukraine” and “Strengthening freedom of media, access to information and reinforcing the public broadcasting system in Ukraine", implemented within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2019. The data for media monitoring was collected by 15 independent specialists, who were working full-time at least 5 days a week.
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