The press conference “The role of the Ukrainian and Russian mass media in the 2014 Presidential election campaign” was held on Friday, May 23rd at news agency UNIAN before the first round of the early Presidential election scheduled for May 25th.

The conference was moderated by the Council of Europe international expert Rastislav Kuzel. The speakers were the leaders of the three core Ukrainian media monitoring NGOs:  “Equal Access Committee”, “Telekrytyka” and “Academy of Ukrainian Press”.

During the press-conference the preliminary results of national and regional media monitoring were presented and shared with the media professionals, OSCE/ODIHR mission and political section of EU Delegation.

Preliminary findings are that:

• In general, candidates had an unimpeded access to the media.
• Use of paid hidden advertising and manipulations were fewer in comparison with the previous elections.
• Media allocated more coverage to the activities of state authorities than to the coverage of election campaign – however, there was no apparent attempt to use such official coverage to support any one candidate.
• The media coverage of campaign has been severely affected by the situation in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. While the media showed certain preferences towards some candidates, this in general did not prevent voters from getting ample information about candidates based on which it was possible to make an informed choice. This wasinter alia achieved thanks to the fact that most channels opened their airways for a wider and more diverse range of opinions and views and due to the televised debates between candidates on First National Channel. A detailed report is forthcoming.