Kyiv, Ukraine - On Friday, 19 April, a press conference was held at 11:00 at Information Agency “UKINFORM” by a coalition of the Civil Society Organisations consisting of "The Commission on Journalism Ethics", "Human Rights Platform", "Ukrainian Media and Communications Institute" and "StopFake" to present the results of the independent monitoring of media coverage of the presidential election in Ukraine during the monitoring period of 01-12 April 2019.
The monitoring is held with the support of the Council of Europe Projects “Strengthening freedom of media, access to information and reinforcing the public broadcasting system in Ukraine" and “Supporting the transparency, inclusiveness and integrity of electoral practice in Ukraine”, which are implemented within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2021. The data for the media monitoring was collected by 15 independent specialists that have been working full-time minimum 5 days per week.
In between the two rounds, the media continued to provide extensive coverage of the campaign and with only two candidates left in the race, it should have been easier to provide a more objective coverage of the campaign. However, many negative trends identified prior to the first round continued, particularly on television. As such, voters again had to watch several TV channels to form a more objective view of the campaign.
The media lawyer and Executive Director of the CSO “Human Rights Platform” Oleksandr Burmahin noted that there were no changes in the work of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine. The National Council reacts to almost all violations of TV and radio broadcasting organisations regarding the coverage of elections and dissemination of propaganda, including those violations that the National Council documents itself, by sending letters of notification or letters of demand to bring activities of the organisations in line with the requirements of the law. TV channels do not always respond to these letters.
"As a result, on top of those systemic violations of legislation that we have identified earlier – namely, violations concerning the publication of the results of sociological surveys, absence of marking of the interactivity of surveys in the studios and the imbalance in the coverage of certain candidates, we observe new violations. For example, uncovered and massive agitation took place when it was still prohibited after the first round (31 March) and until the official announcement of the second round by the Central Election Commission (8 April), "- the media lawyer believes.
Also, the media monitoring shows that elections were the main topic that was covered in news stories of TV channels and online media outlets, as well as in talk shows.
“The discussion was focused mainly on the topic of TV debates. The way the candidates were represented on TV channels was influenced also by the unwillingness of one of the candidates, Volodymyr Zelensky, to communicate with the media. It is also worth noting that the volume of advertorial materials (“dzhynsa"), which concerned the presidential candidates, decreased. Instead, there appeared dzhynsa of political parties that started preparing for parliamentary elections," said Diana Dutsyk, media expert and Executive Director of CSO “Ukrainian Media and Communications Institute”.
Media expert and co-founder of NGO “StopFake” Olga Yurkova noted that messages that could indicate the Russian influence during this monitoring period were observed less frequently than in the previous periods. This may be due to the media's focus on the topic of elections. At the same time, Russian influence, in particular on elections and presidential candidates, became one of the dominant topics in the election discourse.
"Social networks were the key newsmakers for the election campaign of candidates. However, their rhetoric lacked meaningful messages about the programs and visions of the country's development - they focused on short slogans and attempts to discredit their opponent,” - Olga Yurkova added.
Most public opinion leaders either openly express their sympathies or make them understandable. Regarding Facebook pages of traditional media, the election campaign was the most popular topic for all pages: the discussion of the date and time of the debates, delivery of the medical tests by the candidates, etc. This indicates that Facebook did not create a platform for a meaningful discussion.
Head of the CSO “Commission on Journalism Ethics” Andriy Kulykov said: "We have gained a valuable experience, which will come in handy quite soon - during the parliamentary elections. The Commission on Journalism Ethics has gained more visibility, which is important for uniting the journalistic community and for making our issues more comprehensible to the general public. Through processes such as monitoring the coverage of elections, there is a way to increase media literacy in society and raise the level of professionalism in the activities of the mass media".
According to the monitoring results of the period of 1 - 12 April, 2019, 20 cases of possible violation of the Code of Ethics of the Ukrainian Journalist were identified. Most of them are related to the violation of the standard of separating facts from the comments, and to not separating and properly labeling advertising from news content.
The Commission carefully considered the complaints and adopted three decisions regarding the following media: “Inter”, “NewsOnе”, and “TRK Ukraine”. There were two friendly warnings and one public condemnation, in particular of “TRK Ukraine”, among the decisions of the Commission.
It is worth mentioning that the monitoring data show significant differences in the coverage of the activities of women and men in the Ukrainian media, especially in the light of the election campaign. On the one hand, sensitivity to gender equality appeared in the work of some journalists, but on the other hand, its nature is a non-systemic and personality-based one.
"This happens due to the absence of editorial policies and editorial standards for responding to sexism and observance of gender equality in the media. As the Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe rightly emphasizes, gender equality does not depend on the wishes of only several people. It is primarily a product of collective activity aimed at changing the culture and mentality in the media sector", - coordinator of the media monitoring Ielyzaveta Kuzmenko believes.
The full reports on monitoring results in Ukrainian and English, updates on the monitoring, decisions of the Commission on Journalism Ethics are available on the website of the Commission http://www.cje.org.ua/ua/elections.
Presentation of the final report for the entire monitoring period and discussion of its results in the format of a round table is scheduled for 20 May 2019.
