On Thursday, 28 March, a press conference was held at 11:00 at Information Agency “UKINFORM” by a coalition of CSOs consisting of "The Commission on Journalism Ethics", "Human Rights Platform", "Ukrainian Media and Communications Institute" and "StopFake" on second interim results of the independent monitoring of media coverage of the presidential campaign in Ukraine during the period of 04 February – 17 March 2019.

Monitoring is held 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", 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 worked full-time minimum 5 days per week.

The results of the monitoring show that in the run up to the elections, the media covered the election campaign intensively, providing voters with a lot of information on candidates and their activities. However, voters could form an objective view of the campaign only if they followed several media outlets.  Despite the diverse media environment, most outlets are divided along political lines and remain under strong influence from their owners. For election coverage, this meant that a number of media outlets were under influence from candidates and political parties.

“It is important to consider what is newsworthy from the viewers' perspective and not to merely satisfy candidates or thanks to possible payments for their appearances in the news. This has a huge impact on the general trust in the media”, emphasized Rasťo Kužel, the Council of Europe international expert. “I am confident that journalists can do more to be proactive rather than reactive in their coverage of elections and can create a better platform for public debate on important issues, as some online media showed. It is incumbent upon politicians to accept the role independent media should play during elections”, the expert added.

Media lawyer and Executive Director of the CSO “Human Rights Platform” Oleksandr Burmahin noted that any legislative “rules of the game”, including those for the media during the electoral process, have to be backed up by sanctions in case of their violation - without this, rules become declarative and not mandatory for observance.

“In this context, the regulator – the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, plays a crucial role for television, which remains the main source of information for 74% of Ukrainians as of today. However, due to doubts regarding their own authority, defects in the current legislation and internal procedures of the regulator, letters to the channels remain the only response tool as of today.” The media lawyer also stressed: “Our airtime is the way we see it today, and it includes: hate speech, campaigning in news and absence of even formal source data when publishing the results of social surveys connected to elections. In general, results of the monitoring clearly speak volumes for themselves. After all, without sanctions the rules are conditional”.

The monitoring shows that the negative trends, that were identified by the team of 15 independent monitors in the course of the previous monitoring period (14 January – 3 February 2019), only intensified as the voting day was approaching.

“The oligarchic television channels continued to support their presidential candidates and counter-campaigning against opponents, which was observed both in the talk shows and news. Unfortunately, the number of paid materials (“dzhynsa”) increased. Both in the TV news programs and on web-sites there are a lot of meaningless materials about the trips of the presidential candidates to regions and their meetings with voters. However, we see lack of objective informing of voters on candidates and their programs, and this does not help to make a rational choice”, noted Diana Dutsyk, media expert, Executive Director of CSO “Ukrainian Media and Communications Institute”.

Olga Yurkova, media expert and co-founder of NGO “StopFake”, believes that general tendencies of appearance of the signs of possible Russian influence in Ukrainian media remain: “This includes ignoring the Russian presence on Donbas (“Russia is not there”), imposing Russian informational agenda and usage of Russian sources for informing about Ukrainian events”.

Speaking about the messages, narratives discrediting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian authorities and some politicians, as well as legitimizing the occupation of the Crimea and part of Donbas were shared the most actively. The monitoring team also noted the increase in tendency that such narratives are disseminated by presidential candidates, whenever a TV channel or on-line media outlet gives the floor to them.

“In social networks, majority of the candidates build their rhetoric by criticizing the opponents, and not based on their programs or visions. Opinion leaders for the most part have clearly identified their preferences or priorities. When we talk about the media outlets, the analysis of the most popular posts on their Facebook-pages enabled to see the priorities of the audience and approach of the respective media with regards to coverage of elections. That being said, only one TV channel systematically pays attention to electoral education”, added Olga Yurkova.

During 4 February – 17 March 2019 the monitoring team identified 46 cases of possible violations of the Code of Ethics of a Ukrainian Journalist. Most of them were related to not observing the balance of opponents’ points of views and obligation to provide the opinions of independent experts. Also, during the previous monitoring period (14 January – 3 February 2019) 16 cases of violations of journalism ethics were detected most of which were related to not separating facts from comments, not separating and properly labeling advertising from news content and improper quoting of public opinion polls.

Svitlana Ostapa, member of the CSO “Commission on Journalism Ethics” noted: “Commission on Journalism Ethics” as a self-regulatory body of journalists and editorial offices attentively reviewed complaints and issued 8 decisions with regards to the following media outlets: on-line media SEGODNYA.ua, on-line media STRANA.UA, on-line media GORDON, TV channel “1+1”, TV channel “Pryamyi”, TV Channel “Ukraina”. There were 7 friendly warnings and one public condemnation among the decisions of the Commission, the latter concerned TV channel “Pryamyi”.

The Commission stresses the importance of journalists’ adherence to principles of consistency, completeness and accuracy, objectivity and unbiased presentation of information on candidates during election and the course of the electoral process, that are defined in article 56-5 of the Law of Ukraine “On Presidential Elections”.

Mass media must provide a balanced coverage of the comments from all parties - electoral subjects and candidates for the post of President of Ukraine on events related to the elections. Taking this into account, the Commission on Journalism Ethics recommends that journalists refrain from giving preference to individual candidates for presenting their position in the elections.

Media monitoring coordinator Ielyzaveta Kuzmenko noted that the monitoring data shows significant differences in the coverage of the activities of women and men in the Ukrainian media, especially given the ongoing election campaign. Despite the fact that some media started providing a broader coverage of issues of gender equality, domestic violence, and women’s work at the front and began using feminine gender-specific job titles, most media continue to broadcast and thus enhance gender stereotypes, sexism and gender-based discrimination.

"One of the blatant examples of the lack of gender balance is talk show "Pulse" (“Пульс” in Ukrainian) on the TV Channel "112 Ukraine" broadcast on February 19, 2019, which lasted almost 4 hours; the topics of elections, trips of candidates to the regions, as well as the five-year war with Russia were discussed. Only men were invited to the studio (15 men and no women)", said Ielyzaveta Kuzmenko.

The main purpose of our monitoring is to inform the public about the behavior of the media during the election campaign, stimulate the discussion on the objectivity and quality of their coverage of election race, and encourage their compliance with international standards and best practices regarding freedom of expression and media independence.

If the second round of the presidential election takes place, the monitoring team will continue monitoring the media to determine whether the above trends keep standing during the second round and will present the results on the eve of the April poll.

Full reports on monitoring results in Ukrainian and English, updates on the monitoring, decisions of the Commission on Journalism Ethics are posted on the website of the Commission http://www.cje.org.ua/ua/elections.