Well, it was not always like that – Ukraine being at war with Russia and global media headlines being dominated by news from the frontline and political activities in support of Kyiv. Looking back, it is interesting to know that CIRCOM in its professional discussions put on its agenda the media in Ukraine 10 years ago.
In 2014 Nataliya Gumenyuk, a leading Ukrainian journalist with international experience in broadcast, was a special guest at the Annual Conference in Cavtat, Croatia. The Conference, hosted by the Croatian public service broadcaster HRT, took place only a couple of months after the events on the Kyiv Maidan in February 2014. Also, Nataliya Gumenyuk was a co-founder of the independent media Hromadske (meaning “public” or “civil” in Ukrainian), which has been CIRCOM Regional Associate Member for several years.
Two years later at the Annual Conference in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, there was a dedicated session “Ukraine Broadcasting in Transition: Defining a New Role for Public Service Regional Stations”. The session wrapped up a yearlong project of CIRCOM with media in the country. The project manager Ulf Morten Davidsen of NRK moderated the session and the panelists were Mykola Chernotytskyi, then Director General of the Sumy regional broadcaster, Galyna Smirnova of the Council of Europe and Boris Bergant, former President of CIRCOM Regional (1900-1992) and former Secretary General of CIRCOM Regional (1995-2001), who at that moment was with EBU. The key word was “transition”. CIRCOM explored how it can help regional media in Ukraine with training their journalists. Boris Bergant spoke about the ongoing transition from media, run by the state, to democratic journalism and the context in which the change was happening – the perception from the political class and the society as a whole. Mykola Chernotytskyi laid out the 4 stages of this transition of the public service media from being owned by the government to public joint stock company with two national and 26 regional TV channels.
Watch the session Ukraine Broadcasting in Transition: Defining a New Role for Public Service Regional Stations
If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans, goes the saying. In late February of 2022 the Bulgarian journalist Alexander Markov went to Southern Ukraine to report from a completely peaceful occasion. On the third day of his travel all of a sudden, he got caught in the middle of a full-scale war that just broke out. He got after his professional chance. The same year Alexander’s report Life On The Front Line was Commended in the News Report category of Prix CIRCOM. Alexander shared his war time experience at the Meet the Winners session during the 2022 Annual Conference in Galway, hosted by TG4, the Irish language broadcaster. Yet, in 2022 there were little or no indications for a prolonged all out conflict.
In 2023, with one year of ongoing war in Ukraine, we paid special attention to media and journalism in Ukraine. At the Annual Conference in Donostia-San Sebastian, hosted by EITB, the Basque language broadcaster in Spain, we had a special format on Ukraine. It was called “Delivering Audiovisual Media under War Conditions: Ukraine”. The Hromadske media CEO Alyona Nevmerzhytska and the Deputy Chief Editor Victoriia Beha took part in the session in person. However, due to the ongoing situation, the other two panelists - Oleksandr Nazarov and Oleksandr Holmakov had to stay in Ukraine. And it is at this point when you sense that war is a real thing, not a fiction or a game – men at military service age have respective duties, these people live in a war. What is it to do independent journalism in times of war when there is harsh propaganda from all sides, was the starting point of the session “We are objective, we are independent”, summarized Alyona Nevmerzhytska. One of keys to success of Hromadske is that as independent media it does not belong to any rich person, it has no owner, rather it operates due to international donors, pointed out Alyona Nevmerzhytska. It started in 2013 as broadcast media. However today it had moved on digital – Youtube, social media etc., not least to counter the difficulties of operating in war conditions. Victoriia Beha spoke about how the journalists are doing their job in serving audiences with up to date, accurate and objective information. Oleksandr Holmakov and Oleksandr Nazarov presented how the media keeps its status as trustworthy information outlet.
Watch the session Delivering Audiovisual Media under War Conditions: Ukraine
In 2024, with three years into the war, Ukraine Still at War was the title of the topical session at the 40th Annual Conference, hosted by TVP3 Poznań in the Polish city of Poznań. Two women, outstanding professionals and managers, shared their experience in running media operations in such extraordinary situation. Mariya Frej, Board member of the Suspline, public broadcasting company of Ukraine, spoke about managing people, content and distribution. Her presentation How to Manage Teams Under Emotional and Physical Pressure During the War was emotional and at the same time very humane handbook. “First think about people”, said she. Care about your colleagues’ physical safety and mental health and train them in advance how to work in a war zone. On managing content Mariya Frei pointed out to the need to come out with journalism which is truly factual, balanced in the good tradition of pluralism, avoiding sensations, respecting people’s dignity and not least – being humane, telling human stories to raise awareness and support. Mariya raised the curtain what is it to be a woman manager in a world where men are majority. She made an interesting prediction – the media company will gradually become dominated by women due to disparities caused by the war.
Watch Mariya Frej’s presentation How to Manage Teams Under Emotional and Physical Pressure During the War
Alla Skorik, Editor-in-Chief in Chernihiv, the North East Hub of Suspilne, added to the picture of her experience in managing regional television in times of military siege. People may change dramatically, said she providing examples of colleagues who while looking strong, broke and quit when the war started while other, who were not so self-confident, proved to be really strong and reliable colleagues. Media professionals struggled to fulfill their duties facing various everyday life difficulties like electricity and water shortages, black outs… and thinking all the time about their families! The war sped up the planned transition from television to digital. Online platforms, social media and radio became the preferable platforms. They would provide much needed information immediately (not waiting for the TV news) and they were the only accessible communication channel when people were hiding in basements from the bombs. The media’s Telegram channel grew from 3000 to 150 000 followers just in 5 days!
Watch Alla Skorik’s presentation Experiences in Multimedia News Production During the War
In November 2024 the European Board of CIRCOM Regional welcomed Suspilne Ukraine as its new Member. Alla Skorik is the first National Coordinator for Ukraine.