News about Ukraine's news media
Here's a roundup of some stuff I've found about Ukraine's and Russia's news media, normally compliant beasts, in these abnormal times:
Guardian: Television becomes attuned to a new spirit (Nov. 29)
Globe and Mail: 'We're not lying any more,' defiant media in Ukraine say (Nov. 27)
BBC: 'Soviet grip' on Russian media (Nov. 26)
ILCA Online: Ukrainian Media Shames That of U.S. (Nov. 26)
BBC Monitoring: Ukrainian crisis consumes press (Nov. 25)
Kyiv Post: Regime's control over TV media crumbling (Nov. 25)
Consortiumnews.com: Big Media's Democracy Double Standards (Nov. 23)
Int'l Fed. of Journalists: IFJ backs journalists' fight against censorship in Ukraine (Nov. 23)
I particularly liked this section from the Globe story:
“It's great that they're doing it, but it's a little late,” said Anna Pastuch, producer of a hard-hitting investigative magazine called Forbidden Zone that frequently exposed official corruption.
She said that if the other stations had done proper journalism during the election campaign, rather than acting as propagandists for Mr. Kuchma and his hand-picked successor, Mr. Yanukovich, the country would not be in crisis now.
She believes the east, Mr. Yanukovich's support base, voted for him only because it was given misinformation on television. Channel 5's signal is blocked across the east of the country.
For background, Kuchma is Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine's current and soon-to-be-departed president.
Yanukovich is is Viktor Yanukovich.
Tune back in later. I'll tell you the story of a Canadian journalist I met who worked on a Communist-controlled paper in Kyiv in the late 1980s.