The line between politics and journalism is very vague. So, no wonder, that some journalists become politicians, however, it never works the other way round. There is some logics about it – the journalistic profession is public, one has to get skills, necessary for a politician too: articulate speaking skills, good looks, being able to persuade people and work with information.
At the same time, people, who used to be journalists and now are politicians, still change their profession. And it apparently changes their priorities dramatically. For instance, once upon a time there lived principle journalist Hanna Herman, who worked on the radio Liberty and published a great number of rather critical, and sometimes even oppositional, materials, condemned any politicians intervening in journalism.
Then she became Mr. Yanukovych’s spokesperson and sometimes told journalists what questions they should not ask the prime minister. Having been elected to Ukraine’s parliament, Hanna Herman got down to law-making and it was quite logical for her to draft a bill on mass media. But the contents of the bill seem to have been written for politicians, but not for journalists – journalists will have to inform the public on performance of political parties, represented in parliament, as this information is socially important.
I wonder why former journalist Herman ignored the fact that journalists have a right to decide what information they want to cover. It is the key assignment of a journalist to be an actually independent intermediary between the government and mass media.
At one parliamentary session Adam Martyniuk said that you could never call journalists former. He meant it was diagnosis. Might the vice-speaker be wrong?
18-07-2008 : Interrogating journalist as witness in criminal case The forcible interrogation of Sergiy Leshchenko, or attempted forcible interrogation according to the prosecutor, in the case of poisoning President Yushchenko has stirred the relative information peace of summer and at the same time demonstrated specific methods used by the Ukrainian law-enforcement agents. The situation could be considered even ridiculous but for the contemporary realities of Ukrainian society and the local practice of investigating criminal cases.
Formally, the prosecutor had all grounds to use forcible interrogation as witnesses have to arrive for interrogation, while the failure to do that without good grounds can cause a fine and forcible interrogation (Article 70 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine as of December 28, 1960). To date, Ukrainian legislation enables law-enforcement bodies to interrogate journalists as witnesses, but the Cabinet of Ministers has already introduced a Bill regulating this issue to the parliament. If it passes the Verkhovna Rada, law-enforcement agents won’t be able to interrogate a journalist on the information they received as a result of their professional activities. But we still have to adhere to the legal norms currently in force.
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By Viktoria Syumar
