IMI - Majority of allegedly sponsored reports covers Tymoshenko’s activity

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Point of View

Does it honour you?

By Victoria Sumar

Today Vecherniy Kharkiv daily and Status quo online edition came out with a report that police officers had suffered bodily injuries as a result of a search operation at the apartment of Vyacheslav Ismaylov.

Actually, the both editions referred to a press release issued by the ministry of the Interior saying “when the above-cited citizen was informed through the house intercom we had to proceed with a search, he began uttering some obscenities and said he would use a firearm, if police officers approached his apartment”.

“Thus, we took a decision to call “Berkut” special force unit officers with the intent to force the entry door. The operation was conducted in presence of search witnesses and a representative of the local government body.

“As the apartment was searched, the journalist’s behaviour, as well as this one of his sons and wife was cynical, they used bad language, threatened the police officers with a physical violence and dismissals from the ministry of the Interior.The police officers recorded all that on video”.

Frankly, it is hard to imagine how some unarmed persons could threaten the armed cap-a-pie “Berkut”-men with a physical violence.

Our journalist who is investigating the Klymentyev’s case now, was present at the scene. He said several times they called an ambulance for Ismaylov's wife, in order to prevent syncope. Not only she was unable to threaten anybody, she could not speak, as she was shocked by such a number of masked men armed with Kalashnikovs assault rifles.

There were five “Berkut”-men for each person in the apartment, and these brave soldiers, as it was found out, suffered physical violence…

Ismaylov was crying they tried to plant some white powder to his apartment, the journalists heard it. And today the police reported they did find drugs in the apartment…

So, I would like to ask these men with shoulder straps, who had signed this press release, and maybe this is a naïve question: have you ever heard what honour is?

All this smells a bad movie. But, unfortunately, this is Ukraine's reality. This is a semi-criminal state where human rights is nonentity, where nor law, neither legitimacy exist. This is a country where its citizens are totally unarmed in front of the arbitrary rule of those who are supposed to protect them. This is Ukraine in 2010.

Is this Ukraine for people?

IMI outcome

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Majority of allegedly sponsored reports covers Tymoshenko’s activity

Tuesday, 08 December 2009

Almost the half of reports which raise doubts as to its independency and which have been revealed by the IMI’s experts is covering the PM Julia Tymoshenko’s activity. 14 stories out of 36 stories published in 4 national printed press outlets Fakty i kommentarii daily, Segodnya daily, Economicheskie izvestia daily and Korrespondent weekly magazine had some signs of disguised advertisement. Such state of affairs has been established in November by the experts of the Institute of Mass Information in the course of the monitoring of failures to abide by journalistic standards in printed press.

1. Fakty i kommentarii: 31

2. Segodnya: 0

3. Economicheskie izvestia: 5

4. Korrespondent: 0

See the list of stories:

Stories improperly marked, having breaches to journalistic standards

№	Title of the article	Mass media	Issue №
1	PM Tymoshenko: “Government starts fighting against marauding in pharmacies”	Fakty	202
2	Arseniy Yatsenuk: “More politics than medicine in situation surrounding flu epidemic in Ukraine”	Fakty	202
3	PM Tymoshenko: “What is this? As distress happens they begin to make money on it”	Fakty	205
4	PM Tymoshenko: “We’ll form group to work out strategies of population immunization”	Fakty	206
5	Arseniy Yatsenuk: “If we fail provide medics with money, pandemics and epidemics will continue to happen”	Fakty	206
6	PM: “Functionaries who refused to sign official land acts without a bribe, earned billions”	Fakty	211
7	Yatsenuk: “National Bank are right not to print banknotes to patch up budget gaps”	Fakty	211
8	Ukraine disable persons will provided with not “Slavuta” cars, but CherryQQ or Cherry jaggi	Fakty	211
9	PM: “Until the president sign law on Funds allocation, we cannot overcome epidemic”	Fakty	210
10	Natalia Korolevskaya: “Donbass region can and must be powerfull, promising and prospering”	Fakty	210
11	We want to know exactly whether potato chips are made with potato or with powder?	Fakty	210
12	PM: “We have only demand the president to allocate us one million hryvnias for flu program (...)”	Fakty	207
13	Government willing to provide metallurgists with state guarantees to unable them to get long term credits	Fakty	207
14	PM: “Whenever I am, in opposition or at power, I will never let gas transport system privatization”	Fakty	214
15	PM: “For the first time during 18 years Ukraine and Russia have no row in gas area”	Fakty	215
16	Victor Yanukovich: “If government does not pay off increased pensions and salaries, we’ll do it when we come to power”	Fakty	215
17	Volodymyr Lytvyn: “It’s high time to forget this obsession that Russia craves to subjugate Ukraine”	Fakty	215
18	Yanukovich: “If government fails fulfil laws, better to resign for them”	Fakty	216
19	PM: “From now no corrupted official could sleep quietly”	Fakty	213
20	Yatsenuk: “It would be absolutely logic to nominate technical government”	Fakty	213
21	PM: “Me and Putin, we’ll discuss how to optimize gas cost for Ukraine”	Fakty	212
22	Yatsenuk: “President is not to promise to jail criminals, he is to make Prosecutor General work”	Fakty	208
23	Yanukovich: “In 2010 we’ll start new format dialogue: Ukraine-Russia-EU”	Fakty	217
24	Yanukovich: “Being between strong neighbours, Ukraine should take neutral attitude”	Fakty	218
25	PM: “In 2010 I will do everything by myself”	Fakty	218
26	Laws on social support and protection for war veterans fail to be applied	Fakty	218
27	Yanukovich: “I see Ukraine as a country open for investments and business”	Fakty	221
28	PM: “We have no right to be unready for eventual flu epidemic resuming”	Fakty	220
29	PM: “Soon Ukraine gets over to progressist medical insurance”	Fakty	219
30	Yatsenuk: “Disastrous short of funds for Ukrainian public health”	Fakty	219
31	119 years ago in Georgia they started to bottle water	Fakty	219
32	National Bank should decrease refinancing rate	Economicheskie Izvestia (EI)	214
33	Tyhypko finds IMF actions appropriate	EI	202
34	Tyhypko defends revision of land transactions	EI	209
35	Tyhypko against public pharmacies network	EI
36	Tyhypko demands to revise gas agreements	EI

The most often, as to the experts, they break following criteria: balance, exactness and reliability.

The facts of failure to abide by standards of journalism were analysed by the experts: Taras Shevchenko (Media Law Institute), Ruslan Deynychenko (School of Journalism in National University “Kyiv Mohyla Academy”), and Ehor Sobolev (Bureau of journalistic investigations “Svidomo”).

Also, within this research we revealed 28 articles which were improperly marked (not marked as “advertisement”).

1. Fakty i kommentarii: 0

2. Segodnya: 18

3. Economicheskie izvestia: 8

4. Korrespondent: 2

See the list:

Unproperly marked stories (failure to be stated as “for publicity purpose”, or “an advertising”)”

№	Title of the article	Mass media	Issue №	How it is marked
1	Debtor vs bank: who is going to win	Sehodnya	261	Column sponsor
2	How to preserve money at bank card	Sehodnya	249	Column sponsor
3	Modern life-style: how to avoid getting illness	Sehodnya	250	PR
4	Super sexual potency in any age	Sehodnya	253, 259, 256, 250, 265, 262, 247, 241, 244	Column sponsor
5	Actimel rushes to help	Sehodnya	251	Column sponsor
6	Cars’ resurrection	EI	214	Triangle
7	DSM Financial and industrial corporation trades its production assets	EI	214	Triangle
8	Get to know what is hidden behind camouflage	EI	203	Triangle
9	Get into Hi-Tech	EI	208	Triangle
10	Iryna Tverdovska: “We can compete with Inter TV or 1+1 TV channels”	EI	197-198	Triangle
11	Other TV’s victories	EI	210	Triangle
12	Debts purchasers: “babies golden age”	EI	211	Triangle
13	La Scala stars	EI	211	Triangle
14	“Providna”: stable progress from year to year”	Korrespondent	43	“P”
15	UkrSocBank president Boris Timonkin: “Volume of deposits from thousands of our clients from various city of Ukraine gets increased daily”	Korrespondent	44	“P”
16	Dough wins over good	Sehodnya	265	PR
17	ASKA pays up	Sehodnya	262	PR
18	Ukrainian “ with capsicum and honey”	Sehodnya	262	News from companies
19	Doppel-Hertz Energotonic-H: be healthy every day	Sehodnya	262	PR
20	War announced to shady mobile phones	Sehodnya	263	PR

To remind, according to the Law “On advertisement”, every material which draws, either maintains attention to some person or goods shall be marked with a word “Advertisement” or “For publicity purposes”.

This monitoring is fulfilled within the project “Monitoring improvement in journalistic standards and media literacy among Ukrainian population” with support of U-Media Internews Network. The IMI partner in this project is Telekrytyka online edition that monitors the TV channels respecting or not journalistic deontology. The methodology is enclosed.

ІМІ

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