Leaflet of the II session, NEW UKRAINE School of Professional Journalism

mediaschool.parlament.org.ua

INFO BRIEF: October, 2011

Third School Session

From 27 until 30 October 2011, the third session of the “NEW

UKRAINE” Professional Journalism School took place in Lviv,

Ukraine, and focused on the issues of European integration, as

well as coverage of international affairs, prevention of corruption,

media management, morality and national memory. Two training

courses were also offered on Public Policy Analysis and Journa-

listic Investigations. In addition, the School participants had a pos-

sibility to enrich their knowledge on local realities.


October 27, 2011

Oleh SYNYUTKA, First Deputy Mayor of Lviv, who was the next to speak, described how the city was getting ready to EURO-2012, public involvement in this process, as well as the related promotion cam-paign. Additionally, he also dwelled on the construc-tion and opening of the Lviv Arena Stadium, reconstruction of roads inside and outside Lviv, pub-lic transportation upgrade etc. Answering to the questions about the stadium’s fate after the champi-onship, Mr Synyutka said that it was most probably going to become private property.

State budget funds are being used inten-sively to get Lviv ready for EURO-2012. Without the support of the central authori-ties, the city will not be able to conduct the championship on its own.

Oleh SYNYUTKA

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The session was opened with a presentation made by Vadym TRYUKHAN, Ambassador-at-Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, titled “As-sociation or Reintegration: What To Expect At the Next Foreign Policy Crossroads”. Mr Tryukhan de-scribed the main evolution stages of Ukraine’s fo-reign policy over the years of its independence, such as Ukraine’s establishment as a sovereign

state (1991-1994), multi-vector policy pursued by its second President (1994-2005), post-Orange revolution romanticism (2005-2010), and the new multi-vectorism (2010-2015). He also listed the foreign policy results achieved by the current Presi-dent. In addition, Mr Tryukhan gave his forecast for 2012-2015, having noted that signature of the association agreement with the European Union will put the country back onto the democratic rails of development, which will essentially increase Ukraine’s chances to join the EU. Ambassador also believes that in the future new cooperation directions will open for Ukraine, such as China, Turkey, Latin America, and Africa. Mr Tryukhan noted that apart from the European integration there is also another development scenario which envisages Ukraine’s integration into the post-Soviet space by joining the Customs Union, participating in the formation of the Eu-roasian Union, as well as winding up cooperation with many international organisations.

Vadym TRYUKHAN


At the end of the first day, the journalists were giv-en a tour of Lviv, which enabled them to see and visit famous buildings, churches and monuments, as well as to learn more about the city history.

Tour of Lviv

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October 28, 2011

Roman KOBETS, representing the Institute of Phi-losophy of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and lecturer of the Philosophy Department at Kyiv-Mo-hyla Academy, began the second day with a training session on public policy analysis. He started with presenting the key definitions, like policy, politics, public administration, having warned the journal-ists that making no difference among these no-tions results either in politicisation of administration (dismissal of “strangers” and appointment of “loyal” civil servants), or de-politicisation of politics, when politics is brought down to power fights, while pub-lic policy is left only to “professionals”. During the training, the participants had a possibility to use the acquired knowledge in practice and to analyse the public policy stakeholders in the area of digital broadcasting.

Roman KOBETS

The optimal public policy is a purposeful act and should be informed, timely, coordinated, efficient, and sensitive.

The next speaker, Victoria SYUMAR, Executive Director of the Institute of Mass Information, focused on the coverage of international affairs in the Ukrainian me-dia. The expert urged the participants to look for information on international news

and analytical materials in the original documents (primary sources) and to get in touch with col-leagues in other countries for help and contacts. As an example of poor “international journalism”, Ms Syumar mentioned the news presented by the Ukrainian media during the Russian-Georgian war, when local media took 68% of their messages from Russian sources. Ms Syumar believes that an in-ternational journalist should be able to look into the Victoria SYUMAR


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Victoria SYUMAR: Unfortunately, Ukraine is abso-lutely not ready for information wars. Our problem is that we lack global thinking, we even do not think about launching a satellite to space.

process in the society and the state in the geopo-litical and geo-economic contexts. To write sound articles on international affairs, journalists should be aware of all key theories of international rela-tions, which will essentially extend their abilities to present even ordinary events.

Presentation made by Volodymyr VYATROVYCH, Chairman of the Academic Board of the Centre for Liberation Movement Studies, was dedicated to the national memory issues. The historian noted that the key concepts of Ukraine’s ethnic culture and history should form the basis for the develop-ment of the Ukrainian political nation. It is these features that will make it possible to make the com-munity that has been formed the Ukrainian nation with its own unique face. Mr Vyatrovych noted that Ukrainians’ sporadic efforts to form their own na-tion in Ukraine go side-by-side with the develop-ment of a new version of the Russian nation, the so called “Russian World”, which in the geopolitical context means establishment of a global Slavonic civilisation, resulting in dilution of the Ukrainian cul-tural fundamentals for Ukraine. The lecturer stressed that national consolidation is highly necessary for the development of the state in order to stop history from being used in any campaigns aiming to split Ukraine. In addition, he also stressed the importance of well-weighted national memory policy which should include develop-ment of a concept for the “handbook” history of Ukraine, establishment of the “pla-ces of memory”, and creation of a historic dates calendar.

Volodymyr VYATROVYCH

Ukraine as a state can exist only with the help of Ukrainians, while Ukrainians can ful-ly establish themselves only with the state of Ukraine.

As a logic extension of the previous presentation, the journalists visited the Prison at Lontskyi National Memorial Museum dedicated to the victims of the occupation regimes. They learned more about the history of the building, the everyday life of the prisoners who were held there, as well as the mass execution of people by the fi-ring squads of the Soviet Army at the end of June 1941.


The final presentation was given at a coffee mee-ting with Andriy PAVLYSHYN, historian, journa-list, member of the «Ї» Magazine Board, and was dedicated to the morality as the condition of the Ukrainian society. During the discussion, the historian stressed his own concept of the mora-lity crisis in Ukraine. In his opinion, amorality and morality anaemia are caused by the gigantic trau-mas that the Ukrainian people had to go through in the 20th century. The social disasters that they suffered have adversely affected the way the so-ciety perceives various events and news, the his-torical circumstance, which should be taken into account by journalists when they prepare their materials. Despite this, attempts should be made to improve both one’s own self, and the audience.

Andriy PAVLYSHYN

Anatomy of an honest person is such that when their eyes are open, their mouth does not shut up!

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October 29, 2011

The School’s third day was dedicated to journalistic investigations. Oleh KHOMENOK, Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Regional Press Develop-ment, began his three-hour training with definition of the investigation subject as socially important information. This was followed by description of such main features of a journalist investigation as involvement of many sources, discovery of viola-tions in legislation, existence of a clear plan, legal support and documental testimonies, use of expert

opinions, multi-sidedness and objectivity. In addition, various methods of how the publication results can be used were considered (partially and fully), as well as the methods of work with sources. Mr Khomenok also provided the participants with a list of useful reference to various state authorities, which essentially simplify the information search, as well as help during an investigation.

Oleh KHOMENOK

The participants looked into the basic investigation plan which includes such stages as selection of the topic, development of a hypothesis, prior assessment of the topic prospects, development of the investigation road-map and its implementation, systematisation of the information received, a key interview, article drafting, page makeup/editing, pre-publication legal expertise, publication, and archiving.

The topic was continued by Dmytro DOBRO-DOMOV, General Producer of the ZIK Channel, author and presenter of the Who’s Living Here? programme of journalistic investigations. The par-ticipants visited the ZIK TV studio where they were able to see the journalists’ workshop and learn the methods of efficient TV channel management. Mr Dobrodomov told the history of how the channel was established, its main projects, including the most popular ones, like Who’s Living Here?, Do-mino, 2012 Object, All Truth about EURO! etc. In addition, the General Producer spoke about the cooperation with the public through the Your Vi-sion project, where people can make their own

video and create the information message for the TV channel. Mr Dobrodomov also shared with the journalists the principles of his channel were based on, the meth-ods used to get information and to work with it.


Dmytro DOBRODOMOV

In the evening, the journalists met Olha KULYK, PR and Media Director of the !FEST Holding of Emotions. She told the participants how the con-cept for the Kryivka restaurant and other !FEST facilities, having noted that Kryivka is a sort of the mockery over the image of Lviv as an exclusively Ukrainian speaking city.

Olha KULYK

6 October 30, 2011

On the final session day, Denys KOVRYZHENKO, Legal Programmes Director of the Agency for Le-gislative Initiatives, presented an overview of the issues related to combating corruption in Ukraine. The expert considers that political corruption is pri-mary in relation to the administrative corruption, and therefore political corruption should become the primary target. Mr Kovryzhenko listed the fol-lowing measures needed to overcome corruption:

Denys KOVRYZHENKO


Denys KOVRYZHENKO: «Corruption is mirroring the society. When one fourth of the population lives behind the poverty line, they have no time to think about high topics, such as development of the society or other things. Trying to satisfy their basic needs, they promote corruption already at their own level.The studies show that the level of corruption is an indicator of the public trust. The less is the trust, the higher is the corruption. Only 20% of people in Ukraine trust each other.».

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strengthening of political party competition, decrease of dependence of political parties on financial donors, introduction of efficient monitoring and control, publica-tion of reports on financial support of political parties. Mr Kovryzhenko believes that fight against corruption in Ukraine is complicated because the election legislation in Ukraine is not coordinated with the political party legislation. Mr Kovryzhenko noted that administrative corruption can be weakened by decrea-sing direct contacts between officials and citizens (through introduction of elec-tronic systems for reporting, registration, payments etc). It would also be useful to introduce the so called «whistle-blowers» into the system, as people who signal violations of the legislation and abuse of power. Despite of the attempts made, this system has not yet been introduced in Ukraine. It is also important to prevent the conflict of interest in public authorities by establishing a requirement for civil ser-vants to submit declarations on their assets and interests, which will oblige officials to abstain from actions resulting in the conflict of interest.

The final presentation was made by Vasyl MA-SYUK, Galmedia Director, who spoke about effi-cient media management. Basing on his own experience, the lecturer presented a plan of how one’s own product can be created and how money can be earned in the media. The expert believes that the migration of values is currently taking place in the media, when printed information is losing its value, and the new value is not in the es-sence of the information, but in the form of its presentation. He explained the Galmedia success by the fact that its projects are earning for them-selves. Mr Masyuk considers that receipt of profit should be used as a strong motivation behind cre-ation of one’s own product, but the readers’ interests should not be forgotten at the same time.

Vasyl MASYUK

Contacts:

Ihor KOHUT,Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative [email protected]

Oleksandr SYNIOOKYDeputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative [email protected]

Natalya MATVIIENKO,Project [email protected]

Mariia KOVALProject [email protected]

Galyna TYSHCHENKOProject [email protected]

Tel.: (+38 044) 531 37 68For letters: mail box No. 20Kyiv, 04070, Ukraine


The New Ukraine School of Professional Journalism is an educational and

networking project, it is a platform for communication between professional jour-

nalists aimed at the interchange of information, experience, ideas and innova-

tions, as well as at extending knowledge and skills in different genres. Prominent

attention is paid to expansion of horizons and promotion of values, as well as

personal development of journalists.

The program includes 60% of general topics (politics, economics, fighting cor-

ruption, education, environment protection, medicine, culture etc.) and 40% of

professional educational topics (freedom of speech, media business, new me-

dia, journalistic investigations, PR in media etc.).

The curriculum includes lectures, discussions, trainings, role plays, and round

tables where Ukrainian and foreign experts, civil and political activists will act as

moderators, trainers, lecturers.

Trainers and lecturers are the leading Ukrainian and foreign public and political

figures, journalists, experts and scientists. Among the school speakers in previ-

ous years were: Oleksandr Bohutsky (Director of the International Commercial

Television and Radio company "ICTV"), Yulia Mostova (Deputy editor-in-chief of

"Dzerkalo Tyzhnia" newspaper), Andriy Shevchenko (Ukraine MP, Chairman of

the Parliamentary Committee on freedom of speech and information), Dariia

Chepak (Press secretary of President of Ukraine), Natalia Lyhachova (Editor-in-

chief of "Telekritika" project), Oleksandr Martynenko (General Director of “Inter-

fax-Ukraine” Information Agency), Andriy Kulykov (Presenter of "the Freedom of

speech" programme), Yehor Soboliev (Coordinator of “Svidomo” Independent

Bureau of investigative journalism), Bjoern Erichsen (Former director of televi-

sion department of the European Broadcasting Union), Herhard Gnauck (Cor-

respondent of "Die Welt" newspaper in Warsaw), William Horsley (Representative

of free Media Association of European Journalists, Chairman of the British Sec-

tion of the Association of European Journalists) and many others.

Successful candidates should: be practicing journalists; have an active life

position and demonstrate leader qualities; be able to use the knowledge ac-

quired for the benefit of the society; be under 35 years old; represent different

kinds of media.

There is also the Alumni Conference which aim is to support alumni network of

journalists. Annual meetings bring the opportunity for communication of different

years alumni. Moreover, alumni are involved into other activities of the Agency

for Legislative Initiatives: conferences, round tables and clubs of the Ukrainian

School of Political Studies, training programs on personal development.

The New Ukraine School of Professional Journalism was set up by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.

Documents

Leaflet of the II session, NEW UKRAINE School of Professional Journalism