DAY AFTER DAY

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Ihor LUBCHENKO: I hold up The Day as an example to all my colleagues

IHOR LUBCHENKO

Every day Ihor Lubchenko, chairman of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, sees journalists and editors of oblast, raion, and village publications, who come to him as a last resort to help them resolve their problems, which range from financial disputes to conflicts with the authorities. The main question today is whether the recent decision of the parliamentary conference committee to amend certain clauses of the Law “On the Elections of People’s Deputies” will ease things for the mass media in their coverage of the upcoming parliamentary elections.

“We must interpret the law correctly. Some norms are definitely vaguely worded. But our laws are generally vague as it is. I hold up The Day as an example to all my colleagues. The European Court supported the newspaper because journalists have the right to make value judgments. However, in making such value judgments, journalists must refrain from campaigning for or against anybody. Of course, problems will arise during the upcoming elections. However, the point here is not the law, but the judges who do not know how to read the law, but interpret it as they please.”

“In one of your interviews with The Day’s Editor-in-Chief Larysa Ivshyna you said that your work would definitely not lessen when the new government comes to power. Is the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine busier now?”

“I did not expect that there would be so much work. Two days ago, for example, representatives of the Baryshivsk raion newspaper Baryshivski Visti came to see me. In the last six months the editor has been replaced three times. They’ve had a kindergarten employee, then a school teacher. The current editor-in-chief is not a professional journalist either and has no experience. The staff of nine journalists expressed no confidence in her. At that point the raion state administration chairman came to the newspaper’s office and ordered the editor to replace the current staff with new people. Here’s another example. The staff of the Kirovohrad-based newspaper Narodne Slovo [Popular Word] went on a hunger strike because the oblast state administration owes it well over 100,000 hryvnias. Yesterday I received a call from the chief editor of the newspaper Silski Novyny [Village News], published in Valky, where the print shop refused to print the issue because the newspaper, which is on the verge of folding, isn’t paying its bills. And there’s no progress.”

“There are already discussions of how to celebrate the anniversary of the Orange Revolution. Can you sum up the results of the new leadership’s efforts, especially in the context of its relationship with the mass media?”

“It really has become easier to work in Kyiv; there are no guidelines or pressure from the top. The situation in the regions is worse than it was before. In such cases I remember Lenin, who said that the best way to commemorate holidays and major dates is to focus on unresolved problems. This is how I will celebrate it.”

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