The Day turns 17!

It was 17 years ago, on February 10, 1998, that the first issue of The Day, the English-language edition of Den newspaper, was published. The English-language press market in Ukraine was underdeveloped then, just as it is now, indeed. Den/The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna says that The Day then offered its readers primarily an English-language Ukrainian perspective on events. The developments of recent months clearly demonstrate just how important this goal is. We understand now how much the situation where the world learns about a country from third parties can cost that country... The Day has since established a community of like-minded people around it, including diplomats, foreign students, NGO workers, foreigners residing in Ukraine, et al. In addition, the publication provides a good opportunity to improve their English to Ukrainians who study the language. The Day is now available on subscription as well as from newsstands, being published twice a week. The publication is also present in the EU via PressReader and PressPoint web services. We have recently introduced a new convenient format to our readers (see the article “We Fight for Europe together with Europe Itself,” published in No. 5 on January 29, 2015), making familiar analytic contributions, reports, and interviews available in a new modern and dynamic layout. Moreover, The Day has gone full-color!

“The Western media often keep calling the conflict in eastern Ukraine a civil war, and the militants rebels,” media expert, program director at the Internews-Ukraine NGO Andrii Kulakov told us. “That is why it is important to spread quality Ukrainian media materials internationally. This is a common responsibility of the government and the media community. We need informative, promotional, and even entertaining publications. It would be highly appropriate, in my opinion, to regularly deliver The Day to so-called opinion-makers – MEPs as well as representatives of European institutions and Western governments. This would help fill the gaps in their knowledge. I see good prospects for cooperation between the government and the private publication here. In addition, Ukraine has, of course, to put more effort into influencing Western journalists themselves, invite them here, explain the real situation and so on. We must make every effort to establish clear position for our country from different perspectives and show that the current conflict is an issue for the whole world, not just Ukraine.”