Media community to initiate a meeting with Umerov to discuss the issues with frontline access for reporters

The Institute of Mass Information and the media community plan to initiate a meeting with the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, to discuss the issues with Ukrainian reporters' access to the frontline.

This was announced by IMI executive Oksana Romaniuk at the round table panel "Issues with Accreditation and Frontline Access for Journalists" at the National Media Talk-2023 conference on October 13.

"We plan to initiate a meeting between the media community and the new Defense Minister Umerov and present a list of issues that need to be resolved. Unfortunately, they have not been resolved in any way, as of now. One of these issues is bringing the Decree No. 73 into compliance with the norms of the law 'On Media' — I would like to remind you that online media are considered equal to printed media and this should also be reflected, say, by the accreditation mechanism for journalists," said Oksana Romaniuk.

The war correspondents present at the discussion shared the problems they have been facing trying to access information that was not classified and the frontline itself.

IMI and the media community plan to meet the head of the Ministry of Defense, discuss the streamlining of the approval process for the media to access the frontline, with increased accountability, and stress that reporters will be taking safety risks at their own discretion and are ready to bear responsibility for it.

They also plan to discuss the definitive answer as to who is responsible for working with the media and the establishment of inter-department coordination which would help prevent state bodies from shifting the responsibility onto one another in a circle.