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The representatives of several mass media and media institutions have made public an open letter addressed to the candidate for the presidency Volodymyr Zelensky, appealing him to hold a press conference no later than April 18th (before the day of debate).
Earlier, the candidate communicated mostly by means of videos through his Instagram and YouTube channel. But the media community and civil society have several questions about Volodymyr Zelensky’s vision of further development of Ukraine, his frankness and readiness to be accountable to people of Ukraine who elects the President of Ukraine.
The open letter and the list of signatories are set out as follows:
Dear Volodymyr Oleksandrovych!
On April 21st, the second round of the presidential election is to be held. Within your election campaign you have made public dozens of video reels which became newsbreaks for news and articles. You accorded interview to some elected mass media before the first round of election, but since last weeks, you personally have been avoiding a direct and full value communication with Ukraine journalists.
Our professional duty as journalists is to provide the society with an information of public importance in due time and on a full scale. Since you are ignoring our inquiries and requests for interview, we cannot discharge functions imposed to us by the society to the fullest extent.
The media community and civil society have a number of questions as to your vision of further development of Ukraine, and as well as to your frankness and readiness to be accountable to people who elect the President of Ukraine. Our readers, viewers, listeners also asked questions that we cannot answer, because we had no possibility to communicate to you directly.
We appeal to you asking to bestow respect towards the journalists and civil society, which was a driving force of all reforms in Ukraine after Revolution of Dignity.
We call you not to follow the bad practices of ignoring the requests of the media which, unfortunately, also took place in the past five years, and hold a press conference for the media before the official date of the debate (not later than 18 April) to ensure dialogue with representatives of the media, in particular, and Ukrainians, in general. Please, prove that the principles of openness and transparency that you declare, these are not empty words and campaign slogans.
Open letter was signed:
Media movement “Media for conscious choice”
“UA: Pershyy” (NPTU)
Ukrayinske Radio (NPTU)
Hromadske Radio
“Ukrinform” news agency
Liga.net
Donbas Hromadske television
“Novoe Vremya”
“Radio NV”
“Ukrayinsky Tyzhden”
“Detektor Media”
Institute of Mass Information
Institute of democracy named of Phylyp Orlyk
Ukraine CrisisMedia Center
“Souspilnist” Foundation
Ukraine Press Association
News campaign “On the other side of news”
National public television and radio company of Ukraine
IMI informed earlier, on February 5th, the Media Movement was launched
“Journalists for conscious choice” aiming to ensure for Ukraine citizens the possibility to elect the head of state and the parliament on the ground of complete and trustful information. Several prominent Ukraine mass media joined this initiative, TV channels, radio stationsm printed press editions and web-based editions, and several media NGOs.
