Press releases as main source of information in regional online media, as to IMI’s survey

The main source of information in the regional online media is press releases: 41% of the materials are written based on the press releases. Instead of it, the third part of materials in the printed press is written thanks to its own correspondent as source of information. Such are the data of media monitoring held by the Institute of mass media in eight eastern and southern regions of Ukraine (Zaporizhzhya, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kherson, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk). * For example, the web-based editions in Odessa region, which our expert monitored, 68% of the materials were prepared based on the press releases. The least this source of information is used by online in Kherson region (21%). At the second position, as to frequency, are social networks which the regional online media use as a source of information. At the average, 11.5% of the material is based on social media posts. The most often, this source is used by the online media of Dnipro and Mykolayiv (18% of the materials), and the least, it is source of information used by the media of Zaporizhzhya (5.5%). And only at the third place in the online media, the source of information is its own correspondent: 9.5% of the materials in online media were written by their own journalists, for example from the ground. The most active correspondents are working for the online media in Odessa region (20% of the materials are made by its own correspondent). The worst situation with online media is in Mykolayiv, where only 1% of the materials are written by their correspondents. In 9% of the materials in the regional online media are based on another local media as source of information. In 5% of the materials in the regional online media, sources of information were not named, which is breach of the standard of reliability. The largest amount of materials with no source precised was published by the media of Mariupol (12%), and the least were in Kharkiv region (0.5%). In the regional printed press media, the situation with the sources of information is better: in the first place, they have their own correspondents, then at the second position as a source of information they have experts (25.5% of the materials in printed press are based on expert’s words). This is the most often used source of information is the Zaporizhzhia region’s newspapers - 49.5% of the materials. In 14% of the materials in the printed press regional media they use press releases, the source of information is the mostly used by media in Mykolayiv, where a third of the materials are based on press releases. Another 13% of the materials have no indication on its source of information at all, the most part is up to newspapers of Mykolaiv - 27%. Curious thing, neither the online, nor the printed press of the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine practically did not use the Russian media and the media of the occupied regions as a source of information, these figures are close to zero. * Within the framework of the study, news lines of 32 regional online media and 19 printed press media in eight eastern and southern regions of Ukraine (Mykolayiv, Odessa, Kherson, Mariupol, Dnipro, Zaporozhye, Kharkiv, Sumy) were surveyed. The total sample was 3088 materials in the online media and 714 materials in print media. The monitoring methodology covered the monitoring of news published between April 5 and April 11, 2019. This study was made possible thanks to the support of the American people, which was provided through the USAID "Media Program in Ukraine" project, which is being implemented by the international organization Internews. The content of the materials is solely the responsibility of the NGO "Institute for Mass Information" and does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the US government and Internews.