The number of online media that have listed details on their editors-in-chief has grown – IMI survey

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70% of popular Ukrainian online media outlets have listed information about their editors-in-chief on their websites, 94% have published links to their social media pages.

This is evidenced by the results of the survey on the transparency of the 50 most popular Ukrainian online media (according to SimilarWeb data), which was conducted by the Institute of Mass Information in late July – early August 2022.

The monitoring sample included the following media outlets: TSN, Ukrainska Pravda, Novoe Vremya, Censor, RBC-Ukraine, Channel 24, Liga, Espreso, Gordon, Focus, Korrespondent, UNIAN, Ohlyadach, Glavkom, Gazeta.UA, Apostrophe, Suspilne, Zakhid.net, Ukrainski Novyny, Ukrinform, Delo.UA, Radio Liberty, Telegraph, Novynarnia, Hromadske, UNN, Politeka, Livy Bereh, Slovo i Dilo, Znay, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, Khvylia, Komentari, Interfax-Ukraine, KP in Ukraine, Novyny.Live, Vesti, Bukvy, Babel, Fakty newspaper's website, Bahnet, Ekonomichni Novyny, the Ukrainian service of the BBC, Antikor, ICTV, Podrobytsi, Rakurs, Priamy, Holos.UA, and Channel 5.

Information about the editor-in-chief. Information about heads of editorial offices whose job titles are different from "editor-in-chief" was also counted as an indicator of the media outlet's transparency. In total, 35 media outlets (i.e., 70% of all media surveyed) have such information listed on their websites. However, 4 of them did so in an unusual manner. For instance, to learn the name of someone from the BBC board, you need to go to the website of the media's English service (where all the information is, of course, in English). On the ICTV website, the director's name can only be found in the company's financial report, which is published on the website. And in UNIAN's case, such information is hidden in the "contacts" section, which you have to scroll down the sections list on the page's left side to see, and it is up to you to guess that that is what you have to do. By the way, last year there were a little less media outlets transparent in terms of details about the editors – 66%.

The following websites do not contain any information about their editorial offices' heads: TSN, Espreso, Gazeta.UA, Zakhid.net, Ukrinform, Delo.UA, Hromadske, UNN, Politeka, Znay, Komentari, Antikor, Podrobytsi, Priamy, and Channel 5. Compared to last year, such online media as Telegraph and Glavkom have improved their transparency, that is, they have made information about their editor-in-chief public. On the other hand, comparison with the previous year shows that some of the media outlets have since removed the information about their editor-in-chief from their websites or simply stopped posting financial reports or the ownership structure signed by the head (previously, at least the head's name could be found on the website, while this year, in many cases, these documents are signed by an "authorized person," probably by proxy).

Listing links to the media outlet's social media pages. In previous years, IMI did not test this parameter. Posting a link to at least one active page on any social network (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) was counted. The number of followers and other parameters of the page's popularity were not taken into account. In total, 47 out of the 50 surveyed online media (94%) have listed links to their social media pages. Three online media did not post links to their social media pages: the Ukrainian BBC service, Bahnet, and Ekonomichni Novyny.

In the next – the last – post on the results of the online media transparency monitoring for 2022, we will talk about the media listing information about the persons who own them and about the possible ways to support the editorial office financially (Patreon, etc.) on their websites.

You can read the first part of the survey results here.