IMI expert: mass media are accessory to what happened in Donbas

"Ukrainian mass media affiliated with oligarchs and Russian capital bear part of responsibility for the tragedy that has been unfolding in Donbas," IMI expert Roman Kabachiy stated on June 30 in the program "Open Topic" of the Ukrainian radio’s "Voice of Donbas" radio.

"Commissioned materials from the Party of Regions printed by newspapers "Segodnia" and "Komsomolka" were constantly pumping up the situation with search for "fascists", and some mythical struggle against them. Until the very end of the Maidan, the Inter TV channel was championing the official governmental position of the time, and Lidia Pankiv had a point, when during an online broadcast she said that all journalists of this channel have to kneel when hosting programs for what they did with their people", Kabachiy said.

The IMI representative recalled how the Institute was organizing a training in Donetsk in April 2014, and two journalists from Starobeshevo were saying that they are afraid to go to Kyiv and to speak Russian there. Both of them were working in a communal rayon newspaper. "Where did they take this idea from? Mass media!", the expert concluded.

"We in Kyiv sometimes have no idea what regional media outlets are like. For example, Donetsk version of the "Vesti" newspaper was welcoming the "Donbas spring"! If the "Russian world" reached as far as Kyiv, wouldn't these media outlets welcome it, too?” was Kabachiy's rhetorical question.

And even now, he added, such media outlets translate messages that undermine the integrity of the Ukrainian society.