Khmelnytsky OMA leaves some journalists out of the briefing
The Khmelnytsky Oblast Military Administration only invited selected media outlets to the briefing with the first deputy chair Serhiy Tyurin regarding the establishment of the Netishyn City Military Administration. The briefing was only attended by TV presenters and some online outlets, who had been informed about the event by phone.
This was reported by Alyona Bereza, the IMI representative in Khmelnytsky oblast.
"I regularly monitor the official pages of the state government and local authorities. This time, I also thoroughly checked everything and learned that the oblast administration had held a briefing, which had not been previously announced either on the official website, on Facebook, or in the Viber group for journalists," Alyona Bereza said.
The IMI representative contacted the administration's special department which deals with communications, arranges and holds briefings for the management and representatives of structural subunits.
"We invited television people, because we planned to livestream the event on the OMA Facebook page," explained the head of information, culture, nationalities and religions, Inna Mykhaylova.
As the IMI representative notes, the Facebook livestream did take place and has been recorded and saved.
However, Alyona Bereza notes, a livestream cannot replace the opportunity for journalists to ask questions to the speaker during the briefing. According to her, there is a special Facebook group for all media workers, which includes over a hundred journalists who were essentially left out of this briefing. It was only attended by the filming crews of several TV channels and some online media outlets, which, according to the head of the department, were not invited, but learned about the briefing elsewhere and were present.
As IMI reported, in August a reporter and a cameraman for the Khmelnytsky media outlet ZHAR.INFO were not allowed into the regional administration hall. The journalists wanted to get a comment from the first deputy head of the Khmelnytsky Oblast Military Administration, Serhiy Tyurin, regarding aid to the Hruzevytsya residents who were affected by the Russian shelling.
Prior to that, the editors contacted Tyurin personally and asked the press office for his comment three times during August. Having received no response, the journalists decided to personally go to the first deputy's reception room in the morning of August 28 to try to get a comment. However, the security guards asked the journalists whether they "got an approval for their visit" and refused to let the media into the building.
The security guards asked the journalists to leave the checkpoint and wait. The reporters disagreed and asked them to contact the administration staff who could help resolve the issue and help them get a comment. The guards replied that the building was a "military object" and pointed their weapons at the journalists.
After the incident, the media called the police and wrote a statement about obstruction of journalistic work.
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