Mediabaza Poltava to offer training to City Council staff to improve cooperation with journalists

Poltava City Council Secretary Kateryna Yamshchykova met with journalists at the Institute of Mass Information's hub Mediabaza Poltava on June 13 and promised regular briefings with officials, prompt responses from utility companies, and openness to criticism.

At the request of the Poltava City Council, the IMI Mediabaza will offer training for City Council staff (employees of utility companies) on cooperation between local authorities and the media, reports Nadia Kucher, the IMI representative in Poltava oblast.

Poltava City Council Secretary Kateryna Yamshchykova meeting journalists at Mediabaza Poltava on June 13. Photo by Mediabaza Poltava

At the meeting with the city authorities organized by Mediabaza Poltava, journalists and Kateryna Yamshchykova discussed communication issues, as well as solution and improvement proposals. In the course of this dialogue, the participants together with Mediabaza Poltava developed proposals that the city authorities agreed to implement in their work:

• Regular briefings / press conferences

The parties agreed to hold short briefings every two weeks at journalists' request, involve specialized officials (heads of city departments and offices) in regular public reporting, and provide the answers the media need.

• Appointing dedicated spokespeople to provide prompt comments on behalf of municipal companies

As it stands now, journalists have to wait several days for a comment or submit an information query to receive a response. They urged the City Council to appoint a person to each municipal company who would be responsible for communicating with the media and giving prompt responses.

• Testing out a system of email notifications about all City Council events

Journalists do receive invitations to events in a Telegram group chat, but not to all events. The parties decided to test in practice whether sending out announcements about all events via email would be effective.

• Openness to criticism and responding promptly
  

Journalists asked the authorities to adopt standards for processing complaints/queries, to admit their mistakes and publicly respond to them instead of ignoring them. The parties agreed to openly analyze any occurring media crises: what happened, what was the outcome, what and how can be changed. Both sides agreed to adhere to the ethics principles and not to resort to personal insults.

Poltava City Council Secretary Kateryna Yamshchykova meeting journalists at Mediabaza Poltava on June 13. Photo by Mediabaza Poltava

In turn, Mediabaza Poltava will be analyzing the communications and the feedback by periodically surveying the media workers on the quality of communication. The interaction strategy will be updated based on the findings of such surveys. Mediabaza will also review typical cases publicly: what went wrong and what improvements should be made.

In May 2025, Poltava journalists reported unsatisfactory communication by the City Council and claimed that there was an unnamed and unauthorized person in the Council instructing the staff on how to communicate with media professionals and what to discuss.

In the fall of 2024, the media outelt Poltavshchyna and Zmist complained that acting mayor Kateryna Yamshchykova and the Mayor's first deputies prohibited the heads of Polatava municipal companies, in particular those subordinate to the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the Poltava City Council, from communicating with journalists. The media outlets also reported that information queries by the media remain unanswered.

Journalists meeting Poltava City Council Secretary Kateryna Yamshchykova at Mediabaza Poltava on June 13. Photo by Mediabaza Poltava