Political jeansa on the rise in Ukrainian online media – IMI study

Illustration by the IMI

The amount of political jeansa in Ukraine's top online media has increased compared to the last quarter of 2023. 25% of all reviewed materials with signs of being commissioned favored political actors.

This is evidenced by the quarterly study by the Institute of Mass Information, which was carried out on March 5–7, 2024, and covered 23 popular online media outlets*.

As before, the online outlets did not label the news favoring political actors in any way.

Petro Poroshenko leads among the politicians promoted by the news reports with signs of being commissioned (6.5%). He was most often quoted by the Obozrevatel – mainly his political statements.

Vitaliy Klitschko is the second largest beneficiary of potentially commissioned news. During the period under study, most of them were about the Mayor delivering aid from the community to an army unit. However, the share of publications favoring him continues to drop with each monitoring period (2.3%).

Another 10% of news with signs of jeansa favor the following political forces: "Servant of the People", "European Solidarity", Arthur Palatny's project "Ukrainian Team", as well as the politicians Olena Shulyak, Maksym Tkachenko, Olena Kondratiuk, Serhiy Pashinsky, Borys Filatov, Vadym Stolar, and also the acting head of the Kyiv district administration, Mykola Kalashnyk, and the Russian director, former art director of the Babyn Yar Memorial, Ilya Khrzhanovsky.

*The monitoring was carried out on March 5–7, 2024 and covered 23 popular online media outlets: "Babel", Suspilne, Hromadske, ZN.UA, "Ukrainian Pravda", "Espreso", Ukrinform, Liga.net, NV, "Slovo i Dilo", LB.ua, RBC-Ukraine, Censor.Net, Interfax-Ukraine, TSN, Korespondent.net, Zaxid.net, Focus, UNIAN, Channel 24, Gordon, Telegraf, Obozrevatel. The sample includes all consecutive news that appeared on the sites during the specified period.

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The Institute of Mass Information (IMI) is a Ukrainian public media organization that has been operating since 1996. The IMI defends the rights of journalists, analyzes the media field and covers media-related events, fights propaganda and disinformation and has been providing media outlets with safety gear for trips to the combat zone since the start of the Russo–Ukrainian war in 2014.

The IMI carries out Ukraine's only freedom of speech monitoring and keeps a list of high quality and sustainable online media outlets, documents Russia's crimes against the media committed in the course of the war on Ukraine. The IMI has representatives in 20 oblasts of Ukraine and a network of "Mediabaza" hubs to provide journalists with continuous support. The IMI's partners include Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House; the organization is a member of the International Organization for the Protection of Freedom of Expression (IFEX).