The Poltava oblast newspaper Zoria Poltavshchyny has paused the release of its print edition and updates to its website due to financial difficulties. The team stresses that the news outlet is not shutting down, but looking for ways to continue and transform their operations.
In comments to Nadia Kucher, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Poltava oblast, chief editor Iryna Rohozhynska confirmed that the newspaper’s online version is also currently unavailable.
The team said that the newspaper had operated without funding from big business, political parties, or the state over the past 10 years. Its main sources of income were subscriptions and advertising.
“By 2026, the situation had grown critical: the newspaper has no funds to stay in print. Our small team has gone many months without salaries, putting all revenue from advertising and subscriptions towards paying for printing, taxes, rent, utility bills, and so on,” the team’s statement reads.
The newsroom reported that costs had become unsustainable for a small outlet, and debts had been piling up. The team is now urgently searching for a way out of the crisis and is working on reformatting the outlet’s operations, including legal transformations.
“We’re not closing the newspaper, but taking an unwilling pause in order to find a way to rescue it. The newsroom is seeking support at every level and is doing everything we can to bring Zoria Poltavshchyny back to our readers,” the team said.
In comments to IMI’s representative, Iryna Rohozhynska said the outlet was also looking for investors and partners willing to help preserve it.
“Zoria Poltavshchyny‘s co-founders have decided to move into preventive restructuring, and a corresponding appeal to court is now being drafted. We hope that this mechanism will allow us to keep this regional outlet, which is now almost 200 years old, from being lost,” Iryna Rohozhynska said.
The team is not looking for short-term financial assistance but to build a stable operating model for the outlet.
“We’re not looking for a one-off fix, but a sustainable model that will let our outlet keep running and evolving steadily in today’s reality,” Iryna Rohozhynska said.
As reported earlier, Kremenchutska Hazeta (based in Kremenchuk, Poltava oblast) has temporarily gone out of print.
As IMI has reported, on 28 September 2023 the newspaper Kremenchutskyi Telegraf, which had gone out of print at the start of the full-scale war, resumed its print edition. In February 2024, the print publication was permanently discontinued.