Radio Svoboda & ZIK TV Channel

Radio Svoboda

On November 8th representatives of the project Change in Media Education and Political Dialogue were invited to the radio channel Radio Svoboda. It is positioned as a private non-profit news media, funded by the US Congress. The correspondent network of the radio station includes 23 information bureaux and more than 1400 freelance correspondents. Radio Svoboda was founded in 1950.  During the meeting the representatives of the project had an opportunity to speak with spokesmen of the radio.

They discussed the functioning of the project Crimea.Reality, founded in 2014. The necessity of such a project was caused by the fact that in terms of annexation Crimeans would not have reliable source of information. Firstly, the office of Crimea.Reality was placed in Crimea but the outside pressure made them move to Kyiv. The spokesmen told the guests about the example of Mykola Semena, who was convicted by Russian court. Now three websites in Ukrainian, Russian and Crimean Tatar languages provide information for the readers. Their Russian site is the most popular in Crimea, it gets viewed two million times per month. They use social networks and websites to spread the information. Crimea.Reality and Radio Svoboda have a different audience, so they can easily collaborate because Crimea.Reality works for Crimeans and Radio Svoboda works for the rest of Ukraine. One of the most popular programmes of Radio Svoboda is about the corruption and  anti corruption investigations. As a Crimean project they also have accounts in social networks, moreover they develop a YouTube channel and work on Instagram strategy. The spokemen discussed not only their work and achievements, but also obstacles on the way. One obstacle is the counteraction from the authorities such as private calls to the chief editors or directors to make them avoid special topics. Also one of the problems is that the audience of Radio Svoboda and Crimea.Reality is not only those people who support Ukraine, it is all Crimeans. That is why the authors should care about how to express with an as neutral vocabulary as possible. To support awareness Radio Svoboda provide an hour program only about Donbas. It consists of small messages about what is happening in the region. All this information also appears on the website. Volodymyr Danyluk, one of the project’s organizers, brought up the question about critics of the government. During the war time politics tend to say that criticizing the government means criticizing the state, so a lot of journalists, that speak about problems of the government become enemies of the state.  Also the question of media literacy was discussed.

ZIK

The project’s representatives also visited ZIK, a Ukrainian national TV channel. It was created in 2004. It is the first internet-agency in Western Ukraine.

The channel has 96 plasmas that are connected in different systems. There are 2 robot-assisted cameras which work on a general plan and there are ordinary Sony cameras. They have 2 studios – the main one is for breaking news and a smaller one for other programs.

Interesting fact: the radiosensors are located among all the channel’s building because it had to be a big stage for surveys but it became a whole channel.

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