Experts: Balance of political news on Ukrainian TV generally improved, but channels manipulating information at key moments
Kyiv, October 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The results of the monitoring of news content on the leading Ukrainian TV channels regarding the balance of information on the election process by monitoring organizations show a positive trend, but at key moments the channels are manipulating information.
"Big channels take into account research data, and there are really positive trends, both by the standards of news and by the representation of political parties... But we cannot say that these trends are unequivocally positive. The movement to positive trends, that is to the presentation of different points of view on the news, to the balanced coverage of various political parties, that is to make it at least roughly consistent with the people's sympathy, is very slow," President of the Academy of Ukrainian Press Valeriy Ivanov said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
He said positive dynamics were demonstrated by the Inter and ICTV channels. At the same time, there are no positive changes on Novy Channel and STB. According to Ivanov, experts have some questions about the Ukraina Channel.
CEO of Telekritika Natalia Lihachova, in turn, noted that the balanced representation of political parties had grown on certain TV channels. She noted that this was not due to a reduction in the amount of materials about the Regions Party, to which Telekritika experts include the materials about the current government, but due to an increase in the amount of materials about the other parties.
"In most cases, we understand that the Regions Party is conducting its election campaign through the PR activity of government representatives. On the one hand, we see that attention to other opposition parties such as UDAR and the united opposition on such TV channels as Inter and ICTV has really increased, but, on the one hand, there is less openly paid-for advertising about Ukraine-Forward!, the amount of which was huge a month ago," she said.