The group of reporters from Estonia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey took part in the 1st one of the planned set of “Press Tours to Ukraine” and visited Kyiv, Luhansk and Donestsk regions. The event was organized by the Academy of Ukrainian Press and Media Development Foundation, The U.S. Embassy to Ukraine with a sincere expectation that the foreign guests drew valuable insights for their professional activity. Let us describe the events of press tour in the period of November 13-17, 2018.
Tour participants:
On the 1st day we had on agenda three meetings with the representatives of Ukrainian and international media outlets. The peculiarities of media coverage in Ukraine and the activity of media outlets were discussed. Individual views on this activity were expressed by Tetiana Troshynska, editor-in-chief of “Hromadske Radio”; Volodymyr Mostivyi, founder of “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia” weekly newspaper; Yulia Mostova, editor-in-chief of the mentioned weekly; Piotr Andruseczko, war correspondent at “Gazeta Wyborcza” newspaper; Ian Bateson, correspondent of American magazine “Foreign Policy”.
Afterwards, press-tour participants met with the Members of Parliament of Ukraine: first with Mykola Kniazhytskyi, MP, and then with Mustafa Naiem, MP. The politicians expressed their vision on the current development and future of Ukraine during both meetings. The day ended up with talking to Oleksandr Levchenko, Associate Minister of Temporarily Occupied Territories; Ambassador of Ukraine to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period of 2010-2017. He illustrated the real situation on the occupied territory to the foreign journalists and defined the set of measures called to solve the conflict political issues.
On November 14, 2018, the group visited School #22 in Semenivka that was completely destroyed at time of military events and renovated after the liberation of the town from militants. Serhii Borysenko, school principal met us.
Then, we held on for “Siverskyi Donets” crisis media center. Its representative, Oleh Nenevytsia, mentioned that they regularly inform citizens on special events and actively cooperate with the National Police. Arif Bagirov, blogger, told about theevents occurring in Severodonetsk and its development perspectives. He also conducted the excursion for participants.
On November 15-16, the group enjoyed a number of other interesting meetings. We had on our agenda:
One of participants kindly shared his impressions with us: “The program was really good. I truly enjoyed taking part in it. I hope all of your future courses will be at least as good as this was”.
Another participant, Ilker Sezer, correspondent of “Hurriyet”, the leading newspaper of Turkey, focused on war in eastern Ukraine, Revolution of Dignity, and fate of Crimea in his material. Find out more here>>>
We truly hope that after such intensive press tour the participants will gain a clear insight into Ukraine. “It is important that foreign reporters achieve the direct access to Ukrainian newsmakers, witnesses of events occurring in our country, or become the witnesses of these events themselves. This will enable to inform the world about events in Ukraine in a more accurate and fluent manner”. – summed up Valeriy Ivanov, President of the Academy of Ukrainian Press.
