‘It’s state propaganda’: Ukrainians avoid TV news as war rages on

Since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of 2022, the Ukrainian people have had access to a single source of television news: an all-day broadcast, chock-full of images of Ukrainian tanks shelling Russian positions, medics operating near the front lines and political images. leaders rallying support abroad.

The show, Telemarathon United News, has been a key tool in Ukraine’s information war and has been praised by the government officials who regularly appear on it for its role in countering Russian disinformation and maintaining morale.

“It’s a weapon,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said last January of the program, which is jointly produced and broadcast 24/7 by the country’s largest television channels.

But after almost two years of war, Ukrainians have grown tired of the telemarathon. What was once seen as a crucial tool in keeping the country together is now increasingly derided as little more than a mouthpiece for the government.

Viewers have complained that the program often paints too rosy a picture of the war and hides worrying developments on the front line and the The West’s declining support for Ukraine – and ultimately fail to prepare citizens for a long war.

Over time, viewership and confidence in Telemarathon have plummeted, which experts see as a sign of broader popular disillusionment with the government as victory on the battlefield becomes elusive. Many viewers instead spend their time watching popular reality shows and entertainment programs.

“Everyone is tired of the image that says: ‘We are winning, everyone likes us and gives us money,’” said Oksana Romaniuk, head of the Kiev-based Institute of Mass Information, a media monitoring organization. “It’s state propaganda.”

Telemarathon was launched shortly after Russia invaded and includes six networks representing about 60 percent of the total pre-war Ukrainian audience. Each network is given multi-hour slots to fill with news and commentary, which are then broadcast by all participants on their news channels.

The program was officially established by presidential decree and about 40 percent of the funding comes from the government, according to Oleksandr Bogutsky, the CEO of StarLight Media, a major media group participating in the project.

But it remains unclear how much control the Ukrainian authorities have over Telemarathon’s editorial line.

Several media experts and journalists participating in the news show said that Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s Minister of Culture and Information until July, took part in meetings to coordinate reporting. The ministry did not respond to several requests for comment.

At the beginning of the war, A majority of Ukrainians saw the project as essential. As Russian troops approached Ukrainian cities and towns, Telemarathon kept viewers informed of the fighting, advising them where to find shelter and when to evacuate. “It was life-saving content,” said Khrystyna Havryliuk, head of news at Suspilne, the Ukrainian public broadcaster, which is participating in the Telemarathon.

The show also lifted people’s spirits at a critical time, broadcasting Mr. Zelensky’s inspiring messages to millions of homes. “The mood it gave people, the spirit, the hope,” Ms. Romaniuk said. “It was really impressive.”

According to Svitlana Ostapa, deputy editor-in-chief of Detector Media, a Ukrainian media watchdog, the program accounted for 40 percent of the total viewership in Ukraine in March 2022.

Over the months, the Telemarathon grew into a well-oiled 24-hour news broadcast, with each channel filling its slots with reports from the front lines, interviews with commanders and conversations with government officials.

Then the ratings started to drop.

By the end of 2022, the news program’s viewership had shrunk to 14 percent of the television audience, Ms. Ostapa said. Today that has dropped to 10 percent.

Many viewers said that as the threat of a Russian takeover diminished, the program’s patriotic overtones became increasingly exaggerated. “They portray the events in Ukraine as if everything is fine, as if victory is just around the corner,” Bohdan Chupryna, 20, said on a recent evening in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

Like other Ukrainians, Chupryna said reporting on Ukraine’s counteroffensive this summer was overly optimistic, giving the impression that the army would quickly push through enemy lines. The counter-offensive faced setbacks from the start ultimately largely failed.

Ihor Kulias, a media expert who monitors the Telemarathon for Detector Media, said that for most of 2023, the show’s participants used language that emphasized “the effectiveness and proficiency of the Ukrainian armed forces,” while the Russian forces were ‘described as being in a state of danger’. panic, suffering significant losses and surrendering en masse.”

It was “a completely different reality” from the actual situation on the ground, Mr Kulias said.

Olena Frolyak, a Ukrainian TV presenter who works for StarLight Media, denied that the program looked at the situation through “rose-colored glasses.” But she added that bombings and frontline developments are not reported until the government communicates about them. “We have to wait for the official position,” she said.

Mr Kulias said some channels had adopted a form of “self-censorship” in their reporting. However, he added that Suspilne is a rare example of a channel that has largely maintained an independent editorial line, inviting critics of Mr. Zelensky as guests and questioning official statements.

Yet the number of Ukrainians who say they trust the Telemarathon has fallen sharply over time, from 69 percent in May 2022 to 43 percent last month, a survey shows. recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Another study showed that more than two-fifths of Ukrainians say they are in favor of ending the program.

Many critics say that Telemarathon is now doing more harm than good.

“It has a dangerous side, it creates an optimistic view of the situation and then leads to disappointment,” said Yaroslav Yruchyshyn, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on freedom of expression. publicly questioned the effectiveness of the news broadcast this month.

Mr Yruchyshyn and media experts said they feared the program had blinded people to the fact that the the war would continue and require more sacrifice. Ukraine is currently that difficulty recruiting soldiers and there is increasing criticism that people living far from the front lines are starting to forget the conflict.

“We need solid, balanced information that our society can analyze and use for people to make decisions,” Mr. Yruchyshyn said.

Another concern is that the Telemarathon has turned into a PR operation for Mr Zelenskiy, who remains Ukraine’s most trusted political figure but has seen his approval ratings decline in recent months.

Figures provided by Mr Kulias show that members of Servant of the People, Mr Zelensky’s party, made up more than 68 percent of the program’s political guests in 2023, with this share rising steadily throughout the year. Servant of the People controls half of the seats in parliament.

“It seems like a unanimous position,” Andrii Khantil, a 41-year-old lawyer, said of the Telemarathon on a recent evening near the Golden Gate, a reconstructed gateway that marked the entrance to Kiev in the Middle Ages. “It’s not really what we need. It does not help.”

Mr. Bogutsky, the head of StarLight Media, said his channels were working to improve guest diversity. “The Telemarathon itself cannot shape people’s opinions,” he said, adding that social platforms such as Telegram – where most Ukrainians turn for updates on the war from soldiers and military analysts – are much more influential.

As the war rages on, Ms Romaniuk, of the Institute of Mass Information, said the Telemarathon had to change to avoid mimicking what it was originally intended to counter: Russian propaganda.

“You don’t want to be like Russia,” Ms. Romaniuk said. “We need to think about defending democracy in times of war.”