Nurturing Watchdogs of Democracy

USAID Natalya Ligacheva, a media expert and the founder of Telekritika

Since 2001, the Web-based media outlet Telekritika (www.telekritika.kiev.ua) has reported on current Ukrainian media trends and provided in-depth analysis and critical assessment of Ukrainian TV and radio program content. Telekritika’s desire for increased availability and quality of news in Ukraine has driven it to expand into print publishing, sociological surveys, radio shows, roundtables, and presentations covering important media issues. At the helm of Telekritika is its founder, journalist and media expert Natalya Ligacheva.

After graduating from Taras Shevchenko State University in 1984 with a degree in journalism, Ligacheva worked for a series of media outlets including State TV and Radio of Ukraine; the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTCU); the newspapers Kyiv Vedomosti, Zerkalo Nedeli, and Den; and the magazine Natalie. Then in 2001, Ligacheva set her sights on improving professionalism in the Ukrainian media.

At the time, widespread political censorship by state authorities and the nation’s media owners prevented objective and professional criticism of television news programming. Through an initial grant support from the U.S. Embassy, administered by Internews Ukraine, Telekritika was able to force open the door and offer an open forum for media analyses and discussions of reporting standards and ethics by journalists, politicians, and other interested parties. Ligacheva had realized her dream, but she didn’t stop there. An independent media in Ukraine became her mantra.

Ligacheva helped create a commission on journalism ethics and, in 2002, helped organize journalist protests against censorship. The same year a journalists’ roundtable adopted a “Manifesto of Journalists Against Censorship” that generated 500 signatures of support on the Telekritika site. Presented in parliamentary hearings on censorship that year, the manifesto resulted in a 2003 law, which first defined censorship in Ukraine. Subsequently, Ligacheva, along with Telekritika journalists Iryna Chemerys and Sergiy Datsyuk, formed the Kyiv Independent Media Trade Union. And in 2004, she officially registered Telekritika as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) operating with the support of the USAID-funded NGO Internews Network and its Strengthening Independent Media in Ukraine ( U-Media) Program.

Later that year, Ligacheva helped spearhead the Orange Revolution’s journalist movement in which 42 journalists from six of the most popular national TV channels publicly denounced censorship and political pressure and vowed to uphold professional principles. With more than 350 signatures from over 20 regional TV companies, Telekritika published letters of support from other print and radio journalists, information agencies, and citizens. In the end, the united, active, and democratic effort triumphed over political and financial manipulations.

Today Telekritika fights for the creation of public broadcasting, transparency in the mass media, and establishment of professional standards in a press now free from political censorship but not from that of its owners. “Media issues may change in the future, but our goals remain the same,” says Ligacheva. “We see our mission as strengthening professional journalism in Ukraine by stimulating politicians, authorities, media owners, and journalists to realize the important public role of the media as the ‘watchdog of democracy.’”