The first casualty when war comes is truth, California senator Hiram W Johnson told Senate back in 1917. The war challenges everything, and first of all, the freedom of speech and the press. Some people say that the truth can be as deadly as a lie in times of war. Does it really can?
The Russian army shot the television tower during the withdrawal from Kherson. October 2022. Photo: Katerina Sergatskova
In the very first days of the invasion, journalists in Ukraine were told not to broadcast from the places that were recently shelled. And it was reasonable, no one argued, because we saw how cruel the Russian army is. They were bombing residential buildings, killing civilians, torturing activists and journalists. Now, a year since the beginning of the full-scale war, we know it was intentional.
But a few months later, when the intensity of the war calmed down, things started to change. Top officials at Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense started providing different restrictions on press work at the frontline and in cities near the front. For instance, filming the shelled locations in the first 24 hours was forbidden, even though some locations were well-known, and it was essential to show the public what happened. Many journalists experienced aggression or, let’s say, emotional reactions towards them while filming – from police, local authorities, or just citizens on the streets.
Sometimes the press workers were accused (not officially) of being spies because people thought Russia would use the footage they filmed to make target corrections. (I wrote an op-ed about that, you can read it here). Things like that happen in societies where people have low trust in the press. Ukraine is among those. Before the invasion, only 31% of the population trusted the Ukrainian press, according to the Kyiv sociology institute. The last survey showed that the level of trust increased to 65%. But, there are still many issues.
Recently, the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation surveyed Ukrainian journalists and found that they face the following violations during their work: 1) Officials refuse to provide journalists or the public with socially important information - 51%; 2) Censorship of materials or prohibition of publication - 22%; 3) Denial of accreditation - 17%.
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