Minister: Telethon will last until the end of the war
10 October 04:04The national telethon “United News” will run until the end of the war, and there is no censorship. This was stated by the new Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine Mykola Tochytskyi in his interview with the Voice of America, [ komersant] reports
“In my work, I have been communicating with both the majority in politics and the minority from the very beginning. But I have said and will continue to say: as long as the war continues, there will be United News. But, as with everything else, we have to make a better product to make it interesting. I have said and will continue to say that as long as there is a war, we need the United Marathon. We need it so that we can develop unified approaches that will break down the propaganda that the Russian Federation is preparing against us,” he said.
Unlike his Western partners, Tochytskyi does not see the national telethon as a restriction on freedom of speech.
“I don’t know what kind of censorship we are talking about. Any messages produced by the ministry have a return address and you can always write and say that you don’t like it or think differently. If, for example, a conversation with a guest takes place on the same United News, I don’t see or remember anyone specifically inviting or not inviting a speaker,” the minister said.
Mykola Tochytskyi also said that he had met with representatives of TV channels after his appointment.
“Another important element, which we came to in communication with our colleagues, is that this should be a project of a more educational nature, where we will explain more, for example, what Ukrainian culture is and what we plan to do to preserve it. I believe that United News can be the platform where we can talk about all this and get rid of those Russian hostile narratives that were laid down in different periods of Ukraine’s development,” he said.
It should be noted that about half of Ukrainians believe that the single telethon is currently irrelevant. This is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the Razumkov Centre sociological service in cooperation with the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation at the request of the Chesno Movement from 9 to 15 August 2024.
The results of the survey show that the number of viewers of the telethon is decreasing, and therefore the feasibility of its existence is in question. 35% of Ukrainians absolutely agree with the thesis that the telethon format has lost its relevance. Another 16% of citizens rather support this position.
About 16% of citizens have a neutral attitude to the only telethon, and another 15% have no answer.
As a reminder, in February, according to sociologists, for the first time since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, the balance of public trust/distrust in the United News telethon turned negative.
Thus, in February 2024, 36% of people trusted United News, while 47% did not. Back in December last year, this balance was reversed: 43% against 38% in favour of trust.