Public call of the Ukrainian media community regarding manipulations about the war on the air of the Russian version of the Euronews TV channel

To the President of the European Commission, Mrs Ursula von der Leyen; To the Vice President of the European Commission, Mrs Věra Jourová; To the Chief Executive Officer – Président Du Directoire Euronews, Mr Michael Peters; To the Alpac Capital CEO, Mr Pedro Vargas David

We present our respect to you and appeal on behalf of Ukrainian journalists, the media community, artists and all the invincible people of Ukraine.

Since the first days of the full-scale war, the media community of Ukraine has drawn the attention of the international community to a threat constituted by Russian media and their global distribution.

During the entire period of active struggle on the information front in the world stage, we see many positive developments, however, we notice how Kremlin rhetoric is more cautiously and natively spread by other media, in particular, by the Russian edition of the Euronews TV channel. The National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine has already drawn attention to this issue twice in March and June, and sent relevant official appeals to the head office of Euronews and the management of Alpac Capital. Despite the response of Mr. Guillaume Dubois, CEO of Euronews, on June 20 that "we did not find any signs of the presence of the Russian state rhetoric in our stories", the Ukrainian media community continued to monitor and revealed new manipulations on the air of the Russian version of Euronews.

Analysts of 1+1 media studied the materials that were released over five days (Monday-Friday, Aug 15 – Aug 19) in the Russian version of Euronews and came to the conclusion that the channel resorted to massive daily media manipulations about the war. It’s not about obvious fakes but about occasional and systemic and therefore effective impact on the audience. A pro-Russian understanding of the cause-and-effect links of what is happening in Ukraine, the role of Russia in these processes and the responsibility of the parties is discreetly imposed on the audience. Materials with manipulative elements are on the air every day and scattered among more or less unbiased and equidistant materials.

As for the methods of manipulation used in the materials, this is a shift in emphasis from the causes-and-effects of the war to particular details, false argumentation, highlighting the details necessary for Kremlin propaganda in an unfavorable news story, repetition of artificial propaganda news, etc.

A complete analysis of the broadcast with specific examples of news is attached to this letter.

Therefore, we appeal to the head office of Euronews in Lyon, to the investment company Alpac Capital, which recently acquired a controlling stake in the Euronews television company and declared the need to strengthen the "European identity" of Euronews, to the European Commission, which subsidizes the broadcaster, with a request to pay attention to the content of the Russian version of Euronews, and, if necessary, to involve specialists in propaganda and disinformation to analyze this content and make appropriate decisions on operational, personnel and strategic issues.

Euronews TV channel has a wide coverage of 400 million households in 160 countries of the world, 68% of households are concentrated in Europe, Euronews reaches more than 145 million people every month. Thus, a key European news broadcaster should be prevented from dubious narratives in any language version, especially when it comes to the war in Ukraine.

Now is the time for as many people in the world as possible to learn more about Ukraine, its history, European identity, common values and role in the modern world.

We count on your support and believe in the bright future of Ukraine, on which the future of the whole world directly depends.

Sincerely,

Olha Herasymiuk, Head of National Television and Radio broadcasting Council of Ukraine

Oleksandr Tkachenko, Minister of Culture and Information Policy

Yaroslav Pakholchuk, CEO of 1+1 Media

Oleksandr Bohutskyi, CEO of Starlight Media

Mykola Chernotytsky, Head of the Managing Board of Suspilne Ukraine

Vadym Perenchuk, Head of the TV channel "Rada"

MediaMovement

Natalia Lygachova, Detector Media

Oksana Romaniuk, Institute of Mass Information

Tetyana Troshchynska, Editor-in-Chief, Hromadske Radio 

Kostiantyn Kvurt, NGO “Internews-Ukraine”

Andrii Ianitskyi, Centre for Journalism at the Kyiv School of Economics

Dmytro Tuzov, host on “Radio NV”

Yevhen Spirin, «Babel» 

Taras Petriv, SOUSPILNIST FOUNDATION

Detailed information on the signatories who will join the open letter will be stored at this link.

Evidence base: https://cutt.ly/2CVreMA