Pardee School Alumna Discusses Importance of Independent Journalism in Ukraine
Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies alumna Elina-Alem Kent (BA IR ’19) was recently interviewed by Boston University’s College of Communications on the importance of independent journalism in Ukraine and the scramble to keep it alive at the Kyiv Independent.
Kent is a Ukrainian-based journalist producing the podcast Media in Progress for the Kyiv Independent. The program documents the launch and growth of the Independent, an English-language news site created by the former staff of the Kyiv Post who were fired en masse following a disagreement over editorial staff hiring policies. In her interview, she discusses how she got her start in journalism, why independent journalism is so important in Ukraine, the challenges independent media have encountered in the country, her path from the Kyiv Post to the Kyiv Independent, and much more.
An excerpt:
COMtalk: Why is independent journalism so important in Ukraine?
Kent: Ukraine doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to the media. Since the 1990s, there’s been around 13 journalists killed here. And while there is freedom of the press, not all media is independent. Ukraine has this oligarch problem—a lot of oligarchs love to buy news channels and newspapers, and it’s hard for media organizations to survive without their funding. That’s why the Kyiv Post was such a gem. We criticized the government and politicians when needed. With the amount of propaganda that people receive because of Russia, it needs to be combated every day. So it’s vital.
The full interview can be read on the BU College of Communication’s website.