The Academy of Ukrainian Press introduced six new media literacy modules at 129 schools throughout Ukraine; the modules were downloaded 13,403 times from the AUP media literacy portal. For the very first time, a workbook for the school textbook “I Explore the World” was approved and financed by the Ministry of Education and Science as a mandatory supplement and will be used at schools in the 2019-2020 academic year.

which people could use to see which of the candidates most closely aligned with their own views. The quiz used an algorithm that was based on correlating users’ interests and positions with the information provided by presidential candidates to the Central Election Commission (CEC). As a result, the quiz tended to throw up inconsistencies in the ways the candidates formally represented themselves in their official manifestos, and how they presented themselves differently depending on the region in which they were campaigning. The quiz created a national stir because it pointed out the fact that some of the presidential candidates had failed to mention important issues in their campaign platforms, such as where they really stand on membership of the EU and NATO. Nearly 105,000 unique users took the iVote quiz.

encouraged young people to get out and vote, with five Instagram influencers reaching 1.5 million people in two weeks. Singer and TV presenter Volodymyr Dantes got the highest number of individual views (over 120,000) with a video from his car as he was driving to Kharkiv, where he is registered as a voter. In the video, he described how this would be the first time he would be voting in an election, and called on young people to get off the sofa and exercise their right to vote.

A group of long-term USAID U-Media and MPU partners started a movement called Media for Conscious Choice on their own initiative, gathering 65 national and regional media outlets, non-governmental organizations, and journalists in Ukraine under a banner of honest journalism, rejecting requests for hidden political advertising, and refusing to publish black PR (the practice of paying for broadcasting and publishing negative stories about competitors). While media solidarity under the previous regime of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych was galvanized under the banner of the Stop Censorship movement, in recent years Ukrainian media organizations have decried the lack of initiatives to come together and mutually respect professional media standards and ethics. In a major positive step forward for media self-regulation and standards, this new movement was created in February 2019, just in time for the presidential elections. Media for Conscious Choice has recently received 15 more requests from media outlets wanting to join the movement.

showcased the presidential candidates and tripled the public broadcaster’s audience for its time slot, reaching 8.5 million viewers in the two weeks running up to the first round vote. It was praised by Ukrainian media watchdogs and media commentators as being by far the most professional and impartial political talk show of all of the national TV channels, filling a big gap in what was otherwise a very polarized campaign. While other political talk shows were selective in the candidates they invited (often depending on the political preferences of the owner) with anchors asking soft-ball questions and giving unlimited time to reply, the Countdown stood out because it identified the top 18 candidates according to reliable polls and invited all of them to attend; the anchors, experts in the studio and audience members asked tough questions; and the candidates were held to strict time-limits in their responses, monitored by a big studio chronometer.

(UA:PBC, Hromadske Radio, Internews Ukraine, Detector Media, Suspilnist Foundation, Information Press Center, Mirror Weekly, Institute of Political Information, Kharkiv Press Club, Ternopil Press Club, Donetsk Institute of Information) produced high-quality engaging TV, radio and online content about the elections, the reform process, and other important issues that reached over 10 million Ukrainians during this period.

which people could use to see which of the candidates most closely aligned with their own views. The quiz used an algorithm that was based on correlating users’ interests and positions with the information provided by presidential candidates to the Central Election Commission (CEC). As a result, the quiz tended to throw up inconsistencies in the ways the candidates formally represented themselves in their official manifestos, and how they presented themselves differently depending on the region in which they were campaigning. The quiz created a national stir because it pointed out the fact that some of the presidential candidates had failed to mention important issues in their campaign platforms, such as where they really stand on membership of the EU and NATO. This prompted complaints from some candidates (e.g. Anatoliy Hrytsenko’s team in Odesa complained to IPI that the candidate did support Ukraine joining NATO and EU, although he did not mention this in his official manifesto to the CEC). Nearly 105,000 unique users took the iVote quiz.