Media Program in Ukraine

2018-2025

About Program

The USAID-funded Media Program in Ukraine works to empower local media to expand Ukrainian citizens’ access to high-quality news and information. This project, implemented by Internews during 2018-2025, is the largest media development activity in Ukraine’s history and represents a significant US$75m investment in Ukraine’s independent media sector.

The purpose of the Media Program in Ukraine is to strengthen the civically relevant role of media in democratic processes in Ukraine and expand citizens’ access to quality information in order to counter the malign influence and support European integration. The Media Program supports Ukrainian organizations in their efforts to successfully implement these reforms, increase the availability of high-quality media content, improve media self-regulation, and ultimately help media provide citizens with the information they need to be resilient against malign influence during Russia’s war against Ukraine, strengthening efforts towards European integration.

We believe Ukraine has achieved a great deal in implementing important media reforms. At Internews, we are delighted to be able to continue working together with our partners to strengthen the accountability and capacity of the Ukrainian media sector to provide Ukrainians with the relevant and engaging information they need. With USAID’s assistance, we will expand media literacy, help institutions implement key media reforms and build media industry standards and sustainability.
Gillian McCormack Internews Country Director and the Program’s Chief of Party

Activities include:

  • Increasing and improving content production on vital lifesaving information and other key developments and crisis operations funds
  • Supporting national and local media and journalists to continue operations and reporting on the war
  • Support for public broadcasting company UA:PBC and local affiliates
  • Engaging with the tech sector
  • Maximizing interventions in the East and South, and areas affected by Russian occupation
  • Increasing and improving content production on reforms
  • Supporting existing solidarity and cooperation between newsrooms in all parts of the country and sharing available professional expertise
  • Supporting investigative journalism
  • Providing legal assistance to journalists on access to information
  • Streamlining media literacy efforts
  • Expanding media monitoring efforts
  • Supporting application of key media reforms
  • Strengthening and expanding media partnerships and coalitions

The new Media Program targets its efforts on:

  • journalists
  • media managers
  • media outlets
  • media support organizations
  • educators
  • citizens
  • officials working on reforms

Territorial outreach:

The Media Program in Ukraine is a nationwide initiative that has a particular focus on media assistance in the East (Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk) and South (Crimea, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolayiv, and Odesa).

 

 

 

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It also explores new partnerships and coalitions with:

  • IT professionals
  • social entrepreneurs
  • private sector representatives
  • creative communities

Grants for Ukrainian organizations:

The Media Program provides extensive grant support to Ukrainian organizations to enable them to carry out the following activities:
  • Engaging content production for TV, radio, online, or print media, with targeted support for content creators focusing on the East and South.
  • Election-related activities including the production of balanced content that fosters public debate on policy issues, voter education, legal assistance for journalists covering elections, and training in how to cover elections in ways that build public confidence in the process.
  • Media monitoring to assess the quality and impartiality of media coverage as well as covert attempts to manipulate public opinion.
  • Production of hard-hitting investigative stories and data journalism projects
  • Advocacy to expand media literacy more broadly into the national school curriculum, including at primary school level, and teacher training, especially in the East and South, to increase schools’ use of media literacy modules.
  • Support for local groups to roll out media literacy events at all education levels, particularly in the East and South.
  • Support for local initiatives that create feedback mechanisms for audiences to report false stories, media manipulation, or other professional violations to media outlets or media watchdogs.
In addition to planned grant support, the Media Project has also established a flexible rapid reaction pool to allow the project to respond to unique opportunities and unexpected events.

Program results so far

495
Number of independent news outlets assisted
200 mln
Views of TV content
99
Number of media organizations we partner with

Program results highlights

Media Program in Ukraine partners’ efforts paved the way to a new Law on Media

·     On December 29, 2022, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi signed the Law on Media. The law came into force on March 31, 2023. USAID’s MPU partners NAM, CEDEM, DM and IMI advocated for a new law for years to replace outdated media legislation from the 1990’s and 2000’s with new legislation suitable for modern purposes and to bring Ukrainian law in line with the EU audiovisual services directive. NAM and CEDEM representatives were among the experts invited to help draft the law as part of the parliamentary working group. DM and IMI made recommendations for amendments to the first draft which were included in the second and final draft of the law. Several days before the approval of the law, on December 8, 2022, CEDEM published a statement on its website advocating strongly for the law’s adoption. The statement was highly appreciated by the chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, MP Mykyta Poturaiev, who noted its importance during the parliamentary negotiations.

 

In year 5, Media Program in Ukraine provided assistance to 234 independent media companies across Ukraine.

·     The produced content reached 89.8 million views.   MPU provided training to 1,370 journalists, supported the activities of 60 non-governmental organizations that provide technical assistance to media, provided 892 instances of legal advice to help independent media, and helped USAID MPU partners in their work to draft and advocate for the successful passage of new media legislation that meant Ukraine met one of the seven criteria for EU candidacy.

ZN.ua investigative story uncovers corruption, leads to dismissal of the Deputy Minister of Defense, saved Ukraine’s budget up to $200 million, and inspires introduction of new law on transparency of defense procurement.

ZN.ua, published an investigative story on January 21, 2023, that uncovered inflated procurement costs at the Ministry of Defense for food purchases for Ukraine’s army. The article was viewed more than 238,000 times on ZN.ua’s platform and was cited widely by international media. Less than a month later, the deputy Minister of Defense in charge of procurement had been removed. On March 21, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed law No. 8381 into effect, introducing greater transparency measures for defense procurement.

Media literacy and anti-disinformation content produced by USAID media partners reached a total of 9.278 million Ukrainians in Year 5.

 Explainers, educational, and entertaining/informative content was produced by a variety of media partners, nationally inside Ukraine, and in specific regions. UkraineWorld reached 1.8 million, Behind the News reached 3 million, Eastern Variant reached 100,00 Ukrainians in the East, Velet reached 700,000 views, Ukraina Moloda reached 200,000 views, Ternopil Press Club content reached 50,000 readers in the Ternopil region, The Village reached 3.3 million readers and Trybun reached 128,000 views for its content focused in the Rubizhne, Luhansk region.

Behind the news (BtN), an online resource that refutes disinformation and manipulations in media, published 65 articles reaching one million views on the website and Facebook.

 The most popular topics for debunking in October 2022 through March 2023 were false stories about Russia’s war against Ukraine and international organizations’ humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians.

Head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense resigned after his corrupt activities in Crimea were exposed by Center for Journalist Investigation’s reports.

·      In February 2023, Oleksandr Liev, acting head of Weapons Procurement Department within the Ministry of Defense, was forced to resign after Vitalii Shabunin, head of the Anticorruption Action Center, and journalist Yanina Sokolova exposed his illegal actions in a publication and video. Shabunin and Sokolova both referenced a January 2023 interview with CJI editor-in-chief Valentyna Samar and CJI’s investigation from 2011. The investigation exposed Liev’s involvement in corrupt deals before Crimea’s occupation and his support for the illegal referendum in Crimea. Shabunin also said that Liev is accountable for the Ministry of Defense’s purchases of weapons. Overall, the reports received 345,000 views on CJI’s platforms.

TOM14 collected evidence of Russian crimes in Ukraine to form an evidence base for human rights organizations and law enforcement agencies.

      They produced seven video reports, exposing prominent collaborators, debunking Russian misinformation about the war, and documenting war crimes committed by the Russian army. The videos collected a total of 4.5 million views on YouTube. TOM14 passed the collected materials to the Ukrainian Helsinki Union and national law enforcement agencies for further investigations into human rights violations.

  

Suspilnist Foundation contributed to Ukrainian journalists’ mental resilience.

     Since October 2022, the Suspilnist Foundation has implemented the Mental Support for Media Program, the main goal of which is ensuring comprehensive psychological support for newsrooms and journalists. During the program, the SF team and other experts trained 22 psychologists and psychotherapists about the specific challenges of journalistic work. SF selected the national news agency Ukrinform to work with as a pilot. Trained mental health professionals will perform general psychological health screenings, conduct webinars about the basics of mental health, and provide individual psychological consultations for Ukrinform staff. Since February 2023, SF held 17 events about psychological support and reached around 380 journalists and specialists documenting war crimes.

“New Countdown” aired on UA:PBC’s YouTube channel and on UA:PBC’s 24 local affiliates.

 The show invited experts and political representatives from all the major political parties in parliament to discuss hot topics such as whether pro-Russian politicians should be banned from office (the consensus was a resounding “yes”), the impact of Ukrainian wheat imports into the European Union, and how to deal, as a society, with collaboration. UA:PBC aired 16 episodes from March to June 2023 and reached 14.6 million views across all platforms.

ATR, the leading Crimean Tatar television channel, produced 120 episodes of its morning show ZAMAN, reaching over 120,000 views on YouTube.

   The program aired in both Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian. Each ten-minute episode consisted of up to five news stories, focusing on the latest developments in mainland Ukraine and occupied Crimea and representing the voice of Crimean Tatars. The channel also supported the Crimean Tatar Resource Center’s campaign to expose collaborators by calling on residents of Crimea to submit photos of fascist symbols on vehicles seen in their communities.

Ternopil Press Club helped editors and journalists of de-statized newsrooms from 12 regions of Ukraine to improve their knowledge in management, fundraising, and online journalism.

Ternopil Press Club held two in-person trainings for editors and journalists of reformed newsrooms from different regions of Ukraine. Thirty representatives of 18 local media from 12 oblasts (Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv and Kherson) participated. TPC mentored five newsrooms from October 2022 to March 2023 in developing their online platforms. The reformed editorial offices of local newspapers created four new websites: “Visti Barvinkivshchyny”(Kharkiv), “Peremoha”(Sumy), “Vorskla” (Sumy) and “Vpered” (Donetsk). TPC also supported 17 editorial offices, mostly from frontline, de-occupied and occupied territories (relocated outlets).

Academy of Ukrainian Press produced 5 new educational manuals that included mainstreaming media literacy into civics classes.

The manuals also provide information about what children and adults should know about narratives of Russian propaganda, the history of Crimea, and information literacy in conditions of information war. The Ministry of Education and Science approved two new curricula: “Basics of Media Literacy” for grades 5 and 6; and “Fundamentals of Media Literacy” for grades 7 and 8. 189 teachers and 6,100 school children strengthened their media literacy skills.

Weekly briefer

USAID-Internews “Media Program in Ukraine” compiles a weekly information bulletin in English looking at the country’s media sector news and our partners’ activities. Please, see this week’s compilation, send your email address in and hit subscribe to get our briefer in your inbox.

Past issues

FAQ

  • How can my organization or media outlet cooperate with the Media Program in Ukraine?

    We regularly invite Ukrainian media organizations, media outlets and other players in the media field to submit project proposals to our grants competitions. Please, subscribe to our news and updates.

  • What expenses do we need to show in budget proposal?

    The budget should describe major expense categories that show clear cost-effectiveness. Using our Excel budget template, you should indicate all relative expenses that you believe will help you achieve your project’s goals

  • Do we need to submit proposals in two languages?

    All proposals should be submitted in both, English and Ukrainian. Please, follow our grant proposal writing instructions.

  • Do we need to scan, print and send our project proposals by post?

    No, you don’t need to do this as all our proposals and budgets should be received as Word and Excel documents via email.

  • Can I be added to your mail-list?

    Please, drop us a line to [email protected] to stay informed on our program’s news and cooperation opportunities.