UPGRADING UKRAINE’S MEDIA IN WARTIME

Challenge

The Great Depression in Ukrainian Media

The war has changed the life of every Ukrainian. Media professionals have also suffered, as the destruction of freedom of speech is one of the goals of the Russian regime. To assess the situation, we interviewed 40 publications and found that for 70% of them, funding from international donors became their main source of income after the start of the full-scale invasion. Staff shortages have increased, as qualified journalists and media managers have been forced to move to other regions, abroad, or to new industries. The reason is stress, danger, and lack of funds.

Ukrainian newsrooms also needed help with digitalization, as they needed to compete with low-quality Telegram news channels, including pro-Russian and propaganda channels. According to the Civil Network OPORA, 78% of Ukrainians use social media to get news and important information. And this number is increasing every year. However, less than half of the newsrooms we surveyed have an employee who deals with social media. Thus, it is a serious challenge for local Ukrainian media outlets to convey reliable information to their audiences in the face of high competition and aggressive Russian propaganda.

60% of surveyed newsrooms had to change their positioning and strategy. Old approaches were no longer working, so new knowledge of brand strategizing, PR, and marketing was needed.

The mental health of media workers has also deteriorated: work in frontline zones, constant travel, displacement across the country, and non-stop work have all led to a decrease in the effectiveness of those who have remained in the media sector. Journalists, editors, photographers and videographers had to adapt to new wartime realities and find ways to continue their work under pressure, under fire, and without proper funding.

Solutions

Training and financial support for journalists and newsrooms

In January 2023, we launched our Expert Support Program. Based on the results of a survey we conducted, we developed an action plan. 40 media outlets received grants of UAH 36,000 (~1000 USD) each to create analytical materials. At the same time, we invited mentors and lecturers to provide consultations and insights for 40 local media outlets from the East and South of Ukraine. We identified the most relevant topics for newsrooms and held 102 consultations in these areas:

• Digital: Google Analytics, SMM, SEO, and targeting.
• Visual: graphic design, video production, work with YouTube.
• Journalism: working with sensitive topics, fact-checking, documenting war crimes, writing quality materials, and conducting OSINT investigations.
• Strategic: development of editorial policy, brand strategy, and fundraising.
• Psychological: support for the mental health of journalists and combating professional burnout.

The program was mentored by Ukrainian media trainers and journalists, including experts from Internews Ukraine:

• Diana Ishchenko, creative director;
• Pavlo Belousov, digital security expert;
• Diana Ihnatenko, online marketing manager;
• Tetiana Domnenko, graphic designer.

In addition, we launched a media upgrade program called 360° Upgrade. We selected 3 newsrooms and guided them through digitalization, content, and strategy updates. In addition, the 3 newsrooms received UAH 60,000 grants (~1,640 USD)  to produce analytical materials.

Our task was to evaluate the content, texts, social media, and positioning of the outlets. We then identified each outlet's main growth points and problem areas and began to help their teams improve their positions.

Program participants: NikVesti (Mykolaiv), ZMIST (Poltava), and Tribune (Rubizhne).

The mentors of the program were: 

• Otar Dovzhenko, chairman of the Independent Media Council;
• Anatoliy Martsynovskyi, media trainer and journalist;
• Diana Ishchenko, creative director at Internews Ukraine;
• Anna Levytska, SMM expert;
• Maria Vasylenko, brand strategy expert;
• Anastasia Borema, communications and SMM manager at Bihus.Info.

The project team conducted 99 consultations, 88 of which concerned content improvement, with the other 11 devoted to newsroom organizational structure. These included YouTube and SEO audits, 10-day content revisions by an external editor, lectures on brand strategy and SMM, and individual consultations on creating high-quality analytical materials and preparing for interviews. These consultations were helpful to the young journalists who joined the participating newsrooms shortly before the program began.

Results

200 consultations, 2 million more views, and hundreds of stories heard

The outlets received expert support and filled in knowledge gaps to create even better content. We helped them revise their strategies and try new approaches to their operations, which have already yielded promising early results.

"We analyzed examples and learned how to make an attractive preview for a video. The video created using expert recommendations attracted more than 3 times as many viewers as the previous one," Olena Garaguts, editor of the online media newspaper Faces, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

"We don't have a graphic designer, so all the graphic content for the website and social media is created by journalists themselves. However, based on the graphic design skills we have acquired, we have already developed a modern media kit," Olha Zyma, editor-in-chief of Tochka Dostupu, Kirovohrad Oblast.

"The advice we received has become a guideline for us. We follow all the recommendations on digital security, try to use graphic design capabilities, are looking for an SMM specialist, and use what we learned when writing materials on sensitive topics. This has helped us to connect with and prepare material with the wife of a fallen soldier," Natalia Svyryda, editor-in-chief of Bilozerka.info, Kherson Oblast.

The vast majority of participants in the Expert Support Program (77%) rated the program's usefulness with the highest score (5 out of 5).

The total number of views of the materials created as part of the projects is over 3.7 million. Here are some of the stories that received the most coverage:

• An emotional captioned video (1,032,935) from the Kryvyi Rih-based Expert-KR about the Kovalyk family from Kherson Oblast, who, despite their tragic losses, continue to search for their dead father and husband and rebuild their home after the region's liberation. When the journalists published the video, the authorities organized two search expeditions to the alleged grave of Oleh Kovalyk. The search continues.
• A report on survival and lack of electricity in the village of Ruska Lozova by the Kharkiv-based Obyektiv, which raises difficult questions about the conditions Ukrainians have to endure. It was quickly distributed by major Telegram-channels, and the story reached more than 200,000 people on external platforms alone. 
• A story about kind-hearted IDPs from near Bakhmut (110,000) who evacuated themselves and took 80 rescued cats out of occupation. Told by the Cherkasy-based outlet 18000. Thanks to the story, the heroes received food for the animals, and audiences paid more attention to the problem of the animals suffering from Russia's war.

As part of the upgrade of 3 publications, we held more than 99 expert consultations to enhance the skills of their journalists, designers, and editors.

• NikVesti (Mykolaiv) honed its journalistic instincts and held a strategy session

At the start, the publication had problems with its name and positioning, so we helped the team with rebranding and Ukrainianization. The media outlet began to communicate more actively with its readers and conducted a survey about its operations.

"The 10-day mentoring program helped many new employees better understand what their "journalistic instincts" are, as well as how to create their own quality content and move away from copywriting. This took place at the time when the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam was blown up, so the editorial staff tried to organize their reporters to inform the public using a real example," says Oleh Derenyuha, editor-in-chief of NikVesti.

• ZMIST (Poltava) gained audiences on social media

The news site had problems with its social media presence and was looking for ways to strengthen its position. Our consultations helped to expand the site's audience on Facebook (+16,000 followers), Instagram (+2,000), and Tiktok (+3,000). The outlet also increased its subscribership on YouTube by 2.5 times.

"We were happy with the consultations and are grateful that we received them when we needed them most. We managed to optimize our website and gained knowledge that allowed us to improve our work," Anastasia Dobryak, editor of ZMIST.

• Tribune (Rubizhne) improved its own texts

It was important for the Tribune editorial team to improve the quality of their reporting. After consultations with our experts, the outlet raised their standards for their journalists' materials to ensure that everything the site produced abided by journalistic standards. We also provided a consultation on SMM, which helped increase the outlet's Telegram audience by a thousand subscribers and increase the average number of views and shares of publications.

"Mr. Dovzhenko's readings on how to write news, conduct interviews, and file reports are posted in the work chat and are mandatory for all employees. We started expanding our news coverage, adding more links to previous materials. After consultations and joint work on our shortcomings, the Tribune feed has become more interesting, the headlines more informative, and the structure of the texts more proper," said Oleksiy Artyukh, editor-in-chief of Tribune.

The program was implemented with the support of the Media Program in Ukraine, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Internews.