"Everything You've Heard So Far Is a Total Lie"
Now here's the deal about that zany sign-language interpreter chick in Ukraine. Viva la revolucion! (From the WSJ:)
____________
KIEV, Ukraine -- Natalia Dmytruk, the sign-language interpreter at Ukraine's state TV channel, came to work Thursday morning fired up for action.
The channel's reporters, like their colleagues on the other two major national networks, were on strike. They were protesting government pressure to slant news coverage in favor of Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian-backed candidate in this country's disputed presidential election.
State TV wasn't broadcasting demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of supporters of Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Western candidate who believes that the presidency was stolen from him through government- sponsored fraud. Mr. Yanukovych, the current prime minister, was presented on the news as the election's undisputed winner, receiving congratulations from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So Ms. Dmytruk, 47 years old, adopted guerrilla tactics to break the information blockade. Conspiring with her makeup artist, Ms. Dmytruk tied an orange ribbon inside her sleeve. Orange is the color of Mr. Yushchenko's campaign, and of the spreading protest movement that many Ukrainians now call the Orange Revolution. Then after interpreting the news broadcast for the deaf on Nov. 25, Ms. Dmytruk bared her wrist. "Everything you have heard so far on the news was a total lie," she says she told viewers in sign language. "Yushchenko is our true president. Goodbye, you will probably never see me here again."
In the last week, such small acts of courage by people previously uninvolved in politics have given the Ukrainian protests an unexpected momentum. The protests placed large parts of the country -- including the capital, Kiev -- under Mr. Yushchenko's control, and put Ukraine's government into disarray. Just like Ms. Dmytruk's outburst, many of these actions stretched or broke regulations and laws -- in the name of securing democracy for Ukraine's 48 million people.
As she walked out of the studio after her broadcast, Ms. Dmytruk, who has been at the station for three years, was greeted with hugs from her shocked colleagues. Word quickly spread around the building, already in turmoil. Even the station's technicians and the staffs of the daily children's show and other nonpolitical programs decided to join the strike over the coverage, some of them inspired by Ms. Dmytruk's broadcast.
By late afternoon, the TV network's president, Oleksandr Savenko, had to face an angry assembly of employees at the station.
Government interference at state TV, and at the two other major national channels, employees say, had become so prevalent in recent years that the entire script of news programs was often written by the presidential administration, and not by the journalists themselves. The two other channels are privately owned, but until recently have been reluctant to challenge the government.
"Can we now, finally, tell the truth?" asked Maksym Drabok, one of the main strike organizers and the channel's political correspondent who was barred from appearing on air after criticizing censorship last month. "Yes, tell the truth," Mr. Savenko replied at the meeting.
"No more lies, no more lies," hundreds of staffers chanted in response.
A few hours later, the evening newscast was opened with footage of this meeting with employees, and a pledge to resist censorship in the future. Ms. Dmytruk was also back on the air the next morning. Management at the two other main networks caved in the same day and allowed balanced reporting.
"We now try to cover all the current events in as balanced a way as possible," Mr. Savenko says in an interview; he insists, however, that his channel wasn't biased before.
The break of the government's stranglehold over mass media proved a turning point in Mr. Yushchenko's campaign to annul the official results of the Nov. 21 election where, according to the Ukraine's Central Election Commission, Mr. Yanukovych won by three percentage points. A day before Ms. Dmytruk's broadcast, the current president and Mr. Yanukovych's sponsor, Leonid Kuchma, had called for the closure of the only pro-Yushchenko TV network, Channel 5, for "fomenting a coup." Pro-Yanukovych regional administrations promptly shut down its broadcasts.
But, as state TV introduced coverage of Mr. Yushchenko's protests, public sentiment was transformed. The same night of Ms. Dmytruk's broadcast, senior police and security service officers started coming on stage at the Kiev protests, pledging allegiance to "the people's side." Government officials and lawmakers from Mr. Yanukovych's own party began abandoning their boss.
Mr. Yushchenko Sunday declared that "tens of thousands" of law- enforcement and military personnel had joined his side. The Ukrainian Parliament voted on Saturday to declare the Nov. 21 election "falsified." Ukraine's Supreme Court is scheduled to consider the issue today.
"Many people, especially out East and South, were like zombies -- they had no idea about what's going on in Ukraine, they didn't know about the protests in Kiev, about how peaceful it all is, about how not a single shop window was broken here in these days," says Mr. Drabok.
Ms. Dmytruk -- the first person to break informal censorship in a state TV newscast since the election -- has kept her job. After spending hours among pro-Yushchenko protesters in Kiev's main square and sick with the flu, she watched the latest developments in Ukraine's revolution on TV this weekend. In her high-rise on the city's edge, she wore an orange scarf and even her dog was festooned with orange; the phone kept ringing with expressions of gratitude and support.
"I was in such pain -- I just couldn't keep watching TV anymore, the gap between what I saw on screen and on the street," she recounted. "So -- without telling anyone in advance -- I just went in and did what my conscience had told me to do."
Ms. Dmytruk glanced at the latest protest footage on screen, awed by how hundreds of thousands of ordinary people like her kept braving subzero temperatures. "You can't lie to people forever," she said. "They felt insulted and cheated, and they're showing it."
____________
KIEV, Ukraine -- Natalia Dmytruk, the sign-language interpreter at Ukraine's state TV channel, came to work Thursday morning fired up for action.
The channel's reporters, like their colleagues on the other two major national networks, were on strike. They were protesting government pressure to slant news coverage in favor of Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian-backed candidate in this country's disputed presidential election.
State TV wasn't broadcasting demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of supporters of Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Western candidate who believes that the presidency was stolen from him through government- sponsored fraud. Mr. Yanukovych, the current prime minister, was presented on the news as the election's undisputed winner, receiving congratulations from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So Ms. Dmytruk, 47 years old, adopted guerrilla tactics to break the information blockade. Conspiring with her makeup artist, Ms. Dmytruk tied an orange ribbon inside her sleeve. Orange is the color of Mr. Yushchenko's campaign, and of the spreading protest movement that many Ukrainians now call the Orange Revolution. Then after interpreting the news broadcast for the deaf on Nov. 25, Ms. Dmytruk bared her wrist. "Everything you have heard so far on the news was a total lie," she says she told viewers in sign language. "Yushchenko is our true president. Goodbye, you will probably never see me here again."
In the last week, such small acts of courage by people previously uninvolved in politics have given the Ukrainian protests an unexpected momentum. The protests placed large parts of the country -- including the capital, Kiev -- under Mr. Yushchenko's control, and put Ukraine's government into disarray. Just like Ms. Dmytruk's outburst, many of these actions stretched or broke regulations and laws -- in the name of securing democracy for Ukraine's 48 million people.
As she walked out of the studio after her broadcast, Ms. Dmytruk, who has been at the station for three years, was greeted with hugs from her shocked colleagues. Word quickly spread around the building, already in turmoil. Even the station's technicians and the staffs of the daily children's show and other nonpolitical programs decided to join the strike over the coverage, some of them inspired by Ms. Dmytruk's broadcast.
By late afternoon, the TV network's president, Oleksandr Savenko, had to face an angry assembly of employees at the station.
Government interference at state TV, and at the two other major national channels, employees say, had become so prevalent in recent years that the entire script of news programs was often written by the presidential administration, and not by the journalists themselves. The two other channels are privately owned, but until recently have been reluctant to challenge the government.
"Can we now, finally, tell the truth?" asked Maksym Drabok, one of the main strike organizers and the channel's political correspondent who was barred from appearing on air after criticizing censorship last month. "Yes, tell the truth," Mr. Savenko replied at the meeting.
"No more lies, no more lies," hundreds of staffers chanted in response.
A few hours later, the evening newscast was opened with footage of this meeting with employees, and a pledge to resist censorship in the future. Ms. Dmytruk was also back on the air the next morning. Management at the two other main networks caved in the same day and allowed balanced reporting.
"We now try to cover all the current events in as balanced a way as possible," Mr. Savenko says in an interview; he insists, however, that his channel wasn't biased before.
The break of the government's stranglehold over mass media proved a turning point in Mr. Yushchenko's campaign to annul the official results of the Nov. 21 election where, according to the Ukraine's Central Election Commission, Mr. Yanukovych won by three percentage points. A day before Ms. Dmytruk's broadcast, the current president and Mr. Yanukovych's sponsor, Leonid Kuchma, had called for the closure of the only pro-Yushchenko TV network, Channel 5, for "fomenting a coup." Pro-Yanukovych regional administrations promptly shut down its broadcasts.
But, as state TV introduced coverage of Mr. Yushchenko's protests, public sentiment was transformed. The same night of Ms. Dmytruk's broadcast, senior police and security service officers started coming on stage at the Kiev protests, pledging allegiance to "the people's side." Government officials and lawmakers from Mr. Yanukovych's own party began abandoning their boss.
Mr. Yushchenko Sunday declared that "tens of thousands" of law- enforcement and military personnel had joined his side. The Ukrainian Parliament voted on Saturday to declare the Nov. 21 election "falsified." Ukraine's Supreme Court is scheduled to consider the issue today.
"Many people, especially out East and South, were like zombies -- they had no idea about what's going on in Ukraine, they didn't know about the protests in Kiev, about how peaceful it all is, about how not a single shop window was broken here in these days," says Mr. Drabok.
Ms. Dmytruk -- the first person to break informal censorship in a state TV newscast since the election -- has kept her job. After spending hours among pro-Yushchenko protesters in Kiev's main square and sick with the flu, she watched the latest developments in Ukraine's revolution on TV this weekend. In her high-rise on the city's edge, she wore an orange scarf and even her dog was festooned with orange; the phone kept ringing with expressions of gratitude and support.
"I was in such pain -- I just couldn't keep watching TV anymore, the gap between what I saw on screen and on the street," she recounted. "So -- without telling anyone in advance -- I just went in and did what my conscience had told me to do."
Ms. Dmytruk glanced at the latest protest footage on screen, awed by how hundreds of thousands of ordinary people like her kept braving subzero temperatures. "You can't lie to people forever," she said. "They felt insulted and cheated, and they're showing it."
posted by hellisotherpeople at 9:42 PM
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