For Ukraine, as for any other European country TV is the main source of information. However despite this according to public opinion poll conducted by Democratic Initiatives Foundation right before the start of the election campaign the level of trust towards Ukrainian electronic media was less then 20 percent.
What was the reason of such small trust level to Ukrainian media outlets?

I think the real reason of this was the fact, that even at the start of the campaign and before the second round actual disproportion between the candidates, first of all between the leaders of the campaign, Victor Yushchenko and Victor Yanukovych, was so big, that even an unprepared from the media point of view person could notice this. For example during the period from the 27th of June to the 20th of September in Prime Time News of the state owned UT-1 Victor Yanukovych got 210 times more direct time, then his main opponent Victor Yushcnenko. We could speak about different values, about different level of non balance, but this single value already shows that media exceeded not only some relative level of the prime-minister's bonus but even the elementary common sense.

Elections 2002 had already showed, that despite this favorable approach of media, Russian political technologies don't work, as they worked before. However despite this, they were back to Ukraine once again. How can you comment the fact, that Russian political technologies, that proved to work in Russia during Presidential elections 2004, were not working here?

First, why did they returned?
Ukrainian politicum are still using the approach of not looking for the prophet in their own country. Because of this Ukrainian politics always trusted Russian political technologists, especially because of the fact, that they are quite close to Russian government. Apart of this, after failed election campaign 2002 the message of Russian political technologists to Ukrainian politics looked like this: "We wanted to help you, but we were not able to use all our technologies, because you didn't allow us to. Now give us the opportunity to do everything we want, and victory will be in your pocket". That was their logic.
Now, why they didn't work. Here I can give the reasons both from professional and from man's from the street point of view. If we look from man's from the street point of view, those messages and that format, that were proposed to Ukrainian consumer, were not pertinent for ordinary voter, especially in the Western and central regions of Ukraine. Even in the Eastern part of Ukraine those messages didn't work on some people, especially on the Ukrainian-oriented in cultural sense.
From the professional point of view, Russian political technologists proposed the most developed technologies that were kindling interregional and international hostility, language and religious problems etc. But those ideas, that were shown in the TV spots, on leaflets, on bigboards and were used in other way of agitation, were absolutely alien to Ukrainian political situation, and to Ukrainian political and cultural landscape. There are quite a number of politicians in Ukraine, that we could call extremists, but non of them, both from left and right sides, were using xenophobias ideas, that Ukrainian people could be divided to the first, second or third grades. Non of Ukrainian politicians, even extremist or radical ones, were using this type of ideas.
Second thing is that political ads themselves, were not just outdated for the Ukrainian mentality, they were outdated even for epoch. At first the slogans of the Cold War were used, regarding the US aggressors, claiming that Americans ans NATO will conquer Ukraine.
Later slogans became even worse, and moved closer by the style and by the format to the slogans, that were used in Stalin's Soviet Union, and in fascist Germany in 30s. The logic, and the philosophy of advertising product was extremely aggressive itself. Such aggressiveness went through the whole PR strategy of Russian political technologists, and it was absolutely opposite to what people were ready for. The PR of the Orange Revolution was absolutely opposite. That's why that aggressiveness of the TV spots, and in generally those aggressiveness in a whole style of the election campaign was not apprehended by the voters.

So do you mean that the main mistake of Russian political technologists was the fact that they haven't adopted the technologies they had developed in Russia, and used in other CIS countries for Ukraine?

Yes, they haven't modified their technologies for Ukrainian reality, the haven't even conducted preliminary analysis, they were just using what they had, and what was already tested in other countries. As far as I know, they were not doing any preliminary tests at all, not only sociological, but even psychological tests were not conducted. When I've spoken to my Russian colleagues, for them the biggest shock was neither the Orange Revolution itself nor the events that occurred on Maidan, but the fact that Ukrainian voters were contributing their own money into it. They were shocked with the fact that not only poor voters, who were sharing part of their own pension, but also rich voters and middle-class voters, people who owned small and middle scale business with annual income about 100 000 USD per year were contributing about 30 000 - 40 000 USD for the events that were related to the Revolution. People who own enterprises, filling stations after their working drove to Maidan and stayed there for the whole night. And the fact that Ukrainian people donated on the revolution by different evaluations more then Renat Ahmetov (the richest man in Ukraine, main sponsor of Yanukovich's election campaign) owned was wasn't understandable for Russians. They could not understand how people could just give away money from their own pocket for some political events.
However the logics of those businessmen was quite simple. One businessman told me that representatives of Donetsk group approached him and told him that he "owed" them money for the election campaign. And he gave those money but not to them.

So Russian political technologists haven't adopted their technologies, haven't conducted any polls, and evaluation procedures. But what if they would have done it? If they prepared for the election campaign, if they conducted professional evaluations, and found a correct way how to position Yanukovych, than could it lead to a different result of the elections?

Well, when we speak, about non effectiveness of Russian political technologies it is not the absolute evaluation. Those technologies that didn't work in the Western part of Ukraine and almost didn't work in the Northern and central part of Ukraine, were extremely effective in Donetsk, Lugansk, a little less effective in Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Odessa, and in that regions the amount of Yanukovych's supporters was huge. However another factor played the key role there. The overall passiveness of the voters in those regions was higher than in other regions. For example the turnout in Odessa region was the lowest in Ukraine. So in some sense we can't say that those technologies didn't work at all. The fact how people in the Eastern part of Ukraine voted in the third round and the number of votes for Yanukovych displayed effectives of that technologies.
The main mistake of Russian political technologists and some Donetsk politicians was to evaluate the whole Ukraine by several Eastern regions. The industrial regions in Ukraine were created by the same pattern they were created in Russia, and the population in that regions was formed in the same way. There were special recruitments in the whole USSR, and workers were brought from all regions of the Soviet Union, but mainly from Russia. And that's why those people were more ready to comprehend Russian message. Those voters that in a number of moments were more aggressive and were absolutely sure that Yanukovych would protect them and that Yanukovych was exclusively their candidate.
Could it work in the whole Ukraine? Only if special messages were created for different regions, for different voter groups, for different audience. Only in this case it could work a little. Actually Yanukovych's team had some attempts of creating those special messages, and it was obvious, that those messages were oriented on the Western Ukraine. If they developed their logics in the way that Ukraine varies and in different parts of Ukraine is necessary to support different values, then Yanukovych's team could have built something. However it didn't happen, and Yanukovich was not positioned as a whole Ukrainian leader, only as a regional one, and this reflected on his campaign in a very negative way. He was not a whole Ukrainian leader, but only a leader of Donbass region.

During the election campaign prior the first and the second rounds of elections there were talks about a so-called bonus of a prime-minister. Did the fact that Yanukovych was a prime-minister, thus a representative of the state, played a significant role in voters decision?

Actually, this was yet another mistake of Russian political scientists who had a wrong idea from the very beginning. They thought that some people would support the state just because it's the state. It was yet another wrong thesis of Russian political scientists, that was based on that fact that in Russian Empire and in modern Russian Federation in some crucial moments, when there was some threat to the country all internal conflicts were forgotten and everyone united among the good king. Also the situation in the Western Ukraine wasn't taken into consideration. Ukrainians are always quite sceptical about their authorities, their state. So the amount of people, that will vote for the state, no matter what, is much lower, than in Russia, and sociologists can prove this. This fact has it's historical background, while in Russian during the critical moments for Russia, people always supported the state. For the very long period of time, during the whole history of Russian Empire, the power was alien in Ukraine. That's why when it came to the support of the current state some stereotypes worked. Also, as I have already said before, there were very few voters that were ready to support the current state just because it's state.
However I won't use the term prime-minister's bonus, because Yanukovych used all the capabilities of state machine in the conditions of the post-totalitarian, half totalitarian society. Actually the whole state vertical from the highest to the lowest state official in the regions worked for the victory of Yanukovych and was used at the possible maximum. On some voters that usually vote for the state, the increase of the pensions or the factor of the stability of salary could be quite influential. The last factor could work at best in state owned big factories or at the factories that are de facto controlled by the state officials. In such organisation the factor of the proclaimed stability, and the factor of great administrative pressure, not necessary of the political pressure, is very influential. For example the head of the factory says to his employees that in Kiev they vote as they want while here if Yanukovych won't become a president, we won't have any orders and i'll have to fire you all. When we speak about the administrative resource and about the potential of the state vertical we should take into the consideration all aspects of that vertical, starting from the direct pressure, including economical arguments and economical beliefs, and ending with salaries and pensions. And the possibilities of the vertical were used during the repeat second round, and Yanukovych received about 44%, and this is a very big value, especially, while there were no big manipulations with votes and results.

After first round of the elections TV channels owned by Viktor Pinchuk (Kuchma's sons in law. Ownes 3 nationalwide TV channels and a number of TV channels in regions), and less 1+1 changed their approach, and moved away from the total Temniks obedience. Could we say, that after the first round the state vertical had become unsteady?

It wasn't exactly this way. Comparing to the first round, campaign in media became more brutal, and the aggressiveness we were talking about increased dramatically, it came to impossible and illogical sizes. For example the clip of Kobzon regarding the civil war, the chronicles of the WW2 with armed fascists that were aired with some specific commentaries regarding the opposition, also the spots with an anti-American hystery were aired and distributed. The biggest sweep of that dirty campaign spots were prior the second round of the elections.
Regarding the quality of the news I remember 30-31 of October, when TSN (prime time news program) on 1+1 came with normal news. Of course that news were not ideal, but there wasn't such an overwhelming manipulation, and there wasn't such total disbalance, that was seen before. It was very close to balanced news. However the next week 1+1, I don't even talk about Inter and UT-1, came back to that dirty format they used before and the amount of dirt even increased. The main changes of 1+1 and other major TV channels occurred only during the Orange Revolution.

However after the first round of elections TV channels changed their approach to the news coverage. Particularly on ICTV, Yushchenko's poisoning was the main topic in the news before the first round of elections, while after the first round the channel sharply changed it's position, and became more pro-Yushchenko.

Yes, however even before the first round of the elections Pinchuk channels were more balanced, then other national wide TV channels. Though the most manipulating topic on Pinchuk's TV channels was indeed Yushchenko's poisoning. The topic itself wasn't shown much in ICTV's news, more in Kiselev's (Russian spin doctor, Head of the News department on ICTV) program. Even that time there was quite interesting positioning on ICTV, like, we do the news more or less fine, while Kiselev's program is his own program, and he does there everything he wants. Similar approach remained during the second round, however Yushchenko's poisoning, wasn't already so actual. But Kiselev's program remained quite Anti Yushchenko, while the news remained quite balanced.
During the second round Kiselev was dealing only with his program, being only formally the head of the news room, while in reality Semeriadchenko (Kisilev's) was the head of the newsroom.

What what the reason of the changes?

I think it was connected both with position of journalists and with position of the management. For example on UT-1 there were direct protests, and journalists were told "Don't like it? Leave!". On 1+1 the protests came up to even more crucial forms, when only Pihovshek, camera man, and Oseledchik, the Head of the TV channel, were working. No one else agreed to work, to come to the air, to make up programs, and those people were demanding specific changes. On Pinchuk's channels the journalists were also able to change the situation, but it was solved in a more calm form by finding specific corporate compromises. However it was also visible, that Pinchuk, as a more flexible man, after he saw what was going on his own TV channels, what was happening on other TV channels, what was going on in the society, was reacting to the changes happening in the society.

So Pinchuk was putting eggs into different baskets?

Of course there was no clear support of Yushchenko on Pinchuk's TV channels, and the active criticism towards Yushchenko remained among journalists and the top management of the TV channel. Thus professional approach was dominating on ICTV, not a political one, but a professional one.
Actually Pinchuk was the first media oligarch, that started to transform his media from a political instrument into a media business. And then despite the sympathies or antipathies towards Yushchenko, the professional approach took part and news became more balanced, more professional.
Of course it can't look like putting eggs to different baskets, cause I can't say, that something was put to Yushchenko's basket, the approach was slightly different.

However the main revolution among the journalists happened after the second round. Why did this revolt happened exactly after the second round of the elections? Why didn't it happen before?

The first problem that didn't allow journalists to do that before was the fact that there was a specific stereotype among them. The journalists were sure that the state would do as it desires anyhow, and there is nothing, that can be done with it. This apathy appeared mostly among journalists because they were well informed people ans saw huge state machine working for Yanukovych, all this massive pro-Yanukovych events with their own eyes. And of course journalists doubted that there were any arguments or resources that could oppose this huge state machine.
The second thing was the fact, that journalists protested before. The already protested in 2001, they protested after the elections in 2002, but after the second round the border of fear was passed.
After the protests in 2002 an independent media trade union was created, a number of protests occurred on 1+1, but there were no finishing steps. In the last phase journalists on main TV channels were either doing some desperate action or were just leaving. They were not struggling just leaving the companies and slamming the doors, or were stopped by reaching some compromise. But after the second round there was no space left for compromise.
It was also remarkable that after the state authorities used everything they could and ended up with a result of the first round, they started to perform all this manipulations so impudently so brutally. In the second round the level of falsifications, the level of interference, the level of the misuse of the force even surpassed the elections in Mukachevo.
Actually the Mukachevo's scenario was improved and recreated on the national level. And on this level some people that still had illusions, or some inclinations towards compromise people that had good salaries, just changed their mind.
The same situation happened with Ukrainian middle class, and even with the representatives of the big business. Before they thought, "Ok, we shall pay, and shall react to all this exactions of the state, we shall give them what they demand from us." But when they faced the fact, that the state would become even more criminal then it was before and it would play without any rules at all, they came to the conclusion, that it's better to spend big amount of money, maybe even to loose much, but not to give up the hope to live in a normal society, were at least some rules are functioning.
It is very important that Kiev's journalists, the journalists of main TV channels, were the first that reacted. The journalists that receive top salaries in Ukraine and apart of them the envelopes with black cash. Actually this envelope factor and the factor of a certain "blackmail" for those envelopes played some role before. Those black cash money were accounted, it wasn't just the money, that were brought to a journalist, and were given to him like, "Here your bonus for a good job". As a rule, 90% of those money were given as a per dean for some trip, or as a per dean for the participation in some official delegation and so on. So as it was given for some trip from one side there was at least some legitimisation explaining why those money were given in dollars, and from the other side an opportunity of the accounting appeared. So when the money was given to the journalists, those journalists were on hook, since this money haven't passed the tax inspection. But despite this journalists understood the perspective, that awaits them, and that perspective forced them to protest. Shadowy perspectives of a normal rules overbalanced both fear and the wish of receiving that envelopes. However the changes also occurred on the management level.
When Olexander Rodniansky (the Head and one of the owners of 1+1, several years ago, he moved to Russia, where he is working as the head of entertainment channel STS) came from Moscow and saw the real rating of 1+1 and what happened to it lately, it was the main argument for the top managers of TV channels while they were making their decision. And in this case it doesn't mean, that the journalists rebelled and demanded from the management to work in a different way. In reality the managers were ready for this, because the events in Ukraine were shocking for them. And the managers played an active role in the changes of media, maybe their role wasn't so visible, but even from the point of corporate media environment, they were very active, after they saw, that it was not only the journalism that was being destroyed, but also the business, and that they had their last chance to change the TV channels from the political instrument into a good business product.
All those responsible for different aspects of work of a media outlet were thinking in a same way. At the same time both journalists and their managers came to one conclusion "We can't live this way", and every member of the channel, no matter if he was a journalist, or cameraman or a manager came up to this conclusion himself.

There were also rumours that another reason why the revolt happened after the second round was the fact, that there was a specific agreement like let's survive this elections and work as we are asked to, but after the elections we can make it better and after Yanukovych wins we would be able to work fine until the next elections. So after the second round journalists and the management said, "Ok, Yanukovych is the president now we fulfilled our part of the agreement now our conscience is clear and we can work as we want."

I don't think is was a significant argument, cause Yanukovych legitimisation wasn't really approved by journalists. Before the first round, journalists were saying to themselves, "ok, I'll come on compromise, I'll air the temnik but, I'll go and vote for Yushchenko." After the second round the situation changed dramatically "I won't do this, and i don't want to accept that the votes of Ukrainian citizens were manipulated." The duality disappeared among journalists.

What was the role of media outlets, especially opposition ones during the Orange Revolution?
Did the 5th channel remain an information source, or was it turned into agitation tool? Even before the revolution the journalists of the 5th channel were slightly bias in favour of Yushchenko. When the revolution started and people begun to gather on the Independence square did the 5th channel turn into the agitation outlet of the opposition?

If we speak about live broadcasts from the Independence square, of course the agitation role of the 5th channel was dominating. But we also should take into consideration that this agitation appeared under the framework of information blockade and the breach of the blockade also was a media product itself. And first of all it was a media event, and only then it a was a propagandistic event.
Actually there was an impression that could yield to the temptation of just changing colour. In other words become a Yushchenko's Inter, however the journalists understood this risk themselves and that was seen. When guests were invited to the studio they usually represented different points of view and could balance the position of each other. Actually even before the first round it was a concept of 5th channel to invite different people that could present different positions. But before many representatives of the state, members of pro-Yanukovych parliament factions and pro-state businessmen refused to come to the 5th channel while after the revolution they started to come. And after 5th channel overcame this small period it returned itself a balanced face.

And what about the consolidation of the people? What was the role of the 5th channel in getting the people to come to Independence square and to main squares of their own cities?

Actually the role of the fifth channel was minimal. In many regions 5th channel was either disconnected or jammed, or just not broadcasting, and the real coverage of 5th channel wasn't so big. There was a cumulative effect but it wasn't a mobilising effect meaning that people watched 5th channel and went to Maidan. During the revolution 5th channel played a role of a true information source that was reporting true information like what Yushchenko stated and what politicians did etc. It wasn't only the 5th channel but it was a number of media outlets in Kyiv and in regions allover Ukraine that we usually call small ones. Small TV channels, small newspapers, including TRC "Kyiv", TV "Era", radio "Era", Tonis, etc. All those outlets didn't have big coverage but the fact of their existence, the fact, that people could hear the news and tell to each other what they saw or heard, it was the factor that helped in breaking throw the information blockade. Even Internet with a minimal coverage played a significant role. Even in regions middle age and elder people that never used Internet and never knew how to use it, and never had an access to it, they were asking their friends, their children "what Ukrainska Pravda writes?" So there was a multiple effect. Thus it was very hard to check throw the sociological methods the real viewership of the 5th channel or readership of Ukrainska Pravda. But if to speak about the deciding role, well the 5th channel wasn't the one who addressed people to come to Maidan.
Thanks to the efforts of the police, thanks to the efforts of Kirpa (Gerogiy Kirpa, ex-minister of transport, was found dead in his cottage after the repeat vote), may God save his soul, after the second round, minimum of people from the regions were able to come to Kyiv. The tickets to Kyiv were not on sale both on railway stations and for buses, while in order to stop private buses police was throwing spikes under the wheels. So in reality small amount of people were able to come to Kyiv from regions, however on the first day of the revolution according to different evaluations about 250000 people went out to protest.
And they were not brought out to the street by 5th channel they were brought by the results of the elections that were published, by the pro-state TV channels. They were brought on the streets by the way how those results were announced, they were brought because in Kyiv they saw the buses with voters with absentee voter certificates. And they saw it in Kyiv where, thanks to Kiev's city government, there was minimal amount of violations compared to other regions. Where the elections went more or less civilized, and the percent of violations was lesser compared to Kyiv's oblast not even to Donetsk' oblast.

But the break of the information blockade later occurred on other main TV channels. And during the revolution media became more fair, more tolerant, more objective. What was their role during the Orange Revolution?

Once again, i don't think that influence was significant, it was minimal.

Could it it contribute to the overcoming of the fear factor?

All those conclusions were made at the same time among the journalists and among the citizens of all levels. People of all levels of population just stopped to fear. It was a parallel process, and there was no behaving or stimulating influence of media. Media changed with their own society.
We can't say that media was ahead, that journalists showed an example, they were together with people and they changed together with people. People in Western Ukraine and in central regions were ready to hear the truth and they wanted to hear it. So the new editorial policy was aimed to that what people were waiting for. However people in the Eastern regions were in propagandistic and information way prepared for something else. Thus in Donetsk we had demands to stop broadcast of Ut-1 in that region, there also were demands to stop broadcast of 1+1. In the places where people were ready for changes the changes occurred widely.
So we can't say that Ut-1, Inter and 1+1 when they started to say the truth were able to influence the Eastern electorate, they just didn't have enough time. People were zombified by the media for a long time, so even the honest reporting about the events couldn't help. The real amount of people living in the Eastern part of Ukraine who's eyes were opened by honest central media was very small.

While the situation in media changed on the national level, did the situation change in regions among the regional media outlets? Did they change with a change of the society?

Not everywhere and not in the same way. For example in Kharkiv despite the position of Kushnariov (governor of Kharkiv region), despite the results of the elections in Kharkiv at least several regional TV channels changed at the same time or even earlier then their Kyiv's colleagues. Some TV channels had been changing for a longer period of time, but even Donetsk based TRC "Ukraina" that remained quite pro Yanukovych until now, begun to invite at least some representatives from the opposite team while before the picture was absolutely sterile. And before it was hard to imagine that some opposition politician could appear there and even receive direct time. But when Yulia Tymoshenko paid a visit to Donetsk and was live on TRC "Ukraina", it showed that even there could be some changes. However, as I've already said that picture was different among Ukrainian regions: somewhere the changes happened faster, somewhere slower, somewhere there were no radical changes at all. In some regions media outlets decided to avoid airing the information regarding the election campaign, and then started to broadcast the information in a balanced way. Before they were trying to silence some news just because it was easer to survive that way. For example, before the first round in Dnepropetrovsk there was a minimal information regarding the elections, the elections weren't a topic there.

Russian media had remarkably big influence in Eastern and Southern regions of Ukraine. For some people it was even more influential source of information then Ukrainian media though the position of Russian media and their coverage was under control of the Russian state. What was the influence of Russian media on Ukrainian voters and on their decisions?

You are right, in Crimea and in the Eastern part of Ukraine especially in big cities where there is an access to cable, the influence of Russian media outlets was more then serious. First of all, according to public opinion polls they were even more trusted then Ukrainian ones. Second, for a Russian speaking regions due to the language specifics and due to the format of the broadcast Russian media outlets were even closer then, for example UT-1. Thus in Crimea despite its pro-government position UT-1 was treated if not as alien then as extraneous and maximum what people did watch were official news. While ORT, RTR, NTV were comprehended as native TV companies and in this sense the influence of Russian TV channels was very serious in a way that it was enforcing the position of people who decided to vote for the state. "See, even Russian media call Yanukovych a president and they show that even in Moscow there are bigboards saying "Ukrainians of Russia support president Yanukovych." Of course it had great influence.

What was the level of manipulation of these TV channels?

Well, on the level of the manipulation technologies ORT, i think, is on the same level or maybe a little bit better then Inter by the level of manipulation technologies, but 1+1 was better.

And what about the level of the outcome product?

If we speak about the level of the outcome product the only channel that could compete with Russian media product is 1+1. Inter was already weaker, it looked, like a pale copy, of Russian media, especially by the format, while 1+1 was prepotent.

So the Russian media were more popular thanks to the broadcast language?

Yes, language factor and the fact that for some voters in Eastern Ukraine Russian media are yet closer, then the Ukrainian one. We can say, that in this case voter watched Inter, watched ORT and was taking 1+1 as an asset, it was enough to make those manipulation technologies work. Though we can not put ORT and RTR to the same line we put NTV. This channel tried to be more professional and balanced.

After the Orange Revolution and after all these changes among the media, did media show objective and balanced news during the repeat vote? During the repeat vote Yanukovych accused media to be bias towards him, to suppress the information about him and to cut his direct time.

Well there were examples when even on Inter and on 1+1 Yushchenko received more time then Yanukovych, however there wasn't such a huge disproportion as it was before during the first or the second round. The difference wasn't two times bigger, it wasn't even 1 bigger. When Yushchenko received more air time then Yanukovych he didn't receive more 1/5 of the air time. It was even better then the relative balance of Pinchuk's TV channels in the first round.
So during the repeat vote there was a relative balance with a certain dominance of Yuschenko. In general Yanukovych is right when he says that he was being suppressed, but that was not the mirror image of what the media were doing towards Yushchenko.