‘It’s state propaganda’: Ukrainians shun TV news as war drags on

KYIV – Since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the people of Ukraine have had access to a single source of television news – an all-day broadcast packed with footage of Ukrainian tanks blasting Russian positions, medics operating near the front line and political leaders rallying support abroad.

The show, Telemarathon United News, has been a major tool of Ukraine’s information war.

It has been praised by the government officials who regularly appear on it for its role in countering Russian disinformation and maintaining morale.

“It’s a weapon,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in January 2023 of the programme, which is jointly produced and broadcast 24/7 by the country’s biggest television channels.

But after nearly two years of war, Ukrainians have grown weary of Telemarathon.

What was once seen as a crucial tool for holding the country together is now increasingly derided as little more than a mouthpiece for the government.

Viewers have complained that the programme often paints too rosy a picture of the war, hiding worrying developments on the front line and the West’s eroding support for Ukraine – and ultimately failing to prepare citizens for a long war.

Over time, viewership and trust in Telemarathon have plummeted, which experts see as a sign of wider popular disenchantment with the government, as victory on the battlefield becomes elusive.

Many viewers instead spend their time watching popular reality shows and entertainment programmes.

“Everyone is fed up with this picture that says, ‘We’re winning, everyone likes us and gives us money,’” said Ms Oksana Romaniuk, the head of the Kyiv-based Institute of Mass Information, a media monitoring organisation. “It’s state propaganda.”

Launched shortly after Russia invaded, Telemarathon includes six networks representing around 60 per cent of Ukraine’s total pre-war audience. Each network is given multiple-hour slots to fill with news and commentary, which are then broadcast by all participants on their news channels.

The programme was officially enacted by presidential decree and about 40 per cent of its funding comes from the government, according to Mr Oleksandr Bogutsky, the CEO of StarLight Media, a major media group participating in the project.

But it remains unclear how much control the Ukrainian authorities have over Telemarathon’s editorial line.

Several media experts and journalists participating in the news show said that Mr Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s culture and information minister until July, used to take part in meetings to coordinate news coverage. The ministry did not respond to several requests for comment.

Concerns about government influence were also raised after several channels run by political opponents of Mr Zelensky were barred from joining Telemarathon.

At the beginning of the war, a majority of Ukrainians saw the project as vital.

As Russian troops closed in on Ukrainian cities and villages, Telemarathon updated viewers about the fighting, advising them on where to find shelter and when to evacuate. “It was life-saving content,” said Ms Khrystyna Havryliuk, the head of news at Suspilne, Ukraine’s public broadcaster, which participates in Telemarathon.

The show also lifted people’s spirits at a critical time, broadcasting Mr Zelensky’s inspirational messages to millions of households. “The mood it gave people, the spirit, the hope,” Ms Romaniuk said. “It was really impressive.”

In March 2022, the programme accounted for 40 per cent of Ukraine’s total viewership, according to Ms Svitlana Ostapa, the deputy chief editor of Detector Media, a Ukrainian media watchdog.

Over the months, Telemarathon settled into a well-oiled, round-the-clock newscast, with each channel filling its time slots with reports from the front line, interviews with commanders and discussions with government officials.

That was when ratings started to drop.

By the end of 2022, viewership of the news programme had shrunk to 14 per cent of the television audience, Ms Ostapa said. Today, it is down to 10 per cent.

Many viewers said that as the threat of a Russian takeover receded, the programme’s patriotic overtones became increasingly exaggerated.

“They portray events in Ukraine as if everything is fine, as if victory is just around the corner,” said Mr Bohdan Chupryna, 20, on a recent evening in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Like other Ukrainians, Mr Chupryna said the coverage of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in summer 2023 was overly optimistic, giving the impression that the military would quickly push through enemy lines.

The counteroffensive faced setbacks from the start and eventually mostly failed.

Mr Ihor Kulias, a media expert monitoring Telemarathon for Detector Media, said that, for most of 2023, the show’s participants used language that emphasised “the effectiveness and skill of the Ukrainian forces”, while Russian forces were “described as being in a state of panic, experiencing significant losses and surrendering en masse”.

It was “a completely different reality” from the actual situation on the ground, Mr Kulias said.

Ms Olena Frolyak, a Ukrainian TV host who works for StarLight Media, denied that the programme looked at the situation through “rose-colored glasses”.

But she added that bombings and front-line developments are not reported until the government communicates about them. “We have to wait for the official position,” she said.

Mr Kulias said some channels had adopted a form of “self-censorship” in their coverage. He added, however, that Suspilne is a rare example of a channel that has largely maintained an independent editorial line, inviting critics of Mr Zelensky as guests and challenging official statements.

Still, the number of Ukrainians who say they trust Telemarathon has dropped sharply over time, from 69 per cent in May 2022 to 43 per cent in December 2023, according to a recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Another study showed that more than two-fifths of Ukrainians say they support ending the programme.

Many critics say Telemarathon is now doing more harm than good.

“It has a dangerous side, it creates an optimistic view of the situation and then leads to disappointment,” said Mr Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, the head of the Ukrainian Parliament’s committee on freedom of speech, who publicly questioned the news broadcast’s effectiveness in December.

Mr Yurchyshyn and media experts said they feared the programme had blinded people to the fact that the war would drag on and require more sacrifice.

Ukraine is currently struggling to recruit soldiers and there is mounting criticism that people living far from the front lines are starting to forget about the conflict.

“We need solid, balanced information that our society can analyse and from which people can make decisions,” Mr Yurchyshyn said.

As the war drags on, Ms Romaniuk, from the Institute of Mass Information, said Telemarathon had to change to avoid mimicking what it was originally designed to counter: Russian propaganda.

“You don’t want to be like Russia,” Ms Romaniuk said. “We should think about defending democracy in times of war.” NYTIMES