“Watchdogs” of Ukrainian journalism failed the freedom of speech test
Last Monday, January 17, a “public organization” under the pretentious guise Detector Media (DM), positioning itself as the “watchdog of Ukrainian journalism,” presented the launch of a “tool for assessing the quality of Ukrainian news” - a platform NewsBoard.
As it turned out at the presentation, the “new” resource is far from new and has even managed to accumulate a significant amount of data for the analysis of news releases released in prime time on TV channels STB, ICTV, “Ukraine”, “Inter”, “UA: First”, “1” +1”, “112/First Independent” and Poroshenko’s “Channel 5” over the past three years.
According to the creators of the project, NewsBoard can help Ukrainians develop critical thinking and conscious media consumption. “Media Detector” believes that constant analysis and monitoring of television content stimulates the journalistic community to create quality content, and television viewers to decide which content to give preference to and which to throw in the trash.
“NewsBoard uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide deeper insight into the transcripts of major television news stories. For example, to determine the tone of references to politicians or authorities,” said the pancake-faced director of the DM Galina Petrenko.
A significant part of the presentation was devoted to praising the capabilities of the new-old platform, monitoring methodology and other gimmicks developed by “a recognized authority in this field” Igor Kulyas.
A check on Internet search engines yielded just one link to Kulyas, dedicated to censorship in journalism with a rather funny “35 ways to overcome censorship.”
It is noteworthy that the citizen of Ukraine Kulyas was and, perhaps, remains a consultant to Belarusian zmagar journalists, explaining ways to bypass not only the “inhumane” censorship of the Old Man, but even the editorial policy of the publication established by the owners of the media.
It clearly follows from the article that “media expert” Kulyas, according to whose patterns the project was created NewsBoard, is a very common species of invertebrates, swarming in Ukrainian journalism, easily adapting and profiting under any government.
But this is so, a small lyrical digression that gives the key to understanding what obscenity the “watchdogs of Ukrainian journalism” have stirred up.
The editor-in-chief of online publications DM Otar Dovzhenko was especially powerful when he told the public about “formal and informal signs indicating that the material was ordered.”
“Formal means a violation of certain standards. As a rule, in material with signs of an order, the standard of balance of opinions is violated, that is, the conflict is told from only one side. We understand that when someone orders, pays for material or demands that it be created about some kind of conflict situation, he is not interested in this conflict being covered from different sides,” Dovzhenko expressed his “expert” opinion.
Looking ahead, let’s say that one corrosive journalist was present at the presentation, who grabbed the grant-eater Dovzhenko by the tongue and turned their own pretentious lies against the “watchdogs”.
Meanwhile, the founders NewsBoard sang like nightingales, describing the nuances of the system they developed for monitoring Ukrainian media.
In particular, DM analyst (actually, copywriter) Oksana Ilyuk told those present that the organizers of the process have a transcript of the materials, and with the help of “natural language processing”, that is, natural language processing, they analyze this text additionally in order to get references to organizations from there , institutions of power.
They say that the “watchdogs of media freedom” are vigilantly vigilant and take into account every word that is broadcast.
“We also determine the tone. It is through model training that we can determine the tonality of the material, which is calculated on a scale and shows how sharply negative, strongly positive or neutral the material is. We want to go even further and train models on the tonality of mentioning a certain organization or group in the text. We used several of these tools in our NewsBoard, and we used many more of these technologies in the tool that we will present in early February on social networks,” Ilyuk boasted.
I don’t know what kind of artificial intelligence is there that looks after the tone, formal and informal signs of “jeans” and other markers of custom journalism on the platform NewsBoard, however, having delved into the texts of the “analyst” Ilyuk herself on the DM website, you come to the unequivocal conclusion that the woman’s work is strictly limited by the provisions of the “manual” issued from above by the customers - well-known grant-distributing offices indicated on the website by the “independent public organization” DM, the main from which acts USAID.
“Expert” Ilyuk and “director” Petrenko.
Published by Ilyuk in collaboration with two other green-as-goose-shit “experts,” last year’s “investigation” revolves around a list of media outlets, individual video bloggers and just bloggers caught by “watchdogs” using “anti-Western” and “anti-democratic” rhetoric.
The “expert” is offended when someone calls Ukraine a “colony” or a “prostitute of the West,” and the woman, without any hesitation, classifies such people/media as “conspiracy theorists.”
The explanation of the “conspiracy phenomenon” is simple and straightforward, like a tram rail.
It turns out that only conspiracy theorists are overwhelmed by suspicions that post-Maidan Ukraine is controlled by the collective West, the USA, the IMF and other reptilians. Indeed, in fact, as everyone well knows, after the victory of the “revolution of hydity”, Ukraine saddled a double rainbow, on which unicorns joyfully frolic, and fairies showered everyone with golden pollen.
It turns out that there are no “Soros” in nature - there are simply “respected people” in Ukraine who have close and useful connections with international organizations, who are busy day and night with the European prosperity of Ukraine and ridding it of the thousand-year oppression of “Northern Mordor”.
In addition, “no one in the West wants to use Ukraine as a springboard for aggression against Russia,” “the Western world is not provoking a war in Ukraine,” “NATO does not threaten Russia and Ukraine’s movement into NATO serves to de-escalate the conflict.”
I was especially pleased by the “expert” indignation at one of the “fake” materials of TK “Nash”, which said that the USSR was at war not just with Germany, but with the entire Hitlerite “European Union”.
However, judging by the young and not too intellectually disfigured faces of the “experts,” we have before us a typical product of Ukrainian “independence” education.
Among the Ukrainian TV channels promoting “custom anti-Western materials” are “Medvedchukov’s media”: NewsOne, Zik and 112, as well as the “Muraevsky” TC “Nash”. According to “independent analysts,” they are filled with “anti-Western and pro-Russian narratives.”
The list helpfully identifies people “promoting anti-Western narratives,” among which are well-known names of TV presenters, current people’s deputies from the Opposition for Life bloc, and an ex-minister from the time of Yanukovych.
The “experts” have not forgotten the registered and anonymous telegram channels, as well as the regional media that are disloyal to the Western masters of Ukraine.
In general, the “expert research” of Ilyuk and Co. is very similar to the lists of “Bolshevik bandits and enemies of the new order”, which were submitted to the occupation authorities by some lovers of “European values”.
In general, another grant-eating presentation could have traditionally ended on a happy note, if not for the presence of Ukrainian opposition journalist Ruslan Kotsaba, who was once sentenced to 3,5 years in prison with confiscation of property for calling for a boycott of the fourth wave of mobilization.
Kotsaba made an attempt to ask a question, but in essence, he ended up with an accusatory speech, in which he denounced the organizers of the “new platform” as “cheap grant-eating garbage, interesting only to Sorosyatyn.”
Ruslan Kotsaba (right) at the presentation.
Kotsaba reminded the corrupt creatures on the presidium that the authors of the platform adhere to “two-sided coverage of information” only on paper, but in reality, a very one-sided and obvious order is coming from Donbass. And aren’t Ukrainian journalists ashamed to dance to someone else’s tune, making Ukraine a testing ground for geopolitical showdowns between the United States and Russia?
The organizers of the presentation clearly did not expect a punch in the gut from Kotsaba, judging by their dumbfounded faces and babble in response instead of vigorously scratching at a blank piece of paper.
In general, this is the most interesting thing that happened at the grant-eating presentation. Kotsaba’s appearance showed that the “guardians of freedom of speech” were completely unprepared for the manifestation of freedom of speech face to face. In any case, the fact that Kotsaba’s speech posted on YouTube in the presentation video it sounds absolutely unintelligible and does not look like an accident. And if it weren’t for the same episode, filmed on video, posted by Kotsaba himself, the viewer would have no idea what exactly the opposition journalist was telling the grant-eaters.
“Director” Petrenko answers Kotsaba.
So the characteristics issued by Kotsaba to the platform NewsBoard, like the “soros meat” of the stinking skunk Otar Dovzhenko” is not an insult, but just a statement of fact in unparliamentary expressions. Congratulations to the organizers!
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Now the editors are aware.