Recently members of the Kyiv City Council approved the city target program “Informational Kyiv” for 2016-2018. On the request from the members of the Kyiv City Council, the Media Law Institute has examined the draft program to ensure that it complies with the Law of Ukraine “On Reforms of State and Municipal Print Media”.

The program “Informational Kyiv”, among other things, provides funding for public mass media in Kyiv for 2016-2018. The Kyiv City Council is the founder of the newspaper “Vechirniy Kyiv”, which according to the law “On Reforms of State and Municipal Print Media” is subject to reform. A lawyer from the Media Law Institute, Halyna Chyzhyk advised the developers of the program on features of the process of reforming the press and the powers of the authorities concerning financing of the media in the privatization process. Per her recommendations, the norm regarding increases of capital shares of the publication “Vechirniy Kyiv” was removed from the program, and the financial part of the program will be reviewed when the reform process of the print media is completed.

We remind you that the law “On Reforms of State and Municipal Print Media”, which was enacted on 1 January 2016, provides mechanisms for overcoming administrative censorship in mass media by removing the influence of the authorities from the list of founders of these print media. By 31 December 2018 all print media, which are currently under the influence of state and city power, shall become independent. The law clearly defines the steps that must be taken by workers and founders of print media. All state authorities and local governments, who have founded print media, should decide until 30 April of this year how to implement reforms and inform the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of their decision.

 More details on the reform process can be found here (in Ukrainian).