“We feel a moral obligation to preserve the publication for our readers.” Despite the financial difficulties faced by the editorial office of the Korsun-based newspaper Nadrossia at the beginning of the full-scale war, the newspaper did not stop being published. According to Editor-in-Chief Svitlana Perets, the participation in the projects of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) helped the publication to survive. Within the initiatives of the Union, Nadrossia received financial assistance from international partners of the Ukrainian Media Fund initiative, Gazeta Wyborcza Foundation.
“We are representatives of the part of the media industry, which has always found it difficult to exist, and even more so in wartime conditions. This is a print media publication. For six years now, since the reformation, the Media Center Nadrossia private enterprise has been publishing the Nadrossia newspaper, relying only on its own strength and competence. And in general, our printed edition, which is beloved by many generations of residents of the Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi District, has more than a century of history! Therefore, we feel a moral obligation to preserve it for our readers, despite all the difficulties of the wartime.
With the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, we faced a problem typical for the entire media industry — a catastrophic drop in revenues from advertising and other paid editions that were placed in accordance with contracts with official structures and businesses. This forced our team to switch to austerity mode. First of all, we saved money on the payroll fund: several employees were resigned, those who remained employed stopped receiving all kinds of salary markups. Now there are only two people working in the editorial office. Needless to say, the load on them has increased several times,” Svitlana Perets says.
The use of communal services was also transferred to the mode of maximum savings, especially with the onset of the cold season. Currently, Nadrossia employees spend 90% of their working time at home, thus minimizing utility bills at the company. Expenses on consumables were minimized by almost 90%: we are talking about maintenance of printers, purchase of paper and stationery, detergents, etc.
“However, print media publishers have an expense item in the budget, which is extremely difficult to save on, and that is the payment of printing services. Of course, there remains the possibility of reducing the number of pages in the publication. And we used it several times: instead of eight pages, we published a newspaper on four. But instead, we received a great dissatisfaction response from the newspaper’s subscribers. We realized that in this way we could lose our reader. And it was the participation in the NUJU projects that gave us the opportunity to improve the situation!” notes Svitlana.
She also mentions another positive side of participating in the NUJU projects.
“Thanks to the fact that the projects stimulated us to look for interesting heroes for publications, we discovered for our readers, for all residents of our community, a lot of unique, selfless, active, caring people who give their strength and time in the name of the Victory of Ukraine over the Russian invading army, and in the materials prepared by us on the columns of Nadrossia, their names and deeds were recorded for history. In turn, these materials received a positive response from the readership, made our newspaper more interesting and relevant, and contributed to its popularization,” notes Svitlana Perets.
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In the framework of the assistance program for Ukrainian media in 2022, the NUJU, with the strong support of partners Ukrainian Media Fund and Gazeta Wyborcza Foundation, provided financial assistance to 43 newsrooms.
36 media outlets participated on permanent basis in the content projects entitled We are from Ukraine! and Journalists are Important! initiated by the NUJU. They were receiving financial assistance from partners for a period of two months or more. In particular, 29 regional and local newsrooms are among the project participants. Seven all-Ukrainian media with a total audience of over 3.5 million readers also received assistance from the NUJU and the Ukrainian Media Fund. 25 Ukrainian media – participants of the NUJU projects – were able to pay for printing of their newspapers thanks to the assistance.
During the We are from Ukraine! project, initiated by the NUJU with the support of Ukrainian Media Fund and Gazeta Wyborcza Foundation, more than 480 author materials about strong-spirited Ukrainians who help compatriots during the war were published or broadcast via local and national media. In two months of implementation of the initiative Journalists are Important! media participants of the project published more than 80 materials about the work of their colleagues. The project is still underway.
The Ukrainian Media Fund initiative was launched by the Gazeta Wyborcza Foundation together with partner organizations of media companies in the Scandinavian countries. The fund was established as a sign of solidarity with journalists and photographers who daily report from the frontline in Ukraine. Its main goal is to mobilize international support – both financial and material – for local mass media in Ukraine. In particular, thanks to the Ukrainian Media Fund, Ukrainian journalists were provided with protection and various equipment: laptops, powerbanks, photo and video cameras, smartphones, etc.
