Independent regional media in Ukraine: Peering into the future

Every year, Media Development Foundation conducts research among independent regional media on content management, finance, content creation and distribution. This report is based on a survey of 35 media outlets conducted in October-November 2021

The research was conducted with the support of the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI).

Read the research for the other years here:

2020 2022

EXECUTIVE SUMMARy

In 2021, it has finally become clear to regional media managers that further development is impossible without working systematically with their media as digital products. It is also impossible to maintain a position in the rapidly changing media market.

Most of the surveyed media outlets have development strategies, keep in mind audience development and self-promotion, invest in content growth and revenue diversification. However, the lack of experience in digital product development and media management as such prevents a significant part of the surveyed media from maintaining the necessary pace of change in order to achieve organizational sustainability.

Management

Vision or fiction

The absolute trend of 2021 among media managers was the will to look to the future. The massive demand for strategic sessions and strategic planning suggests that most respondents do not have a proper understanding of where to take their organizations long-term, which is certainly understandable in 2020-21. At the same time, this is a critical issue that needs to be addressed in the first place, as its solution dictates all the activities that follow.

Media outlets founded by journalists mostly suffer from the lack of separation of functions between the CEO, the editor-in-chief and the commercial director. All problems of organizational development, as well as problems of distribution and monetization of the project are a consequence of this "birth trauma". Accordingly, the creation of "top management" within the organization - at least at the level of individual functions of editor-in-chief and chief operating officer, who would be responsible for audience growth and monetization — is the most important task on the way towards the organizational transformation.

The media started planning at the strategic and operational level

The media has learned to keep its balance in the face of constant market turbulence — so much so that it has finally begun to plan seriously, and not just for the week ahead during Monday's staff meetings. 77% of respondents said that they carry out strategic planning, which sets priorities for the year ahead. 51.4% have defined KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for their work, and 31.4% have medium-term planning.

At the same time with the beginning of the active practice of strategizing, the editors realized that simply inviting everyone to a meeting and calling it a "strategic session" was not enough. It is not possible to set priorities for the year or even several years ahead without auditing the organization, analyzing performance, helding in-depth interviews with the team, and understanding how to build a strategic session effectively. The strategy should be a working tool, not a boring pdf-file that is left behind somewhere on the hard drive. Hence there is a growing media demand for assistance in strategic planning. 71.4% said they needed a strategic planning session. This request comes from both media managers and journalists.

The media planning at the strategic and operational level

However, after an inspiring strategy session, humdrum reality breaks in. How to embed a distant and desirable goal into daily tasks, identify those who will be responsible for implementation, evaluate efficiency and achieve results at the operational level? 82.9% of respondents indicated that they use various tools to plan team work. Among the favorite tools are Google Sheets, Docs, Calendar (used by 42.9%) and Trello (25.7%). Other tools (Asana, Slack, Bitrix24, KindReminderBot) — used by 8.6%.

Using various tools to plan team work

Being short-handed and multitasking

Effectively distributing responsibilities among team members is one of the biggest challenges for regional media today. On the one hand, the media understand that in order to survive, they need to diversify content formats, mediums, distribution platforms, and sources of income. But, as always, there is a lack of key resources — staff and funds.

For example, in many outlets, the duties of an editor-in-chief and a CEO are usually performed by the same person. In some cases, this person is also responsible for the commercial activity of the media outlet. This combination often leads to the fact that those who have to deal with important responsibilities — strategic development of the organization, are forced to spend time on small urgent tasks.

At the same time, it is not so easy to find qualified specialists, but it is even harder to make them stay. For example, experienced sales managers are very difficult to find and hire not only in the regions of Ukraine, but also in large cities. Therefore, as expected, the teams are looking for hybrid solutions: either to teach the journalist sales skills, or to teach commercial managers from other fields the basics of media business. Both paths seem cheaper and faster at first glance, but longer in the long run, because the training of such an employee requires a lot of resources.

And media outlets are making efforts. Or they are looking for educational opportunities for their employees. Absolutely all respondents indicated that they educate their team or encourage its members to participate in educational initiatives.

Which employees do media outlets lack the most?

Regional media outlets lack middle-level managers who mainly transfer the skills and knowledge to other team members and maintain the high quality of the content. These are members of the team who are the bearers of institutional memory for the entire media organization. They perform more complex functions than the lower-level team members.

On the other hand, the lack of basic specialists indicates a crisis in the industry as a whole. The market is not saturated with professionals who want to work in regional media. At the same time, both educational institutions and educational initiatives outside the higher education system have to meet this demand.

92% of the media outlets have challenges in managing the team. And that is hardly surprising, because in 2021 in the regional media there is a tendency to have a hybrid workplace, and only from time to time to interact in the newsroom to "get on the same page". But there are also quite large media outlets that have given up the office for the newsroom members, while the sales department still retains their "rally point".

More and more media managers are mentioning that they lack HR specialists and knowledge of best practices in personnel management. To "unite people", "improve mental health" and "strengthen team spirit", managers took their teams to the mountains, yachts and abroad trips. These are, of course, great initiatives that are still very far from the tools really needed to manage people, set goals together and improve efficiency.

Part of the same trend is experimenting with remote work and engaging expensive professionals — media managers are more likely to hire key people to team from another city or region.

All media outlets surveyed said they had no bullying inside of the team, but 57% of them identified they had conflicts. The causes of disputes are called professional burnout and inefficient management (imbalance of tasks; overwork)

Finances

Monetization, the cornerstone of media, has become the focus of media's attention in recent years. Media outlets want to transform their organizations into a sustainable business, and thus find ways to make a regular income. In the vast majority of cases, editors turn their attention to the advertising model. Regional media outlets create commercial departments, try to find partners within the local business, master native advertising formats, which, of course, helps them become more independent of politicians, businessmen or any other external influences.

71.4% of all respondents had experience working with reader revenue models

The peculiarity of the functioning of regional media is that they work at the local level, which logically implies their close connection with the local community and business. At the same time, the media outlets themselves do not see the possibility of forming partnerships with local businesses, although the latter have the need and budget to pay for advertising services.

As a result, almost the entire local advertising budget is spent on Google and Facebook. The competition is relatively low among local content producers, and the demand for marketing competencies among businesses locally is growing. Thus, media projects could create new opportunities for monetization, meeting the demand for quality advertising content for local brands.

One of the key problems of most respondents is the lack of a development budget. Relying solely on organic growth, these media are either advancing very slowly or being stagnant, and in the event of a crisis have a high chance of ceasing operations.

In the previous study, we noted that the media help local businesses by providing SMM support. This gives hope that the media business will be able to take over some of the functions of local business such as marketing / customer acquisition, and entrepreneurs will be able to focus on the quality of services and products. Those media outlets that have deployed SMM support services are actively moving to the next level and opening content studios. Creating quality content in collaboration with businesses is a great signal for finding more models for monetizing and improving the media market.

A reader revenue model with a direct support from the audience is just beginning to be implemented in Ukraine, and it is in the regions of the country that it has the greatest long-term potential. There was a noticeable trend last year with the launch of reader revenue models in a number of independent Ukrainian media from the national to the hyperlocal level - Ukrainska Pravda, hromadske, Liga.net, The Ukrainians, Tsukr. It is a process based on mutual trust between the media and the audience: the outlets offer readers content while expecting financial support.

So far, most of the media surveyed have experimented to some extent with reader support and are satisfied with the results. At the same time, no media counts on the reader's model of support as the main source of funding in the near future. Still, almost all respondents have plans to invest in the development of a reader model or crowdfunding.

The development of communities around local publications is a long process that requires significant investment, and therefore should become one of the strategic goals of the organization and an important expenditure line of the development budget to give tangible results.

Lack of diversification and focuson the advertising model

he study covers 35 independent regional media outlets from all regions of Ukraine.The responses to questions regarding monetization models demonstrate that the main sources of funding for the surveyed media outlets are advertising and donor funding. The peculiarity of the situation is that donor grants are an important investment for the launch and development of independent media in the regions. However, the grant market cannot and should not support all of the independent regional media.

In order to compete, have high quality content and retain leading journalists, independent media need to develop a wide range of services and products that can bring them income (events, programmatic, native advertising, services, etc.). Focusing on just one model, unfortunately, is now an unwarranted risk. The Ukrainian media market pushes the media to actually build a system of media businesses, where profits are achieved through the synergy of several different business processes.

Source of income

Nowadays, advertising is the fastest growing source of income, despite the fact that it is still not the main one (grant support is still 60-100% of the media budget). Playing according to market rules does not always lead to a deterioration in the quality of journalism, an example of this is Ukrainian regional outlet

6262.com.ua

This media from Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine was originally created on a commercial basis, like any other company. The media quickly balanced profits and losses, and now has become commercially profitable.The availability of alternative sources of income is the exception rather than the rule. Reader revenue models are not available for regional outlets (few national-level media can implement them), because there are not enough people who are ready to support local organizations at their own expense. However, a situation is possible when a media organization combines its own work as a media outlet and as an enterprise. Regional TV channels can work as video productions, for example, filming advertising for local businesses. Editors can provide SMM services for business.

RIA Media

RIA Media (owners of the 20 Minutes media network) held educational conferences with local businesses and marketers about the possibility of advertising for them in the media.

A minority of surveyed media outlets plan their workflow through Excel, calculating in detail the cost of all their products, without taking into account forecast, seasonal and situational market changes.

About 40% have financial planning and make management decisions based on this. Compared to the previous year, there was an increase — from 33% to 40%. This is obvious progress, given that almost all media plans have been thwarted by the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, for the successful functioning of media organizations and the media market in general, it is necessary that financial planning be carried out not only by the strongest outlets, but by all media organizations. At present, we see a situation when 60% — the majority — do not use financial planning tools, but actually build their organizations blindly.

Another one of the biggest problems of regional media is the absence of a separate commercial team or a designated person who would be solely responsible for the commercial component. In some outlets, one employee can combine several functions: 50% of the time working as a journalist and another 50% — a sales manager. Sometimes the editor-in-chief combines the functions of a sales manager with his work.

Сommercial department in the media

One of the main shifts that occurred during the pandemic was the transition of businesses from offline to online, and the increasingly active use of digital marketing. Half of the surveyed media saw and took advantage of this opportunity. They have expanded their list of tools for providing advertising services and working within partnerships.

Partnerships in the media

77% of newsrooms have a press kit, which is a positive trend, which means that media organizations have an understanding of their commercial services and their value. However, the press kit is not always a document that is used and updated on a regular basis.

There are many links between press kits, service costs, salaries, and discount systems for customers. These are four factors that strongly influence each other. Media organizations that have a well-designed press kit and a clear understanding of the price of the services it provides are less likely to make discounts than those that do not have a press kit. If the organization underestimates the price for its services, it undermines the market in which it operates.

Commercial media directors complain about donor-funded projects for failing to stay within the market boundaries: "They (donor-funded media) try to work with the commercial model, but distort the market by setting high salaries, while dumping prices for advertising products. This also affects the work of commercial media, as they have to lower the prices of their services, at the same time they suffer financially and cannot raise wages for employees to the same level as the grant funded media. Then, when media outlets launch systems of large discounts on their products and services, they do not take into account that they begin to affect the market in the long run. In the short term, the money that was earned is coming in handy here and now. In the long run, the media will not be able to raise prices for these services and products to make money on it. "

Depreciation of products and the provision of significant discounts (up to 50%) is due to a lack of understanding of the pricing of products sold by the commercial department.

The way out of the situation is the implementation of financial planning, calculation of the cost of work of all employees, cost of products at each stage of production, and establishing real value.

Distribution, content formats and audience development

The main task of distribution is to provide the audience with relevant content through the use of various platforms and tools. The media audience is not homogeneous, so some people can subscribe to their favorite media on Facebook or Telegram and consume its content there, and some may keep the home page of their favorite site in the browser bookmarks. Therefore, working with content distribution, understanding your own audience, and the content formats you should focus on are very closely linked.

Establishing these processes requires appropriate qualifications. Therefore, finding a good specialist requires a market-level salary for this team member. Quite often one of the team members combines his or her main functions and takes on additional ones: for example, writing stories and tracking Google Analytics data, generating marketing reports.

Social networks remain an important source of traffic for Ukrainian regional media. At the same time, newsrooms often publish fairly standard posts, which consist of a link to the story and a short introduction text. The media lacks a systematic approach to setting up distribution through social media — they prefer to rely on simply sharing content, but not on building their own community.

And if the basics of SMM are more or less mastered by the newsrooms, the situation with knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) could be better. There is a request to deepen this knowledge among editors: they have learned to read basic information from analytics and adjust the work of the newsrooms accordingly. But at the same time, this is not enough to attract not only the usual loyal audience, but also a new one. For example, 54% of newsrooms do not know how to attract people under the age of 25. The main problem is that young people are not interested in news sites, and that the media outlets cannot effectively embed themselves into platforms where young people consume content (for example, in TikTok).

Most of the media surveyed take into consideration the size of their audience and want to increase it. 97% of respondents said they understand who their readers are. In particular, they also understand who is the core of their audience. But only 14.3% indicated that they have 2 or more portraits of the audience — its analysis and segmentation still needs to be done to better understand who consumes media's content and how to interact with these people.

The main communication of the media with its readers is carried out through public profiles and groups on social networks (97%), 31% — through comments on the site, 27% — through email, 23% — through offline events, 20% — through online streams, 14 % — through subscription services. Also, 82.9% of respondents said that their newsrooms do not have a specialist who would promote the media.

It is rather surprising that in 2021 regional newsrooms are still relying on distribution via Facebook. Despite the fact that this platform has a large share of Ukrainian audience (16-18 million active users), obtaining significant organic traffic from there requires both quantitative and qualitative efforts. In conclusion, the media do not have a systematic strategy for working with the audience, so they can focus their efforts and resources on the use of those tools or approaches that give poor results.

Also, a significant proportion of surveyed media indicated that they did not have a person in charge of marketing and a budget for paid content promotion (as well as a development budget). However, almost all of them indicated they were working to promote their content. Accordingly, "promotion" in this case means simply placing links on the social media profile of the outlet. As follows, the growth strategy through Facebook is based solely on the organic growth of the page.

Responsible for audience growth

Audience

All sites where the size of the audience is measured in millions have a development strategy (100%). Sites with the audience of hundreds of thousands unique visits and tens of thousands unique visits have a little worse situation - 77% and 80% respectively. The worst situation with strategic planning in small media with an audience of up to 50,000 unique visits - 62% of them have a strategy. Thus, a positive correlation can be noted in this case - media that have a strategy for audience growth are more successful in attracting an audience than those who do not have such a strategy.
Local Facebook communities in Ukraine are still a huge missed opportunity for regional media, whose default audience is determined by place of residence and / or interest in it. But in order to create a community in a quick and efficient way, one needs to allocate a budget for the paid engagement of subscribers to the Facebook page, as well as have a team of specialists who will be responsible for this area.

The main goal of the surveyed media while working with social networks is:

A very similar situation has developed with the usage of SEO techniques and tools. Most participants note an increase in search traffic, but this growth is mostly organic (sites accumulate content, the use of some keywords gives a positive result, a certain amount of traffic is generated). A significant proportion of respondents conducted an SEO audit of their media outlets and even implemented the proposed changes, but in the face of ever-changing algorithms, this must be done constantly, as well as implementing an operational capability to respond quickly to these changes.

SEO traffic

Due to the fact that none of the respondents mentioned Google Discover and Google News as sources of their traffic, there is no systematic work with the Google Search Console, which allows to analyze this type of traffic. At the same time, in terms of audience growth (especially in the regions), these sources have a much bigger potential than Facebook after 2018. Given that respondents focus on attracting traffic to the site, it seems illogical to choose platforms like Instagram, Telegram and Youtube as distribution channels — on these platforms, the conversion of user involvement to the site is minimal. Obviously, this is due to the fact that the growth of the audience is perceived as the responsibility of the editor-in-chief and the owner (especially in case it is the same person), and not specialists with experience in this field.

Media as a product

Given the fact that the media has largely shifted its focus from purely journalistic to business-oriented processes, modern Ukrainian regional media still remains a territory of journalists, not technology. This thesis is confirmed by the answers of regional media to the questions regarding the development of media as a product.

Media and data analysis

None of the respondents has an employee in the team who is responsible for working with the data. Despite the fact that the wave of interest towards data analysis has faded a long time ago, the Ukrainian media has not yet established a systematic work with it. That is, the collection, processing and analysis of data is either not performed at all, or is performed by anyone other than people specifically appointed for this process. This is rather surprising, given the fact that the amount of data generated by the media is usually much larger than the average business. Regional media need to understand that working with data helps to understand the state of affairs and determine the direction for further development. Any planning, calculations and strategic sessions will not make sense until the results of each department's work are monitored on a regular basis by a person who understands the specifics of these tasks.

Who processes the data?

Ukrainian media do not use the full potentialof digital platforms

Ukrainian regional media managers are still learning to understand the landscape of media technologies and still do not perceive the opportunities offered by large platforms as opportunities.

Only 26% of all respondents use Google's AMP to distribute content, none of the respondents use Facebook IA, not to mention other platforms.

Given the fact that AMP is one of the key factors that Google uses to sort pages in search results, not using this tool for one reason or another is a rather confusing trend. Although it is believed that AMP may have a negative impact on advertising revenue, the increase in search traffic compensates for this shortfall in the long run.

Using the potential of big digital platforms

Media and new formats

Despite the fact that the media as a product platform is not developing very fast, outlets have become very active in the direction of expanding the types of content they produce.

Video is beginning to attract more and more attention from regional media managers, which is a good case in terms of knowledge of distribution and communication. However, this is a very complex format in terms of attracting attention. Ukrainian media managers have not yet learned to actively capture attention with the help of texts. At the same time, they already plan to do so with the help of video content. Only a few media businesses know how to use video effectively to disseminate the information. Therefore, media outlets should evaluate their strengths and resources — whether they can really invest a significant amount of resources in video production.

Intentions of Ukrainian media to develop can be seen with the unaided eye, however, the media is too focused on current editorial processes, which has a very negative impact on the quality of business growth and revenue.

The main advice you can give is: "As long as you focus on the operational processes, your product stays in place, and if you keep moving at the same pace — there will simply be nothing to offer for selling."

Content

Content production strategies in regional media rely on a number of factors: the strategic goals of the outlet (if they are defined and set out in the strategy), editorial policy, the availability of all necessary staff members and their level of training, the specific features of the region, local community. One must not forget about such factors as the political situation in the country and even world trends, for instance the trend towards constructive journalism or a mix of entertaining and explanatory content.

Under the influence of these factors, the content in a short format and with a focus on informing the audience mainly dominates the regional media. "Short" content (e.g. news or announcements) is faster to produce, and with a large amount of information content it is easier to attract a wide audience. The production of this type of content does not require specific skills (as, for example, it is necessary in case of multimedia content).

On average, the media that participated in the survey published about 24 articles a day, including 22 news items. In addition, newsrooms publish an average of about 17.5 non-news items per week.

On average, 5-6 full-time journalists work in the respondents' outlets. At the same time, 94.3% noted that they are not staffed with all the necessary team members. Among those who are most lacking, the newsrooms pointed out advertising managers (54.3%), SMM specialists (40%), journalists (25.7%), photographers and videographers (25.7%).

Staff shortages have a powerful impact on how and what media outlets produce. If the media outlet sets a clear KPI on the amount of material to be produced by the newsroom during the selected period, this may prompt journalists and editors to evaluate the work done in terms of quantity rather than quality. At the same time, if the newsroom lacks manpower, this could further push the editors to technically easy-to-create materials. However, media analysts confirm that informing the local community is not the only role that regional media play as such. They are also important for the involvement of local communities in the political life of the region, participation in elections, and keeping the local authorities accountable. It is important for the media to follow what their community, city and region live on. From this point of view, it is important to maintain the interest of regional newsrooms in creating content in new formats that they could not try due to lack of knowledge or resources.

48.6% of respondents indicated that they lack resources to work with video content, 14.3% — to conduct investigative journalism, another 14.3% — to create multimedia longreads, 11.4% — to create podcasts.

Overall, 77.8% of media outlets publish journalistic investigations. In half of the cases, the investigation is conducted by a journalist who is working on other materials as well.

Respondents also indicated that they wanted to improve their storytelling skills while creating materials and producing investigative journalism stories. Among the thematic areas of the media, business, economics, and finance are of interest — 62.9% of the surveyed newsrooms indicated this.

Diversification of formats and thematic areas in the content is also important to ensure greater sustainability of the media. In this way, the media can reach a larger audience and offer potential partners a wider choice of tools and options for joint projects.

97.1% of the surveyed newsrooms work with video format, while the newsrooms also stated that they need additional training in this area. Journalists also need additional knowledge of the following formats: games, infographics, explainers. A little less - on podcasts and tests.

Diversification in content in the media is present when it comes to working with social networks. 60% make traditional publications for social networks, combining a link to the material and text introduction, 46% add to this type of posts infographics, videos and memes.

63.9% of the surveyed media outlets have developed a stylebook or editorial guidelines for journalists. 75% of the media have a prescribed policy. At the same time, 41.7% would like assistance or advice on the development of these documents.

Regional outlets understand that content alone is not enough, so they work with SMM, marketing, branding and distribution strategies. They also pay attention to data collection and analysis, which allows for better organization of work in the newsroom.

RECOMMENDATIONS

MANAGEMENT

Design a holistic development strategy, with a defined vector of long-term growth. Regularly audit the organization and update strategic goals.

Establish a division of responsibilities among the team to reduce the number of conflicts and balance the types of tasks for different positions in the newsroom. CRM systems, clear KPIs and OKR can be used in order to achieve this goal.

Separate the functions of project manager, editor-in-chief and commercial director.

Develop middle managers within the team.

FINANCES

Introduce or improve financial planning. Pay due attention to this process, not engage in it by residual principle.

Establish a commercial department and appoint an individual employee who will be responsible for its functioning.

Diversify monetization models.

Develop the reader revenue model. It is recommended that building the community around local media outlets be part of the development strategy.

Connect with the local community and businesses. Build new models of monetization to meet local demand for advertising content and promotion dervices.

Work with the press kit as a tool used by all team members and regularly review and update this document.

Take into account the peculiarities of the functioning of local media markets, the connection between the products/services offered and pricing.

DISTRIBUTION

Develop a systematic approach to distribution and usage of social platforms. Brand your content on social networks and increase the visibility of your media in the information field.

Focus not only on content distribution, but also on building a community around the media outlet.

Conduct a systematic analysis of the audience, identify its segments and create a strategy for the audience involvement. Implement a separate position for a marketing specialist who will develop this area.

Choose distribution platforms that meet the strategic goals of the media. For example, if the goal is to drive traffic to the site, one should not invest effort in YouTube or Telegram, which brings little conversion from these platforms to the media site.

Work with SEO tools, Google Search Console, AMP.

MEDIA AS A PRODUCT

Work with data by establishing systematic data collection, processing and analysis. Use the collected data for planning and strategizing.

Introduce systematic work with the media as a product.

CONTENT

Diversify the formats and thematic areas in the content for increasing media sustainability, creating more potential products and services that the outlet can then monetize.

Methodology

MDF annually examines the dynamics of development and needs of independent regional media outlets in Ukraine. This report is based on interviews conducted in October-November 2021. 35 media outlets were selected to participate in the study according to the following criteria:

geographical
media from all regions of Ukraine

content
modern, meets journalistic standards, diverse in genres

the role that the media play in their community
eading media in their regions, although different in number of audiences

types
online, TV, print, radio and convergent

The questionnaire consisted of 176 questions in the following sections:

Team management
and administration

Business model,Financial planning and monetization

Distribution and interactionwith audience

Media as a product

Content and newsroom management

Read more about Research and Analytics MDF here:

view

TEAM

Tetiana Gordiienko

PhD student of Media and Communications at Mohyla School of Journalism. Media expert in the field of content, newsroom planning, storytelling.

Andriy Boborykin

Executive Director of the UP. Expert in digital marketing, development of media products and media communities, building funding models for the media.

Ievgeniia Oliinyk

Head of Research at Media Development Foundation. Media expert in the field of strategic development and planning, fundraising, media management.

Eugene Zaslavsky

Executive Director, Media Development Foundation. Expert in media management, strategic development and operational planning, selection and construction of funding models for the media.

Tim Alexandrov

Product Manager у Influ2. Expert in media product development, product analytics and strategy.

Valery Garmash

CEO of "Maie Sense" media holding. Founder of the online media 6262.com.ua. Specialist in building commercial departments, setting up systems for efficiency evaluation, finding and building funding models for the media.

Tetiana Kulkova

Chief Operating Officer of the Media Development Foundation. Media expert in digital marketing and distribution with 15 years of experience in establishing marketing processes in organizations.

Maksym Sribny

Master of the Mohyla School of Journalism, researcher at the Media Development Foundation. Specialist in content analysis of media, quantitative and qualitative methods of media evaluation.

Yulia Salizhenko

creative director of Platfor.ma. Expert in team management, media managementand operational planning.

Vadym Didyk

analyst at Media Development Foundation. Expert in SMM, distribution and digital analytics in media.

Contributors:

Olena Bohinska

editorial director of Genesis

Olga Rudenko

Editor-in-Chief of The Kyiv Independent

Darina Shevchenko

Executive Director of The Kyiv Independent

The research was conducted with the support of the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI)