Crime Receives Most Coverage by Ukrainian Online Media, Human Rights Are Least Covered

Most news covered by the regional online media outlets concern crime, emergencies, road accidents, and coronavirus, while human rights, ecology, and war in eastern Ukraine are the least covered topics. This is evidenced by results of the poll commissioned by NGO “Institute of Mass Information”, conducted in ten regions of Ukraine.

In particular, 26% of news feeds on regional websites inform about crime, emergencies, and road accidents, 19% – coronavirus pandemic. Another 15% of news items cover social issues, 13.5% – political processes in the country and the region, 6% – economic/business topics and international news, 3% – sports and entertainment. The least covered topics are human rights (0.5%), ecology (1%), and the war in the east/JFO area (2% of the total number of publications).

At the same time, 3% of publications believed to be sponsored were identified in news feeds of regional online media outlets, 61% of which had signs of political sponsorship, 39% – commercial.

Background

The study analysed 8,629 news items, including 253 publications with signs of commercial and political sponsorship in 50 regional online media outlets of 10 regions of Ukraine (Volyn, Dnipro, Donetsk (Mariupol, Slovyansk), Lviv, Mykolayiv, Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Cherkasy). Only the news feeds of online media outlets were monitored. Articles, journalistic investigations, analytics, blogs, columns, announcements, etc. were not analysed.

Natalia Tolub