The appeal of Alexei Pogorelov, President Ukrainian Media Business Association (UMBA), to support Ukrainian media and journalists

Dear colleagues,

In these awful times of the war, initiated by Russia against my beloved Ukraine, we are asking you and your colleagues to support Ukrainian media and journalists.

Ukrainian Media Business Association (UMBA) asked publishers and editors to share with us information about their urgent needs and activities. From 94 answers collected it is clearly seen that:

1. More than 80% of media are working despite the war

2. All local newspapers at the war zone have stopped printing but are working online

3. A lot of local newspapers are working not only as information sources, but as communication platforms for local people to solve actual issues – providing actual information for evacuation, food and medicine distribution, volunteers’ help, etc.

4. The main need for all the media now – to get some small money for the closest period (3 months) to pay the people to buy food and to cover basic needs. All the income sources are now destroyed for the media in Ukraine.

5. The next very important need, which I clearly see from the current information flows in Ukraine – to get qualified consultancy and information from the best world thinkers on how to plan the future and on what to do now. This advice will be distributed to Ukrainian people and to Ukrainian media managers and journalists. The news stream about the war is important, but all the people in Ukraine who live in more or less safe territories need to work and to see the closest perspective. It is very important to give such a perspective for journalists and media managers – it will substantially increase their productivity and motivation. No one or almost no one of us in Ukraine has such experience and knowledge – thus we can make mistakes.

World best thinkers can help us not to make a lot of these mistakes and can give great help to be more effective and productive.

6. And last but not least – to close the sky in Ukraine for Russian missiles and bombardiers. They are destroying our cities and killing our people and we all need to stop this immediately.

In the case you’ll be able to help we will send you immediately:

– the list of media, selected by UMBA by the criteria of (i) being at the worst conditions (war zone, occupied territory, etc) and (ii) actively working as an information source and/or communication platform. This is the shortest possible list – we choose only media in the active war zone. There are more media on our list, who are also asking for support. Please let us know if there is any possibility to support more media, at least partially

– budget calculated for 3 months support for basic needs for these media.

For sure, we will provide full and transparent reporting on how money will be used.

UMBA takes all responsibility for the money management and reporting in full.

Please let us know what we can provide additionally to get support for local Ukrainian media who are working for Ukrainian local people and for Ukraine’s victory.

Sincerely,

Alexei Pogorelov
UMBA President