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For some time now, a television program has been targeted in Ukraine which was very popular and appreciated in the early stages of the war against Russia. Is called Telemarafon «Yedyni novyny», in Italian Telemaratona “The only news”, has always reported the conflict with emphatically patriotic tones and is omnipresent on both public and private Ukrainian television. Today many consider his way of telling excessive and ridiculous, as well as too optimistic; they believe that the reality described is very far from the failures that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is facing and the stalemate in which the war has been for months now.
Telemarathon was launched in February 2022 with a government decree: in fact, in the event of war, Ukrainian law allows the executive to exercise greater control over the media. Today the program is broadcast continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, changing television channels every six hours: six channels in total participate, partly public and partly controlled by four large Ukrainian media groups. About the 40 percent of its funding comes from the government.
The program recounts for hours and hours the efforts of Ukrainian soldiers in the field and organizes debates with guests who in most cases are part of the party of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
QR codes are projected on the screen to raise funds to finance the army, clip patriotic animations and very emphatic language is also used in the management of debates: it is not uncommon for presenters to welcome guests with the slogan “Glory to Ukraine!” and let the guests reply “Glory to the heroes!”. Interviews often end with the words “Death to the enemy!”.
At the beginning of the war, when the Russian army entered Ukraine from multiple sides and looked like it would soon conquer Kiev, most Ukrainians considered Telemarathon “vital,” said Khrystyna Havryliuk, director of the Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, one of those who broadcast the program. As Russian soldiers approached Ukrainian cities, Telemarathon updated viewers in real time on the fighting and also gave advice on where to find refuge and when to leave their homes.
The emphatic and patriotic tones of the war narrative were appreciated for how they helped raise the morale of the citizens at a critical moment, also through the frequent live broadcast of Zelensky’s messages.
According to the Ukrainian non-governmental organization Detector Media, as of March 2022, the month after the war began, 40 percent of the total Ukrainian audience watched Telemarathon. According to the same source, the numbers began to collapse at the end of 2022, reaching 14 percent: today they would be less than 10. survey carried out last December by the International Institute of Sociology in Kiev says that the number of Ukrainians who say they consider Telemarathon a reliable broadcast has gone from 69 percent in May 2022 to 43 percent last month.
According to several experts, Telemaratona began to lose audience as the war entered the stalemate phase it is in today: Ukrainian victory against Russia seemed like an increasingly less concrete possibility, and the fervent and rhetorical tones of the broadcast increasingly less in line with the reality.
The latest Ukrainian counteroffensive began this summer. Although the army’s objective was to reconquer large portions of territory, in reality the situation on the ground is essentially at a standstill. On Telemaratona, however, the story of the war has maintained the same tone as the beginning of the invasion. Throughout 2023, Detector Media said, the broadcast continued to portray Ukrainian forces as effective, capable and one step away from victory and the Russian military as underdogs and at its own mercy, with a completely distorted account of the facts. to reality.
The narrative of the war promoted by Telemaratona is also fueling a debate linked to the question of the funding that both the United States and the European Union should send to Ukraine: for the moment, European funding is blocked due to the veto of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and the American ones due to the mainly Republican opposition within Congress. Oksana Romaniuk, head of the Kiev Institute of Mass Information, a Ukrainian non-governmental organization that deals with the media, told the New York Times: «Everyone is tired of this narrative that says “We are winning, everyone loves us and everyone finances us”: it is state propaganda».
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Those who criticize Telemaratona believe that its way of providing information is counterproductive, harmful and very far from providing public service, given that it ends up completely evading information that is important for Ukrainians from the story of the facts, such as the inefficiency of the army and the progressive erosion of the support of Western governments. Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, head of the Ukrainian parliamentary commission on freedom of expression, which he criticized also on other occasions broadcast, said that in Ukraine there is a need for “solid and balanced information, on the basis of which citizens can make decisions.”
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