Draft:The Institute of Mass Information (IMI)

The Institute of Mass Information (IMI) is a Ukrainian media NGO that defends the rights of journalists, analyzes the media landscape, reports on media-related events, fights propaganda and disinformation, and provides media teams with safety gear for trips to combat areas in the Russo–Ukrainian war (since 2014). The organization has representatives in 20 regions of Ukraine and runs the hub network “Mediabaza”.

The IMI is involved in developing draft bills and media reforms, as well as decrees and other documents regulating the work of media and the information space in Ukraine. The organization also assists the investigation of crimes against journalists and actively works with law enforcers as part of various task forces.

The IMI is a co-founder of the Media Movement (Mediarukh), which unites over 100 media outlets and journalists across Ukraine.

The IMI’s partners include Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Freedom House; the organization is part of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) network.

History

The Institute of Mass Information was founded by Ukrainian and foreign journalists on October 10, 1995. The organization was granted official registration by the Ministry of Justice on February 20, 1996.

• Oksana Romaniuk has been the NGO’s director since 2013.
• In 2005–2013 the organization was run by Victoria Siumar.
• In 1995–2004 it was headed by the co-founder Alla Lazareva.

Projects

The List of Transparent and Responsible Media Outlets, known as the Quality Media List

The Institute of Mass Information has been releasing biannual lists of Ukraine’s top quality online outlets since 2019. These lists consist of national online news outlets that scored the highest in the assessment of adherence to journalism standards and had the lowest indicators of manipulation, “jeansa” (commissioned content covertly promoting politicians, oligarchs, etc.), fake news, sexism, and hate speech. The average level of adherence to professional standards by resources that end up on the Quality Media List is around 96%.

The Monitoring of Russia’s Crimes against Journalists and the Media

The Institute of Mass Information has been monitoring and recording Russia’s crimes targeting journalists and media outlets since the start of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. These crimes include murder, disappearances, kidnapping and injuring journalists, shelling strikes on TV towers, seizing and attacking media offices, disabling Ukrainian broadcasting and streaming Russia’s aggressive propaganda instead, cyber crimes, media outlets shutting down due to the war, etc.

The Freedom of Speech Barometer

The IMI has been releasing monthly monitorings on freedom of speech violations in Ukraine since 2012. The IMI draws on the monitoring data to make yearly evaluations of the freedom of speech level in Ukraine and issue recommendations for state authorities, international organizations, civil society institutions accordingly.

The Freedom of Speech Barometer is the primary indicator of evolution in Ukraine’s media sector both for domestic and foreign audiences. The results of this monitoring become the basis for campaigns, addresses to the government, statements, and assessments of the civil society and law making initiatives in Ukraine. They are also used by the EU, UN, OSCE, RSF, Freedom House, and other international organizations to evaluate Ukraine’s democratic development, make ratings, assess the legitimacy of elections, etc.

• In 2014, the IMI maintained a list of media workers affected during the Maidan, which included over 200 persons. This list would later become valuable evidence of the crimes against Ukrainian journalists committed by Yanukovych’s regime and by Russia.
• Violations of journalists’ rights peaked again with the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The IMI began documenting the Russians’ crimes against the media and journalists in a separate monitoring on the very first day, February 24, 2022.

The Recommended Media Map (joint project with the NGO “Detector Media”)

The interactive Recommended Media Map was developed by the Institute of Mass Information together with “Detector Media” and launched in 2023. It includes high-quality media outlets in all regions across Ukraine. The online map displays journalistic projects that adhere to journalism standards the best. The Map aims to improve the visibility of the independent and responsible regional media outlets in Ukraine and to help citizens find reliable news sources.

The Journalism Standards Monitoring

The Institute of Mass Information performs quarterly analysis of adherence to journalism standards by Ukraine’s leading online media. The NGO’s experts evaluate the outlets’ observance of the standards of balanced coverage of opinions and points of view, reliability, and distinction between facts and comments. The monitoring lists media outlets whose news comply with standards by:

• 95% or more;
• over 90%;
• over 80%;
• under 80%;
• under 70%.

The Jeansa Monitoring

The IMI releases quarterly monitorings of jeansa in national media, listing the primary benefactors and tendencies. “Jeansa” is covert advertising presented as journalistic material and not clearly labeled as promotion. 13% of journalists anonymously surveyed by the IMI in September 2023 have said that the outlets they worked for had made them write jeansa.

The IMI performs quarterly monitoring of Ukraine’s popular online media to analyze the increase or drop in the amount of jeansa. The organization shows the ratio of potentially sponsored content commissioned by political actors to that commissioned by commercial ones.

The IMI openly names the beneficiaries of such content and the leading sponsors of it in Ukrainian media. The NGO also lists the media outlets who show integrity by not releasing material with signs of being commissioned.

The Gender Balance Monitoring

The IMI has been consistently monitoring observance of gender balance by Ukraine’s national online media since 2013. The organization records the representation of female experts on key topics and of women as subjects of news reports, as well as sexism, discriminatory vocabulary, and ageism.

The IMI was the first in Ukraine to monitor media for gender balance and developed a unique methodology for this. The organization aims to point out the mistakes to media outlets in order to achieve gender balance, which would help improve the visibility and representation of Ukrainian women.

The Monitoring of Russia’s Aggressive Propaganda Narratives

The monitoring was conceived to prosecute the Kremlin’s propagandists based on the Rwanda case, where the genocidal rhetoric broadcast by the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) played a major role.

The IMI has collected a body of evidence covering over 300 Kremlin-backed media personalities complicit in promoting genocidal rhetoric against Ukraine. The organization has introduced new terminology and calls on the media to use the terms “aggressive propaganda” or “genocidal rhetoric” when referring to Russian propaganda.

The Mediabazas

The Mediabazas (“media bases”) is a network of 11 regional hubs for journalists. The IMI launched the regional hubs on November 15, 2022 to support the work of independent media workers amid Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine.

The IMI created a network of media bases to serve as “invincibility points” for employees of local media outlets. The Mediabazas provide a work space for journalists during blackouts, supply them with bulletproof vests, helmets and other equipment, and host training classes.

The Mediabazas also help journalists connect with local self-government bodies, the military and law enforcers. This list of activities is not conclusive, as the IMI’s regional hubs work to meet the needs of the media community in their respective oblasts.

Primary services:

• leasing bulletproof vests, helmets, first aid kits, power banks and other technology free of charge;
• a space with stable Internet connection and power supply where journalists can work during blackouts, record interviews;
• training for media workers;
• consultations on battlefield reporting, looking for additional funding for media outlets, etc.

The Mediabazas operate in the following cities:

• Zhytomyr
• Chernihiv
• Sumy
• Kharkiv
• Poltava
• Kropyvnytskyi
• Dnipro
• Zaporizhzhia
• Mykolaiv
• Odesa
• Kherson