– March 16, 2001

AMBASSADORS MORNINGSTAR, PASCUAL ANNOUNCE $750,000 UKRAINE MEDIA DEVELOPMENT FUND

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Richard Morningstar announced a new $750,000 Ukraine media development fund at a press conference on Friday, March 16 in Kyiv.

The fund is intended to support the development of free and independent media in Ukraine and will provide a wide range of support to Ukrainian journalists, media organizations and other non-governmental groups. It is designed to address a number of pressing concerns in Ukraine's current media environment:

• Improving the legal, administrative and tax environment for Ukrainian media.
• The fund will expand the resources available for qualified legal consultation and representation, as well as for expert advice and assistance in responding to the requirements of Ukrainian tax and other authorities;
• provide advice and assistance to Ukrainian lawmakers and government officials in improving the legal environment for Ukrainian media, including helping make regulatory processes more transparent and responsive to the requirements of political and economic reform in Ukraine;
• organize exchange and training opportunities for Ukrainian judges and officials who have legal and oversight responsibilities vis-a-vis the media.


• Expanding the use of the Internet as a news and information tool.
• The fund will underwrite a nationwide open competition for grants to regional Ukrainian media to establish and upgrade existing news and information websites as well as to defray online charges;
• provide Internet-related training opportunities for journalists and staff;
• encourage business/media partnerships in news and information website development.


• Improving professional standards among journalists.
• The fund will provide individual travel grants to journalists seeking to attend conferences or report on issues of media development, transparency and civil society in Europe and North America;
• help facilitate greater contact between U.S. and Ukrainian media organizations with the eventual goal of building long-term partnerships and other cooperative arrangements;
• bolster the quality of journalism education in Ukraine through support for university journalism faculties, student internships with media organizations, and the establishment of student publications, websites and broadcast outlets;
• organize seminars and roundtables for journalists on media development topics
• increase access to information about European and North American media through wider publication and distribution of materials in the Ukrainian and Russian languages.


• Increasing direct grant support for Ukrainian media and non-governmental organizations.
• The fund will support a wide range of initiatives and projects by Ukrainian media through small grants and other mechanisms;
• provide institutional support to non-governmental institutions that promote media freedom and greater transparency;
• help facilitate access for Ukrainian media organizations to microcredit opportunities;
• promote the growth of key news specialties, including business/economic journalism and investigative journalism.

The media fund will be administered in cooperation with a number of other organizations in Ukraine that are active in promoting independent media, including IREX Promedia, Internews, the Ukraine Market Reform Education Program (UMREP), and the Ukrainian Press Academy.

For further information: The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has established a special electronic mail address at [email protected], and welcomes inquiries from interested Ukrainian media organizations and non-governmental organizations. Subsequent announcements will be made about specific media fund initiatives, including information about how to apply for open grant competitions.