Parliament bans state from founding printed media outlets

The Parliament of Ukraine passed the bill on the reform of the state and municipal printed media outlets.

260 MPs voted for the draft law No. 1123, one MP voted against.

The draft law is authored by are MPs Mykola Tomenko and Oleksandr Abdulin. It stipulates that only the media outlets, which are willing to be reformed, will be reformed within the first stage in a pilot format. The rest outlets will be reformed in a year.

As stated in the adopted law, the document provides for a mechanism to reform the printed media founded by the state authorities, other state agencies and local self-government bodies.

As MP Iryna Herashchenko noted, this law is not only the duty of Ukraine to the Council of Europe, but also an important step to approach the civilized nations.

“The journalists of public municipal media outlets, especially in the regions where the local authority takes such newspaper not as a means of information but as a private propaganda mouthpiece, have been waiting for this law long since,” she said.

According to her, the previous parliament’s convocations repeatedly voted this bill down.

As noted, the law still requires amendments.