Rebel Broadcast: Web Channel a Key Source Amid Ukraine Protests

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/gromadske-tv-station-becomes-source-for-anti-yanukovych-protests-a-937470.html



The online station Hromadske.TV has become the go-to site for Ukrainians critical of the Yanukovych regime. As protests heat up, its journalists and volunteers cover the news that state-backed stations will not.

Rebel Broadcast: Web Channel a Key Source Amid Ukraine Protests
December 05, 2013 – 06:21 PM

The office of the online TV channel Hromadske.TV ("open TV&quot is located on the fourth floor of an office building in an outer neighborhood of Kiev, Ukraine. At 100 square meters, with squeaky linoleum, a pitched roof and stale air, this is the unassuming headquarters of the main news organ of the protests against President Viktor Yanukovych.

When hundreds of thousands of people went into the streets on Sunday, over 1.5 million viewers watched the event on Hromadske.TV. The station was started by a group of journalists, most of whom used to work for the country's large TV stations, but left because of patronizing censorship by the government and the stations' owners, the powerful oligarchs. Hromadske.TV's strategy: What it lacks in money it makes up for in know-how.

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The station pays $2,000 (€1,470) in rent for the studio, which is located in the Vector business center. In one corner, Tatjana Danilenko, a 30-year-old news anchor from Channel 5, is speaking with guests about an attack on the president's office in which a bulldozer was used. The guests all agree the attack was caused by provocateurs the government paid to make the demonstrators look violent.

When the station went on the air for the first time, a few weeks ago, the plan was to do one show per week. About two dozen employees were involved in the launch, but now the station employs over 100 people, including many volunteers. Since the start of the protests, the station has been broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The station has locations set up everywhere in the city to report the movements of protesters and police units.