When you think about journalism here in Ukraine, one name that stands out from the crowd is Mykola Veresen who’s been doing the job since 1989. Having worked for the BBC, hosted numerous TV talk shows and current affairs programmes, and he was news anchor on Channel 5 during the orange revolution. We caught up with him recently to get his views on journalism in Ukraine and why it’s so important for him to stay here rather than seeking more money elsewhere.

What does journalism and being a journalist mean to you?

A journalist is a psychiatrist. And a doctor and lawyer as well. A professional journalist is omnivorous. I can’t say this I want to interview this person, and not that one. Everyone is interesting if they are asked the right questions. I remember Svetlana Loboda avoided giving direct answers to my questions as if she was a politician, and that really annoyed me. People what to know who she is and she basically tells the audience to get lost. It often is very frustrating. A journalist in the person in the crowd who is trying to turn left when everyone else is turning right. But once he gets to that left corner, he will find something that amazes everyone. That’s the point. As far as I am concerned I am a professional and therefore I can’t do a bad job. I can be better sometimes, and worse sometimes, but on no account can I say I’ve ever done a bad job in my 19 years as a journalist.

What’s the current state of journalism in Ukraine?

That’s not so easy to explain, because it’s an issue going all the way back to Soviet time. From the times of Lenin and Stalin, everyone was given an order to produce goods. That was drilled into our heads as the purpose of our lives. We have to produce 600 million pairs of shoes for a population of 190 million and it is no concern of ours if anyone wants to buy it. The West lives by a different motto: ‘We consume and everything has to be done to make me content with my purchase.’ When it comes to TV, there is a huge abundance of TV shows. People watch it, but have nothing to say about it. It’s trash. Currently, in journalism we’ve got two contradicting mottos – ‘people will scoff’ and ‘people aren’t fools’. Let’s compare journalism with industry or shoemaking. Let’s imagine you go to a shop and see a beautiful pair of high-heel shoes and the sales person tells you, all that’s missing is the laces which you can buy at another shop further down the street. Or imagine that you finally decide to buy that dream car you’ve always wanted, and it is sold to you with everything but the wheels which you have to go somewhere else to get. What would you tell the salespeople in such circumstances? You would tell them to get lost! It’s nonsense because we expect to buy well-made goods and we expect the manufacturers of cars, consumer goods and household appliances to provide us with the complete device and not the raw materials. It is the same for journalism: people expect us to provide a complete product that won’t leave guessing or with the need to fill in the blanks. It’s not rocket science, but here in Ukraine we tend to have a different attitude. Journalists here tend to say, ‘I’ve said what I have to say,’ and they don’t give a damn if they were heard or not. To my mind it is the same as if you order a cup of coffee and the waiter pours it all over your lap and says something like: ‘Hey, I made you the coffee, you have to watch out for yourself.’ Journalists should be communicators. They should translate and inform society, and they should strive to get their message across. To do that one needs to be something of a philosopher.

You have been offered many international jobs, but you opt to remain in Ukraine. Why is that?

It’s all very highfalutin I would say. I will try and explain in a modest way as far as possible. I’ve received several offers of work overseas, that’s true. But as a journalist I think it would have been very unprofessional to move to somewhere like the UK or Canada. I may earn five times as much as I do here, but I would not be participating in the life of the country. This is the era of reconstruction for Ukraine. Things of a universal level are happening here, and there’s simply no excuse to miss any of it. History analysts recognise that there were three major events of equal importance to the world in the 20th Century: the partitioning of the of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the division of Europe by the Iron Curtain, and the liberation of Ukraine from Russia. If this is true, how on earth could I sit back sipping champagne as a journalist overseas? It would be the same if you had a child and gave it to someone else to look after.
I remember when I served in the army and our captain, who was 44, said he loved the army life because he liked circuses. It’s the same with me. More over, journalists in Kyiv get a decent salary. I like this country, and I want other people to like this country. I remember at one party I introduced Russian comedian Myhaylo Ghvanetsky to Yuriy Lutsenko, and on the spur of the moment the latter started making jokes about Ukrainian policemen. Ghvanetsky instantly fell in love with Ukraine saying: ‘How on earth can the head of the Ukrainian police force make jokes about Ukrainian policeman? Fantastic!’

The major fault of journalists is their attitude towards Ukraine. Everyone at a governmental leve is 100% sure that EURO2012 will go ahead, but on every TV channel we are mourning the loss of it before the final decision has been taken. That’s like a man who starts courting the woman of his dreams while constantly telling himself he doesn’t have a chance.

You used to host one of the most popular shows on TV called Taboo, and then you quit. What were your reasons?

The reasons for me walking away from the show would be enough to make a book. The main one was the introduction of censorship. This was during the second term of Kuchma’s presidency, and it was tough times. Producers in this country always face a dilemma: either you do business or you tell the truth. Very often TV producers opt for the former, as did the then producer of 1+1 channel. I made the decision to quite and ended up unemployed for two years. These are the choices an individual has to make.

Do you have any taboos?

I’m omnivorous. The only taboo I have is on taboos. When a journalist rejects something saying I don’t like it, I don’t feel like it or it doesn’t inspire me, then they are unprofessional.

It seems from what you say that money is not so important to you. Is this true?

If I lived in the USA and was earning what I could earn there then money wouldn’t be important to me at all. As it is, I don’t have the substantial assets that would allow me to feel indifferent to money, but I don’t think life is very interesting if you have too much money. For me, it is much more interesting to live in Ukraine, and to live through and report on everything that is happening here.

Being part of the elite is very important to many people in Ukraine. Is that something you strive for?

No chance! To take it a bit more seriously though, what elite are we talking about? The Ukrainian people’s deputies who got elected to the Verkhovna Rada 5 times running, but lost out on the 6th and now moan about the elite? That’s ludicrous! This country is too young and immature for an elite. Besides democratic societies such as we allude to being have another social class structure. In true democracies, the elite are those who utter ideas and are listened to, adhered to. And me? I’m weak. Only strong people can admit that.

So what’s going on in your life right now?

I’m on vacation and I’m doing nothing. I’ve just returned from Crete, which was great. I love travelling, and I only do the beach thing towards the end of the holiday. This summer I plant to go the Kherson, and then to Turkey with the family. Travelling reinforces my belief that there are no nationalities in the world. The world is a tiny place. Brazilian, Indonesian, European, who cares? We’re all homosapiens and we all have to share the same enclosure.

^{by Ksenia Karpenko, whatson}