The government of Sevastopol closes itself from the press
Sevastopol journalists are outraged that they are again not allowed to attend city government meetings. The media received an announcement of the operational meeting sent by email, in which correspondents are invited to the press center, where they will be able to watch the broadcast of the meetings.
“New format of work. For the convenience of journalists, a press center will be organized. The meetings will be broadcast. Bonus wi-fi,” the announcement says.
At the same time, the director of the department of public communications, Gleb Shagun, literally a month ago publicly promised that journalists would be invited to government meetings. The demand to allow correspondents to the “bodies” of officials was the main complaint expressed by the Sevastopol press.
The fact is that Shagun’s predecessor, Oleg Berkovich, forbade government employees to give any comments to the media without the knowledge of the press service. Journalists were forced to write official requests, which were not answered immediately and not always.
Berkovich was removed from office, but the situation did not change. Apparently, the initiative to close the media did not come from the government press service, but from the governor of Sevastopol, Dmitry Ovsyannikov.
“At the last press conference, Mr. Ovsyannikov impressively told journalists that he was all for freedom of speech and journalists’ access to information, so there would be no press center,” Sevastopol journalist Nadezhda Isaeva is indignant.
Her colleagues in the comments are outraged that they were again deprived of the opportunity to obtain comments from officials on current topics.
“This is a minus of the availability of officials. Because after the equipment, you could approach any character and ask for comments on a topic of interest. Now, while the journalists leave this press hall, the characters will have time to run away,” comments Elena Anisimova, a television journalist for the NTS channel.
English version :: Read in English: The Sevastopol government is closing itself off from the press.