The document summarizes the activities and projects of the Donetsk Institute of Information in 2019. It describes several projects aimed at producing objective media coverage of the conflict in eastern Ukraine and the electoral process, including creating a network of six media outlets in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. It also details the Fifth Donbass Media Forum event and interregional cooperation projects to improve media skills and coverage. Analytics projects focused on monitoring the human rights situation in non-government controlled areas and fact-checking claims during the Ukrainian elections.

1. REPORT 2019
The focus of the project is on the current
problems of the region, as well as media
coverage of the electoral process in
terms of human rights. A network of six
media from the Donetsk and Luhansk
oblasts was created to produce materials
according to journalistic standards.
Life of project: June 1, 2018 – February 28,
2020
Products:
•87 articles (68 in 2019)
•72 video reports (including 37 in 2019)
•35 video programs
•24 video reports produced by the media
involved in the project
“Donbas News” YouTube channel: 11,381,044 views
(+157%, hereinafter in comparison with 2018)
novosti.dn.ua: 2,938,566 views (+15%)
Facebook page followers: 79,000 (+111%)
Kyiv will return Donetsk. Who will be punished for «DNR»? 93,639 views
2019 Presidential Election: The Chronicles of Voting and Counting 51,341 views
Pensioners of Donetsk and Lugansk have a chance to get their payments.
When to expect changes? 22,840 views
Top-3 materials of novosti.dn.ua:Resources:
Projects
Donbas Media Forum
This is the largest forum for regional media
operating in or creating a media product about
the Donbas. It provides opportunities for
professional development, fruitful discussions,
interregional networking, and meetings with
media stakeholders. The number of participants
is increasing every year.
Lubov Rakovytsia, co-organizer of the Forum:
One of the goals of our event is to connect
journalists with stakeholders on the so-called
ground zero. For today, we have had a fairly high
representation at the Forum from international
media organizations, foreign missions in Ukraine,
different levels of Ukrainian government and the
heads of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Vitaliy Komarnitsky, at that time the governor of
Lugansk region, at the opening of the DMF:
It is important to invite media representatives
from the occupied territories to such meetings, so
that residents of non-controlled territories also
access impartial information from other regions
of Ukraine.
Life of project: April 24 – September 30, 2019
Products: the 5th Donbass Media Forum (Kharkiv,
September 5-6, 2019)
Participants:
• 547 representatives of media, domestic and
foreign partner organizations;
• 24 regions, 201 editorial offices, 14 universities,
international and all-Ukrainian organizations, and
Ukrainian institutes of civil society;
•Non-governmental organizations and charitable
foundations working with IDPs and other groups, and
in other spheres of civil society, think tanks, etc.;
• International organizations (OSCE, SMM OSCE,
UNHCR, EU Delegation to Ukraine, US Embassy in
Ukraine, Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine,
Embassy of the United Kingdom in Ukraine,
Internews, Internews Ukraine, USAID, IREX, etc.;
• Representatives of public authorities (Verkhovna
Rada of Ukraine, National Council for Television
and Radio Broadcasting, Office of the Vice
Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic
Integration of Ukraine, Secretariat of the
Ombudsman, Ministry of Defense of Ukraine,
Public Employment Service), of municipality
(Kharkiv Regional Council, Kharkiv Regional State
Administration, Kramatorsk City Council) and of
territorial communities.
Interregional Cooperation
for Producing High Quality Content for East Ukraine
The project aims at creating an interregional
media network and content relevant to all
regions of Ukraine. It helped to improve
writing skills, shooting and editing skills of
the participants. Also, it improved the quality
of publications, attracting new and larger
audiences, and directly impacting the lives of
local communities. It allowed participants to
increase their content performance (audience
geography, number of views, retention rate) and
expand their audience with the visitors who were
not typically the primary consumers of their
media products.
Life of project: 1 January 2019 – currently
Products:
• two schools for text and visual storytelling;
• 12 learning kits with information (video and
article) on local social initiatives, human rights
and regional reforms produced with the support
of project mentors
Reach on project network sites: 896,000
Participants: representatives of the editorial
offices of Realnaya Gazeta (Luhansk region),
Varosh (Uzhhorod), Vhoru (Kherson), Dyvys.info
(Lviv), IA Pushkinska (Odesa), Nakipilo (Kharkiv),
Expert KR (Kryvyi Rih), STS (Sumy), Reporter
(Ivano-Frankivsk), Svoi.City (Donetsk region)
Contact Line
The project raised important issues in various
fields and encouraged the public to discuss them
further. The structure of each program allowed the
participants to see the medium of the opposite
thought in a positive light, not as an abstract
adversary, but as a person with certain reasons and
grounds for their choice.
Life of Project: November 2018 – April 2019
Products: 6 episodes of a talk show
Total views: 525,000
Topics: Ways to resolve the conflict in Donbas, the
language issue in Ukraine, vaccination and health
care, Internet censorship, voting rights, forms of
family diversity
Donbas: Full Access
The project is to deliver complete and impartial
information on conflict-related events and
political, social and economic life in the non-
controlled territories of Donbas to stakeholders
and editorial staff working on the topic, as well
as a broad audience on both sides of the contact
line.
Life of project: May 1, 2018 – currently
Products:
• Daily review of events in the non-controlled
territories of Donbas, followed by posting on
the project site and e-mail (2,346 addressees, in
particular, the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, the National
Union of Journalists of Ukraine, etc.)
• Weekly monitoring of the human rights
situation and major events in the political, social
and economic spheres of the non-controlled
territories
• Analytical articles and infographics based on
monitoring data
• 7 analytical materials with recommendations for
stakeholders
• Weekly Donbas Today TV program, which
analyzes the events related to the settlement of
the conflict in Donbas; and has a steady audience,
including residents of the non-controlled
territories (each issue receives at least 10,000
views on YouTube, with speakers of different
levels from local to national)
Mobile Journalism in Donbas
The project aimed to change the perception of
important social issues by local communities and
to decrease the social tension. It improved the
professional skills of participants and increased
the level of their recognition by the audience in
the region.
Life of project: August 27 – October 31, 2019
Products:
•A three-days interactive seminar for bloggers,
activists, and journalists from Donbas and working
with the topic
• 253 stories posted on Instagram and Facebook
pages of participants with 28,158 views in total
Topics: Social life in Donbas, human rights, every-
day life in the region
Marketing Project to Promote Your Own Products
The project has expanded the reach of
products of the DII and affirmed News of
Donbas as the main media that covers
the issues of the region and the process
of resolving the military conflict.
The projects have been implemented with
the sincere support of:
European Endowment for Democracy,
National Endowment for Democracy, USAID
through the Internews Network, UCBI, Black
Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, the
Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine and
the United States Embassy in Ukraine, UN
RPP, Delegation of the European Union
to Ukraine.
The Fifth Donbass Media Forum was
organized in partnership with the Ministry
of Information Policy of Ukraine.
Life of project: February 15 – March 15, 2019
Products:
• Marketing analysis of DII activity
• Promotional campaign on three national TV channels
Telling the Truth
In the election year, media participation in the
political process was very intense. Most of them,
as politically and financially involved, were
biased. In the project materials, our journalists
analyzed the media content that accompanied
the election process and presented reliable and
objective information.
Life of project: January 7, 2019 – January 7, 2020
Products: 40 programs
four interactive meetings with students on media
literacy and data validation
Total views: 727,000
Topics: Verification of statements by Ukrainian
politicians, debunking of major myths related
to the political process in Ukraine, fact-checking
of Russian media reports and media in the
uncontrolled territories
Reinforcement of the 2019 election procedures
through the media
In 2019, the number of voters who temporarily
change their polling place location for the two
rounds of 2019 Ukrainian presidential election
and for the early parliamentary election
respectively increased by 84% ​​and 48% in
comparison with the 2014 election. In the first
round of the presidential election, 24% of such
voters were IDPs and residents of the temporarily
occupied territories. The 2019 election process
witnessed an increase in political awareness
within society, including the immediate target
group of the project, residents of the Donetsk and
Luhansk regions and people who were forced to
change their place of residence due to the conflict
in Donbas. This resulted from the activity of civil
society actors, including DII.
Protecting Freedom of Speech in Eastern Ukraine
Topics: human rights in different spheres of life,
discrimination of vulnerable populations, ecology, fight
against corruption
Yulia Didenko, “News of Donbas. Video” editor: One of
our main 2019 achievements is the truthful coverage
of election campaigns. Several projects produced
materials which reported violations of legislation and
several cases were submitted to the Unified registry of
pre-trial investigations of Ukraine. Also,“Donbas Today,”
our weekly analytical program, remains a top analytic
product both on military conflict and life in the region
and is produced in Donbas. It is important to add that
throughout the year we continued to deconstruct the
“DPR” and “LPR” fake news, surveying the propaganda
not only of Russian media, but also of media from the
non-controlled territories.
Total budget of Donetsk
Institute of Information
for 2019
Revenue: 7,882,392.28 ₴
Account balances since 2018: 2,326,013.45 ₴
Costs of project activities: 8,855,050.63 ₴
2019 is the year of two election campaigns. The DII had several projects focused
on delivering objective information about the electoral process, candidates and
their political platforms, researching their agenda and disclosing fake messages
Life of project: February 15 – November 15, 2019
Products:
•30 caption videos
•36 explainer videos
Total views: 1,411,022
Topics: Explanation of basic concepts,
procedures, legislative grounds and features of
the election process in Ukraine; analysis of the
current political system and election results;
checking the statements of politicians made
during the presidential and parliamentary
election campaigns in Ukraine