I guess you could say my friend Ned Chilton was an oligarch. He owned a newspaper and he was rich. He used this newspaper without shame to further his own goals.
The difference between Ned and Ukraine's media barons, however, was that the tall, often sockless, sometimes eccentric publisher of The Gazette, the morning newspaper in Charleston, West Virginia, had as his primary - no, his only goal - the righting of wrongs wherever and whenever he saw them.
He said a newspaper should have "sustained outrage", a term quoted so often it has become a fixture in local lexicon. Ned put crooks in jail. He tried, as best he could against a high tide of incompetence, to keep legislators honest. He forced the law enforcers to do their jobs, and generally succeeded.
In relatively short order, two governors, two Senate presidents and a gaggle of lobbyist went to jail. Others squealed like that proverbial pig, and gave evidence against colleagues in crime. Ned, sadly, was not around to see all that he had wrought. He died in 1987 while playing an energetic game of tennis. His spirit continues to guide the newspaper.
One other thing. It would never have entered Ned's mind that his newspaper's columns be purchased for commercial or political interests, aside from the normal display of advertising that, along with paid subscriptions, helps keep the presses rolling and reporters on the job.
When I compare Ned Chilton to Ukraine's oligarch clan, my first reaction is one of sheer befuddlement. The opportunity is there to have an enormous impact for good on this nation for decades to come.
Because Ukraine lacks Founding Fathers, much less heroes, the oligarchs have the means to fill the vacuum and bring about change. They have to have the will, which includes the absence of total avarice. It is a big boat to turn around, and would take a sea-change in thinking.
Instead, Ukraine's newspapers continue to be dominated by yellow press, allowing individuals and corporations to purchase pages of so-called objective editorial comment to pat themselves on their backs or to denigrate a competitor and his products or services.
Strangely, some of the worst offenders are multinational corporations.
They feel forced into such situations because if they approach a newspaper or TV station about a story, they will be told to "buy an ad", even if their promotion or announcement rises to the level of being of interest to the general public or, in other words, news. The media has been on the take for so long many wouldn't recognize a legitimate story. Some even post their rates.
At The Ukrainian Observer, stories can not be bought. Only in very special circumstances for accuracy would we let a person being interviewed see the article that is about him or her or their company. When the U.S. Embassy asked to see a copy of our interview with the Ambassador, we said no. The facts were not in doubt.
When various commercial interests have offered to buy a page of editorial comment, likewise we have demurred. If we feel something deserves comment - and often they do - we don't hesitate to cover the promotion, event, opening or announcement as best we can in our limited space. Hence, the opening of a new Kyiv restaurant, Walter's, obtains coverage from us this month.
At our agency, The Willard Group, we go to extraordinary lengths to use our contacts in offering up our clients' stories as legitimate news - when it is news. Likewise, we don't hesitate in telling a client his particular story on a particular day - such as when the Iraqi War and SARS were breaking out at the same time - was not international news.
News is relative to whatever else is going on in the world that day.
While some have criticized what they saw as a "chamber of commerce" outlook on Ukraine by the Ukrainian Observer, we do not apologize for attempting to cover the sunny side of a complex country. But we have gone down dark alleys as well.
We have attempted, realizing we were sometimes like gnats swirling around a boar, to be an arbiter of just causes. Thus, my brother, Glen, editor-in-chief of this publication, took on the U.S. Embassy on behalf of several Ukrainian seamen and their boat captain who simply and commendably wanted to publicize Ukraine around the world.
They (the seamen and captain) won. They, the U.S. Embassy, did not lose, for the right decision was eventually made, thereby offering proof that common sense will out in the end. We worry, however, about those without even The Observer's limited resources.
But, back to those Ukrainian oligarchs and my friend Ned Chilton, with whom I often shared a cup a coffee and whose daughter, for a short while, was a member of my staff.
By now you realize he was just a fairly well-off newspaper publisher with an attitude, not nearly in the oligarchic realm. Just think of what our oligarchs could do if they turned their energies - and their money - loose on making Ukraine a more Democratic and less corrupted society.
Now that's a "sustained outrage" I would like to see.
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