Ukraine: Media Groups Join Together For ‘United News’ & Urge World To Turn Off Russian Channels

deadline.com:

Ukraine’s biggest media groups have united to broadcast one all-encompassing news service to cover the conflict, as they urge the world to impose “media sanctions” and turn off Russian channels.In a statement in the past hour, 1+1 Media, StarLightMedia, Media Group Ukraine and Inter Media Group said they are now showing one newscast entitled United News, which is “promptly providing comprehensive information from different regions of the country.”The media groups, the four largest in Ukraine, are taking it in turns to helm the show, which has been forged with the co-operation of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council, the Office of the President of Ukraine and other government bodies.“It is extremely important that people around the world have access to reliable and truthful information relating to the Russia’s war against Ukraine and the course of hostilities here,” said the statement.With that in mind, the media groups urged the world to impose “media sanctions” and “turn off the broadcasting of Russian news channels on European satellites.”“We have been waging an information war for years, and such media sanctions are globally important to Ukraine,” it added. “We understand how powerful the Russian propaganda machine is and what kind of effort the aggressor makes to spread fake news to cynically fool people.

We absolutely oppose this.”When the conflict started in earnest Thursday some Ukrainian channels were still showing entertainment programs but Deadline reported yesterday on a pivot to back-to-back news, with commercial advertising turned off.