BREAKING NEWS
Major international media outlets put Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych’s offer of the position of prime minister to an opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as their number one news. At 2:00PM EST, it was still number three news item on the Voice of America website. Voice of America had failed to report earlier on the English news website on U.S. diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, which Secretary of State John Kerry revealed yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It appears that these efforts by the U.S. and other countries may have helped to secure a solution, but it is still not clear whether it will be implemented and whether it will be ultimately successful.
Among VOA language services, Kerry’s statement that the U.S. “is with the people of Ukraine” was reported Friday only by VOA Ukrainian Service.
As of 3:00 PM EST, VOA still had the Ukrainian news story as number three item in its news lineup on the VOA English news homepage. It is the number one lead news story for almost all other major international media organizations, including Germany’s Deutsche Welle, which reported President Viktor Yanukovych offered the opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk the position of prime minister. DW also reports that the United States has warned Yanukovych that his failure to ease the standoff could have consequences for its relationship with Ukraine, which VOA English news was not reporting during the last two days.
Those warnings, combined with intensive U.S. diplomatic activity with President Yanukovych in Kyiv came not only from the State Department but also from a number of influential U.S. Senators. VOA English news was not reporting on these U.S. diplomatic congressional moves vis-a-vis Ukraine in the last few days.
Germany, France and other governments have also urged Yanukovych to talk to the opposition. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton plans to visit Kyiv next week. “Yanukovych holds talks with opposition in Kyiv on Ukraine unrest,” DW, Jan. 25, 2014.
BBC, Russia’s RT and VOA report that Ukraine’s president offered opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk the post of prime minister in an effort to end months of anti-government protests.
It is the lead news item for BBC and RT, but not on the VOA English website, which has it in third position.
This time, VOA was not hours behind other media in reporting on a major news development, as it has been frequently the case in recent weeks and months, especially with regard to Ukraine.
But in addition to failing to report on yesterday’s statement on Ukraine by Secretary of State Kerry, VOA also did not report on a number of statements on Ukraine yesterday by U.S. Senators. Among more than 40 VOA language services, only VOA Ukrainian service and perhaps one other reported on these U.S. foreign policy statement with regard to major political and news developments in Ukraine.