ENCROACHMENT on freedom of speech rarely happens in one sweeping and frontal attack. Usually it consists of small steps taken by a government, and is often unnoticed by the public. Each of these steps can be explained at the time by some commercial or legal rationale. Yet, the result, invariably, is the same: more pro-government media and less freedom of speech. By the time the outside world wakes up, it is usually too late.
This is what happened in Russia in the early 2000s, and is what is now happening in Ukraine. One such small step has been a high court decision to pull broadcasting frequencies from two television channels. One of them, Channel 5, played a crucial role during the Orange revolution six years ago; the other, TVi, was set up by Vladimir Gusinsky, the former Russian media tycoon whose NTV television channel in Russia was the first victim of Vladimir Putin's squeeze on media.
The journalists of both TVi and Channel 5 blame Valery Khoroskhovsky, the media magnate who owns Inter Media Group, the country's largest television holding, and who doubles up as the head of Ukraine's security service. Mr Khoroskhovsky, they say, exerted influence on the regulator that allocates frequencies, acting in a clear conflict of interest, an allegation Mr Khoroskhovsky strongly denies.
The history goes as follows: In January Ukraine's National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting held a tender for new frequencies and Inter did worse than TVi and Channel 5. A few days later, Viktor Yanukovich was elected the president of Ukraine. He appointed Mr Khoroskhovsky, who had proved his loyalty to Mr Yanukovich during the election campaign, as the head of SBU, the security service. More recently, Mr Khoroshkovsky has also joined the High Council of Justice, a new powerful body which oversees the work of the courts.
Mr Khoroskhovsky wasted little time and launched an investigation demanding documents from the regulator about the tender. Inter then asked the court to cancel the results of an earlier tender and the court obliged, citing irregularities in the earlier tender. As a result TVi will remain a satellite channel with little coverage in Ukraine, and Channel 5, whose licence allows it to be mainly about entertainment, may not be able to retain its news programmes.
The journalists of both channels have cried foul and appealed to Mr Yanukovich to defend freedom of speech. To be fair, few journalists performed their duty to report with balance and integrity on the affairs of the state before Mr Yanukovich came to power. Paid articles and TV reports were common practice. Still, Ukrainian media was pluralistic even if it was not independent. Losing it would be a serious step back for democracy. The government's assertion of control over television cannot be justified by the failures of journalists. But those failures make pressure easier to apply.