Vox Ukraine analyzed 608,867 news items on top online media websites over 4 months to find out who is regarded as an expert in each news category and to whom they turn for comment. We identified 172 experts cited by the media at least 50 times over the period under review and found out which of them were “top picks” of a particular media, which ones commented on which topics, and which of the experts promoted pro-Russian narratives.
The world is getting more and more complex, and the media are trying to keep up with all the events. According to a DataVox study, an average of 123 news appears every minute on the websites of the country’s most popular online media. It is difficult to grasp such a large volume of information, just as it is impossible to understand each topic. Because journalists often turn to experts to explain the situation to the readers, which also helps the journalists themselves to better understand the topics and add context to a news piece. In an ideal world, professionals with many years’ work experience in a specific topic area are featured as experts in the media. How are we different here?
Main conclusions :
The most popular expert of a top-rated media outlet is Yuriy Butusov (cited 847 times). He is among the most popular experts of thirteen media outlets from our list.
- The Gordon website has the most publications based on expert comments, with experts cited in 8% of the news items. It is followed by HolosUA and Obozrevatel, with 7% and 6% respectively.
- Ekonomichna Pravda and UA:PBC cite experts in their news the least often (1% of news items featuring comments from experts).
- Journalists rely most on expert opinion in the news items about politics (7-8 % of them feature comments from experts) and economy (7,6%). The least commented-upon category is World (1%).
- Pro-Russian experts landed on the list of the most sought-after commentators on the websites of the following eleven media: Znaj.ua, Gordon, Obozrevatel, HolosUA, Strana.ua, ZIK, KP in Ukraine, Vesti, 112.ua, Politeka, and Siohodni.
- The most widely cited experts have one (at most, three) media outlet featuring them most frequently. The vast majority of such outlets cannot be called quality media.
How we calculated
We opted for the term “expert” because it is more neutral than “influencer” and more expressive than “commentator”. It is also used by journalists when looking for a professional to explain events: “inviting an expert to comment on the news”.
In our article, an expert is someone who:
- is referred to in a media piece next to verbs like “say”, “state”, “report”, “tell”, “write”, “comment”, etc.
- has commented on a news story in the media no less than 20 times
- is not holding an official position in the central or local government
We deem as experts those not affiliated with government institutions, i.e. currently not politicians or civil servants. We do so because for the latter, commenting on events is part of their professional duties and these individuals’ appearance in the media is due to their position, rather than the opinions expressed by them. We are interested in looking for persons not associated with the government (in the broadest sense) but possessing unique knowledge and expressing important thoughts.
Let us consider the definition of an “expert” using Groysman as an example. He used to be a politician and possibly will be again in the future. But at the time of our analysis, he was not holding any position of power, nor was he a minister or MP. That is, he did not make decisions that would affect the social and political situation in the country. Therefore, we included him in the list of experts for the period December 2020 to March 2021. If he occupies a position of power next month, he will no longer be regarded as an expert in the next monitoring round.
By “comment” we mean an expert (experts) being cited in the media. This can be his/her direct speech or a link to his/her social media posts.
To find experts according to the media, we analyzed 608,867 news items over 4 months (from December 2020 to March 2021) in the 42 top media outlets using the Named Entity Recognition (NER) models. The algorithm found for us all the proper names referred to in each news piece. We left out those occupying an official position of power and those with less than than 50 comments. As a result, the list of experts included 172 individuals.
Although the list of the most widely covered topics normally includes Culture/Showbusiness, we excluded it from our analysis along with Sports and Weather. News on these topics is actively used as a tool to attract the audience without affecting the social and economic situation. They just produce background noise for our research but do not carry important information.
Who comments on the main topics?
Every month, the main news categories include politics, economy, accidents, coronavirus, and world news. These categories regularly feature the largest amount of news. The two most popular categories also have the largest amount of news featuring comments from experts: Politics (7.75% of news with expert commentary) and Economy (7.58% of news with commentary). Also among the topics with the largest amount of expert commentary are news about Coronavirus (5.07%), Society (3.18%) and news in the Other category (6.8%). You can read more about the topics in this article.
Figure 1. Percentage of news with expert commentary in news categories
Let us look closer at the most commented-upon topics.
Journalist Yuriy Butusov ranks first in the number of references in Politics (504 comments in 6,609 news items with commentary in this category). He is also in first place in the amount of comments in the Accidents category (183 comments out of 1,526). Overall, Butusov is one of the most frequently mentioned experts (a total of 847 references).
Politics is also commented on by former journalist Serhiy Leshchenko (321 comments) and activist Vitaliy Shabunin (205 comments). Overall, we found 43 experts commenting on Politics. They represent nine different professional fields, which makes them the most “motley” group of experts. 12 political technologists constitute a majority here. Eight of them are included in the database of covert PR people: Ruslan Bortnyk (218 comments), Volodymyr Fesenko (186 comments), Andriy Zolotariov (147 comments), Oleksiy Yakubin (122 comments), Ruslan Biziayev (106 comments), Kost’ Bondarenko (77 comments), Vadym Karasiov (66 comments) and Kyrylo Molchanov (59 comments). By the way, Biziayev also actively comments on economic topics (56 comments), which we will discuss later.
Unlike Politics, a more homogeneous group of experts comments on the economy. Among the 35 experts, 12 are economists, 7 are financial analysts, 3 political technologists and 3 ex-politicians, with 1 or 2 representing seven other areas. Representatives of these two professions comment on economic news most often: an average of 138 comments per expert. The most active economic commentators are Borys Kushniruk, a member of the central leadership of the People’s Movement of Ukraine (372 comments out of 5,424 economic news items with commentary) and Oleh Pendzyn, executive director at the Economic Discussion Club (362 comments). There are also three PR people among the economic experts: Oleksandr Okhrimenko (191 comments), Dmytro Marunych (75 comments) and Viktor Skarshevskyi (68 comments).
The two most commented-upon news categories – Politics and Economy – feature four experts actively commenting on both topics. Among them are former officials. Tymofiy Mylovanov, the recently appointed member of the Supervisory Board of Ukroboronprom comments on Economy (179 comments) twice as much as on Politics (80 comments). According to the media, former Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman is an expert on both Economy (93 comments) and Politics (75 comments). Another former government official, Volodymyr Omelyan, comments on both topics just as often (87 political comments and 88 economic comments over four months).
Another news topic commented on by experts from the same professional community is Coronavirus. Among the 29 experts commenting on this topic, 26 are doctors and healthcare experts. The rest are analysts and journalists. During the period in question, COVID-19-related news reports were most widely commented on by the MOH’s leading infection specialist Olha Holubovska (551 comments out of 3,686 news items regarding this topic with commentary), chairman of the Committee on Biosafety and Biological Protection under the National Security and Defense Council Serhiy Komisarenko (303 comments), and doctor and blogger Yevhen Komarovskyi (167 comments).
One of the most commented-upon news topics is Society. However, there are no experts here because each newsworthy event is commented on by observers rather than experts. One expert regularly commenting on news in the Society category is Yepifaniy (144 comments). He comments on various events: from the church supporting vaccination to news about praying for the Ukrainian military. But most of his comments appear during church holidays when Yepifaniy comments on traditions and rites. Yepifaniy is followed by Ihor Moyseyenko (55 comments on Kyiv’s marshrutka taxi fare) and Oleh Samchuk, director of the Clinical Municipal Communal Emergency Hospital in Lviv (53 comments about successful operations and changes in the management of the Lviv Oblast health authorities).
The World category features international news (except political), accidents occurring abroad, including news items about protests in Belarus and the USA. Therefore, the list of experts here depends on current news. During the 4 months of research, one of the most popular topics was the protests in Russia and the Wagner militants’ case. In connection with this case, Bellingcat’s investigative journalist Christo Grozev was cited the most (71 comments). Ukrainian media also wrote relatively much about the Russian Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by Alexei Navalny and cited its director Ivan Zhdanov (51 comments).
Journalists most frequently turn to experts for comment when writing about politics and economy. In the Society news category, the absolute leader in references is Yepifaniy. Coronavirus reports are commented on by doctors and healthcare experts, while the World category contains comments not from the experts but from the participants in the events.
Ask a friend: which media outlets build most of their news stories from expert comments?
We compared media outlets to see which of them turn for comment to the 172 most widely cited experts and publish their statements. For each website, we calculated the share of news items containing references to the names on the list (Table 1).
Table 1. The share of news stories containing references to one of the 172 experts
| Gordon | 8% |
| HolosUA , Obozrevatel | 6-7% |
| Politeka, Znaj.ua, ZIK, KP in Ukraine,
Vesti, Telegraph, Glavcom |
4-6% |
| Strana.ua, Apostrophe, Ukrayinski novyny,
Focus, Censor.NET, Siohodni, ZN.UA, Gazeta.ua, Radio Liberty, Facts, Espresso TV, Channel 24, UNIAN, UA:PBC, RBC Ukraine, ICTV Facts, NV, UNN, |
2-4% |
| Bukvy, Interfax Ukraine, Vgolos,
TSN, Korrespondent.net, Ukrinform, Ukrayinska Pravda, UA:PBC, Ekonomichna Pravda |
1-2% |
It turns out that the media regularly seeking expert commentary are not too many. The largest percentage of news items with expert commentary is found on Gordon.ua, namely 8%. Most of Gordon’s news feed is made up of interviews and comments. It is, therefore, not surprising that the most widely mentioned persons here are the portal owners, Dmytro Gordon and Olesya Batsman conducting these interviews. Interestingly, the Gordon website is one of the sites for Arseniy Yatsenyuk, with 15% of his comments being published on this portal. However, the former Prime Minister is most often cited on Siohodni (33% of all his comments).
Many news pieces featuring experts are also found on the websites of HolosUa and Obozrevatel – 6.9 % and 6.3% of news items, respectively. HolosUa leads in the amount of references to pro-Russian expert Ruslan Biziayev (the portal contains 67.5% of all references to him). This media outlet is also the main platform for political technologist Ruslan Bortnyk (41% references) and economist Oleh Pendzyn (33.5%).
Obozrevatel quotes infectious disease specialist Olha Holubovska more often than other media outlets (20% of all references to her were found on this website). The media refers to Holubovska as the “leading infectious disease specialist of the Ministry of Health”. She is also known for her criticism of medical reform and her manipulation.
Ranking second after Holubovska in the amount of comments on Obozrevatel is the chairman of the editorial board of the website, Mykhailo Brodskyi (with 55% of news items with his comments found on Obozrevatel).
Among the media outlets soliciting comments from the 172 most widely cited experts is one of the top media, Ukrayinska Pravda, featuring only 1.21% of the top experts’ comments. Ekonomichna Pravda (1.03 % of news items) and UA:PBC (1.05 % of news items) do not refer to them much either.
Most media outlets writing a lot of news based on expert comments get poor indices of compliance with journalistic standards. Therefore, the amount of comments from experts does not indicate the quality of these experts. Instead, it could serve as a signal of the quality of the media citing them.
Every media’s faves: how are the experts and the media related?
Media can “advertise” certain individuals and their opinions, thus creating a public discourse.
We identified each media outlet’s favorite experts. To do so, we selected 5 experts referred to by them most frequently but no less than 20 times during the research period. Some websites had less than 5 to zero references to the experts, and so we will explore 32 websites out of 42, on which we found at least one expert with 20 or more references.
Figure 2. The media’s top experts (Roll your mouse over a point for names)
The top experts are the most widely cited five names on the website, but only those referred to at least 20 times over the period under review.
You can read more about the most popular experts in the table below
| Expert | Number of references | Topics, roughly | Media making references to the expert in question most frequently |
| Yuriy Butusov | 847 | News items using “own sources” usually cover the SBU, NABU, SAP, law enforcement agencies, mostly political issues | Censor.NET |
| Olha Holubovska | 654 | Mostly commenting on the coronavirus as an infectious disease specialist | Obozrevatel |
| Yevhen Komarovskyi | 519 | Coronavirus, general health advice | Znaj.ua |
| Serhiy Leshchenko | 453 | Mostly commenting on politics (messages from his Telegram channel often concern detentions, serving with charges, investigations, etc.); references in the context of UZ | Glavcom |
| Borys Kushniruk | 427 | Economy | Politics
Obozrevatel |
| Oleh Pendzyn | 381 | Economy | HolosUA |
| Ruslan Bortnyk | 381 | Politics | HolosUA |
| Serhiy Komisarenko | 361 | Commenting on the coronavirus as an academician of the National Academy of Sciences and chairman of the Commission on Biosafety and Biological Protection under the National Security and Defense Council | UNIAN |
| Vitaliy Shabunin | 352 | Commenting (as head of the Anti-Corruption Center) on bills, submissions, anti-corruption investigations, as well as on the grenades planted for his mother-in-law | Channel 24 |
| Timofiy Mylovanov | 289 | Mostly commenting on the economy, in particular on the cooperation with the IMF | Glavcom |
| Ruslan Bizyaev | 289 | Commenting on Ukrainian and international politics and a bit on economy | HolosUA |
| Arseniy Yatseniuk | 283 | Politics, with part of references made in retrospect | Today |
| Andriy Shevchyshyn | 273 | Economy, mainly exchange rates | Страна.ua |
| Epifaniy | 262 | Mostly referred to in the Society category featuring news items about the church (also commenting on quarantine restrictions in temples during holidays, the legalization of marijuana, etc.) | Glavcom |
| Oleksiy Kushch | 247 | Economy | Politeka
KP in Ukraine Znaj.ua |
| Oleksandr Okhrimenko | 244 | Economy | Siohodni |
| Oleh Ustenko | 239 | Commenting on various economic issues as an adviser to the President of Ukraine on economic issues | Gordon |
| Volodymyr Fesenko | 233 | Politics | Channel 24 |
| Oleksandr Kalenkov | 220 | Mainly industry (including metallurgy and scrap metal as president of Ukrmetalurgprom), tariffs, energy | Obozrevatel
Politeka |
| Vadym Iosub | 219 | Exchange rate | Ukrayinski Novyny |
Yuriy Butusov is in the top 5 on 13 websites, which makes him the most influential expert among various media outlets in our database. It is clear that Censor.NET, of which he is the editor-in-chief referred to him the most.
On Censor.NET, the top 3 most popular experts are the same as on Channel 24: Yuriy Butusov, Vitaliy Shabunin and Serhiy Leshchenko.
Unfortunately, on many websites, the five most quoted commentators are those “experts” who can be called thus only in between parenthesis. Those are individuals expressing pro-Russian views in their comments or promoting individual politicians or, being Russian themselves, commenting on the political situation in Ukraine. Interestingly, the latter are mainly found on Gordon.
These “experts” are among the most sought-after commentators on 11 out of the 33 media outlets: Znaj.ua, Gordon, Obozrevatel, HolosUA, Strana.ua, ZIK, KP in Ukraine, Vesti, 112.ua, Politeka, Siohodni.
On HolosUA, Vesti, Znaj.ua and ZIK, three of these experts ended up in the top five favorites – two on Vesti and Gordon and one on the other platforms.
Next, we will talk about what pro-Russian experts and covert PR people commented on and what messages they promoted.
Pro-Russian experts’ discourse
Among all 172 experts, we identified 28 related to Russia in one way or another. They were either Russians themselves or expressed explicitly pro-Russian views. We checked the biographies of each expert’s comments from our list of 172 experts. The list of pro-Russian experts can be found here.
The media disseminate their opinions, turn to them for comment, thus legitimizing the pro-Russian position in the Ukrainian public space. So we decided to take a closer look at what narratives those experts promoted in their comments to the news items.
Overall, such experts commented on 1,271 news items over 4 months (4 % of all the news with comments). Most were in the categories of Politics (38 %) and Economy (21%).
Interestingly, the amount of news promoting pro-Russian viewpoints was the same in both Russian and Ukrainian. They were mainly aimed to create distrust of the government, and set “ordinary people” against the government.
The main discourse of pro-Russian experts on the topic of politics was centered around such “timeless” topics as criticizing the government, distrusting anti-corruption agencies, and predicting a rapid demise for Europe. Pro-Russian experts also talked a lot about the need to abolish the new Ukrainian spelling, the main argument being that the new rules would “vilify the language“. The remaining 142 experts most frequently commented on lawmaking: adopting new bills, revisiting old ones, postponing the mandatory use of cash registers by individual entrepreneurs, revising the law on education, as well as sanctions against the channels from Medvedchuk’s pool, vaccination and coronavirus measures.
Pro-Russian experts often criticized NABU, trying to encourage distrust in it on the part of society. They specifically accused it of “covering up corruption” and “hunting journalists”. For instance, using a comment by Portnov, ZIK wrote about Sytnyk’s trading in housing facilities stolen from Ukrainians.
Another narrative actively discussed by pro-Russian experts is the local elections in Ukraine and the next EU elections. Here, one comes across news stories about Artem Marchevskyi, general producer at 112 Ukraine, running for Parliament and about a potential political collapse in the EU after the elections in Germany and France.
Pro-Russian experts also criticized quarantine measures. Interestingly, in their comments on this subject, they continued bashing Suprun and blaming the failure of COVID-19 response measures on the authorities. Specifically, when commenting on measures to combat the pandemic in the regions, Artem Marchevskyi said the following: “For such actions… all those involved, namely Mrs. Suprun and Mr. Stepanov should bear criminal liability… Not administrative, not political, but criminal liability”. This comment was broadcast by ZІК and Channel 112.
As for the Economy, pro-Russian experts often commented on tariffs, pensions and financial support from the IMF. In contrast, other experts mostly commented on how the pandemic was affecting the economy, on providing assistance to COVID-19 victims and infrastructure development (in particular, road construction and Ukrzaliznytsia).
Tariffs is the topic used by pro-Russian experts to criticize the authorities. Specifically, they talked about the rising cost of fuel by 700%, the exorbitant cost of gas for the population and trade with Russia. Vox Ukraine refuted the fake news about gas prices in Ukraine in this article.
Pro-Russian experts also describe pension reform in a negative light. For instance, they talked about the impossibility of paid retirement. They also try to prove that a transition to the new accumulation pension system is caused by the fact that the government is seeking to reduce all social benefits. Even if Ukrainians were promised higher pensions, not everyone would be able to get them, and not right away either. The pension news is reported in an analytical manner, but journalists use manipulative phrases and words like “Ukrainians will lose anyway”, “why should one expect something more from the state?”, etc. For our explanation of pension reform, click here.
The pro-Russian experts’ comments on tranches from the IMF always contain hints on external control over Ukraine. They usually talk about “dictating conditions” and “buying control over branches of the government”. Pro-Russian experts talk about the “de-sovereignization” of the country advising that such cooperation be abandoned as soon as possible. Vox Ukraine wrote about why Ukraine needs the IMF program in this article. Pro-Russian experts talk much more about the IMF than other experts since severing Ukraine’s cooperation with the Fund would be in their interests.
Conclusion
Inviting experts to comment on news events is a standard journalism technique. We analyzed whom the country’s top online media outlets regard as experts on a particular subject and whose opinions they listen to. The popularity of experts, in this case, is no immediate evidence of their professionalism. Sometimes it is a simple snowball effect, when, after commenting on loud news items for one or two media outlets, an expert becomes a welcome guest on many news websites.
We analyzed data collected over four months and found the most popular media experts, looked at the most commented-upon news topics and at the five experts most widely cited by each separate media outlet. We will regularly update the list of experts on the website of our Media Ecosystem tool scheduled to be released in late July.
Disclaimer: This article was prepared as part of the Media Ecosystem project with the support of the US Embassy. In this project, we explore the Ukrainian media environment, analyze the news items of the most popular online media outlets to provide up-to-date, aggregate information on topics, messages and relationships between media outlets.
Attention
The authors do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have no relevant affiliations
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