Photo: Tes Mat.
The crisis in the Ukraine has seen Russia and the West unable to agree on the most basic facts about what is happening in Crimea and the rest of the country. Russia claims neo-Nazis fueled an illegal coup, while the West, including the U.S., staunchly supports what happened as a spontaneous uprising against a corrupt ruler.
From Kiev, StopFake.org launched in early March with the intention of correcting the record in the press. Begun by former students of the Mohyla School of Journalism at the National University of “Kiev-Mohyla Academy” (NaUKMA) in Kiev, the site has been called the western Ukraine’s answer to Snopes. Volunteers check news reports for errors and fabrications, and publish what they find on their own website as well as Facebook and Twitter.
I reached out to StopFake’s English Facebook page, and received an answer from Margo Gontar. I asked her to tell me about why StopFake was created.
“I had really horror-like Saturday that week,” she wrote me. “The 1st of March [just after pro-Russia troops began occupying Crimea]. Still remember it. I was at my friends’ and the guy there (their friend, as it appeared) was telling me outrageous (and fake, as I discovered later) things like ‘half of Ukraine is under Russian flags’ and ‘if the Russian army starts going – it would be in Netherlands in a second’ and how to hide in lost villages from Russian troops. All these military things that seemed to be absolutely fantasy few months ago – but now became so real for us. Every five minutes I needed to remind myself this wasn’t just some nightmare I needed to wake up from, but a reality we have now,” Margo wrote me.
Photo: Tes Mat.
Needless to say, I was curious. So I gave her a call. I’ve edited our conversation for length, grammar, and clarity.
***
JM: What made you want to start StopFake.org?
MG: On the next morning, on Sunday [March 2], when I woke up I was already pretty determined to get into it, to do something with my skills. On Facebook, we have a community for the Mohyla School of Journalism alumni. I saw a post there. My colleagues offered to get together and just brainstorm. So we go together, and after two hours…the site was born.
JM: What is your goal?
MG: Our goal is to refute the untrue information about Ukraine right now, so [that means] any news that’s spreading information that is untrue. We are trying to get the facts to show that this information is not objective…and maybe even propaganda.
JM: What are your biggest problems with the coverage of Ukraine?
MG: Generally, journalists have the right not to name a source. But the biggest problem is that journalists can fake a source. But since we are taught to believe journalists, and believe the media, we assume they are telling the truth…
So, we have to find some really good facts…to say “this was true, this other thing was not the heart of things.” So, we just leave some news when we see it’s just impossible [to disprove it]. And it’s hard, because sometimes the news is terrible.
JM: Where do you think the worst coverage of Crimea is coming from?
MG: Well…[we go after] the Russian media, mostly, as we see it now.
JM: You don’t like any of the Russian media sources?
MG: It’s not that we don’t like them…[they] have some true news and they are respected, some of them. So when I tell people which side is providing the fake news, I heard some astonishment. They say, “Oh my god! These are respected news agencies!”…But when you are trying to find the starting point, we just see these names over and over again. The news I dealt with was from RIA Novosti very often, for instance.
JM: The news from RIA Novosti was often faked?
MG: Not all RIA Novosti news, but some of the news connected with this specific Ukrainian situation. There were really like a few articles in a row that were untrue…there were the very exact figures that were true, but just the message itself was untrue.
For example, RIA Novosti [once] said that [in Crimea], thirty military units are not on the Kiev side…and only four are still listening to the Kiev command. So, later we talked to the media center in Crimea of the Ministry of Defense…and they say that the truth is the opposite. There are really four, or five, or three military units that…weren’t listening to the Kiev command, but there were thirty military units that were listening to the Kiev command! I mean, [RIA Novosti] were taking the real information…but twisting it.
Photo: Mstyslav Chernov/Wikimedia Commons.
JM: So, a lot of people in the United States—not a lot, but some—like RT, but it’s gotten a lot of criticism for its coverage. What are your feelings?
MG: They have this style…with very good-looking anchors and hosts. I mean…you really like listening to this news…but it’s really not journalism. It’s kind of fiction, somehow… They’re twisting the facts—they are constructing the reality the way they want. And even sometimes, they’re doing it in a nice way, so as not to get caught, but they are constructing it anyway.
JM: So obviously the Russian media has some problems. What about the West’s coverage of the Ukraine crisis?
MG: From the start of our work, foreign media sometimes took the Russian side. They took the news from the Russian media sometimes…so sometimes it was not very objective.
Especially with the German media, when they want to talk about the Nazis. They liked the pictures of our radical right wing which we call the “Right Sector,” so they took those and they played with them more. But I think it’s not as bad now as it was at the start.
JM: So you feel the West is getting it right, and the Russian media that has a bigger problem?
MG: As far as what I’ve seen today—for example, I’ve needed to watch the Washington Post and the Guardian and stuff—it’s not so bad. It’s not the Russian side, but it’s [not the Ukrainian side], it’s a bit like some other side, but it’s okay because they can’t take the Ukrainian side for real.
But I like the idea of the Western media I’ve seen…that shows that Putin is the aggressive side here. This is the point where I assumed that our message was kind of heard.
JM: How is StopFake organized?
MG: We are working online most of the time. Mostly through Facebook, and sometimes through mail. A lot of our readers send us stories they find online somewhere. [They say,] “please try to do something with this, because—I don’t know—we’re scared or we think it’s untrue…please do something!” The funny thing is…I feel like some kind of hotline to help people! Because, you know, they are very emotional sometimes! People ask us to do something with this information because they want to know it’s untrue, and want to feel calm about it.
So the person who checks the mail…[they] share it with everyone who’s online, and we try to discuss it. Should we cover it? How should we cover it? Who should we contact? Who should we talk with about this?
We also have volunteers who translate for our English version, and we also have a French Facebook account, and we’re on Facebook and Twitter.
JM: How many people are involved?
MG: That’s a hard question. We have like probably seventy. But that’s the whole amount of people who…volunteer to translate or work. But the core people, like the real team who are doing StopFake and making it real, I think it’s something like ten. But maybe up to fifteen, but not more than twenty.
The main thing here is that this is a volunteer thing. So people, they have other work to do that we get paid for.
JM: What do you think is going to happen next?
MG: When you have terrifying times like this so many times in a row, at some point you can’t really be frightened anymore. Especially when you are doing the same thing that you thing you should be doing. So this is why I think the next thing may be anything—up to Russia trying to conquer the whole Ukraine. But I think the people here now are stronger—a lot stronger than they have been at any previous time in my life. So, regardless of the things that will happen…I think eventually we will deal with it.
Margo Gontar is a journalist based in Kiev, a former student at the Mohyla School of Journalism, and a member of the team running StopFake.org.
Justin Mitchell is a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C. You can follow him on Twitter @JstnMtchll.
Special thanks to Tes Mat for the pictures. You can follow him on Twitter @cptv8.
