"A strategic manager influences only one thing — the future," emphasized the dean of the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School Oleksandr Savruk, opening the Third Media Day of the Gongadze Prize, a mini-festival that brought together journalists, editors, media managers, and business representatives for two days. The phrase from Savruk's welcome speech seemed to set the vector for the joint discussion. Media Day participants pondered how exactly media influence our future, or more precisely: how forecasting based on verified facts helps control today's risks. In this field, businessmen and journalists obviously had the opportunity to understand and hear each other.

"Is it possible for media to maintain independence?" — this was the topic of an open discussion with Dmytro Bondarenko (CEO of Ligamedia, General Director of the LIGA Group of Companies), Andriy Boborykin (media manager, executive director of Ukrainska Pravda), Sonia Koshkina (editor-in-chief and co-owner of LB.ua), and Ilona Dovhan, who acted as the moderator. While Dmytro Bondarenko gave an optimistic answer to the question of media independence, stating that his media manages to maintain an independent position; Sonia Koshkina shared a rather candid story about how circumstances sometimes force an editor-in-chief to make decisions that contradict journalistic standards.

How to remain true to the truth despite informational influences was reflected upon in an online lecture by Andrea Chalupa — an American journalist, writer, and screenwriter. She is the author of the book "Orwell and the Refugees" and the screenwriter of the film "Mr. Jones" about the Holodomor and journalist Gareth Jones; Chalupa brought back to the world the story of the journalist who was the first to raise the alarm in the media about the Holodomor in Ukraine and paid the price for it.

Journalists Myroslava Barchuk and Vitaliy Portnikov discussed permissible and impermissible compromises in the media. And Portnikov expressed his position quite uncompromisingly: "The only meaning of journalistic activity is to tell the truth. Where the truth ends, journalism ends."

In a different way, but in the same vein, another Media Day speaker, media manager Zurab Alasania (Public Broadcasting), voiced the idea of journalistic responsibility. Paraphrasing Edmund Husserl, he urged to "return back to the facts." This position resonated with other participants in the discussion, moderated by Iryna Slavinska. Philosopher Taras Lyuty and Liubov Tsybulska (strategic communications and information security expert) agreed that freedom of choice is extremely important for every person, and for a journalist as well.

Event organizer — Gongadze Prize — an award for journalists, founded by PEN Ukraine in partnership with Kyiv-Mohyla Business School [kmbs], Kyiv-Mohyla Business School Alumni Association and Ukrainska Pravda.
Supported by the Media Development Fund of the U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine.
Organizational partner — Lviv Media Forum.
Media partner — Detector Media.

The essence of a journalist's work is to tell the truth