"Strategic manager influences only one thing — the future," said Oleksandr Savruk, dean of the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, opening the Gongadze Prize's Third Media day, a two-day mini-festival that brings together journalists, editors, media executives, and business representatives. The phrase from Savruk's welcome speech seemed to set the vector for the joint discussion. The participants of the Media Day considered how the media affect our future, or more precisely: how the method of forecasting based on verifiable facts will help control the risks of the present. In this field, business people and journalists had the opportunity to understand and hear each other.

"Is it possible for the media to remain independent?" — such was the topic of an open conversation between Dmytro Bondarenko (CEO of Ligamedia, General Director of LIGA Group of Companies), Andriy Boborykin (media manager, executive director of Ukrainian Pravda), Sonia Koshkina (editor-in-chief and co-owner of LB.ua) and Ilona Dovhlan. And if Dmytro Bondarenko provided an optimistic answer to the question of media independence, his media manages to maintain an independent position; Sonya Koshkina has already told a rather candid story of how circumstances sometimes force the editor-in-chief to make decisions that go against journalistic standards.

How to stay true to the truth, despite the informational influences, Andrea Khalupa, an American journalist, writer, and screenwriter, reflected on online lectures. She is the author of Orwell and the Refugees and the screenwriter of The Price of Truth about the Holodomor and journalist Gareth Jones; Khalupa brought back to the world the story of the journalist who was the first to sound the alarm in the media about the Holodomor in Ukraine and paid for it.

Journalists Myroslava Barchuk and Vitaliy Portnikov spoke about acceptable and inadmissible compromises in the media. And Portnikov expressed his position quite uncompromisingly: "The only meaning of journalistic activity is. Where the fact ends, journalism ends. "

In another way, but the same vein, another speaker of Mediaday, media manager Zurab Alasania (Public), voiced his opinion on the responsibility of journalism. To paraphrase Edmund Husserl, he called for a "return to the facts." This position was echoed by other participants in the discussion, moderated by Iryna Slavinska. Philosopher Taras Luty and Lyubov Tsibulska (expert on strategic communications and information security) agreed that freedom of choice is essential for everyone and a journalist.

The event is organized by the Georgy Gongadze Prize — an award for journalists, founded by PEN Ukraine in partnership with Kyiv-Mohyla Business School [kmbs], the Association of Alumni of Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, and Ukrainian Pravda.

With the support of the Media Development Foundation U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine.

Organizational partner — Lviv Media Forum. Media Partner — Detector Media.

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