BeeBoy 🇬🇧🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 Slava Ukraini

Olga, I think your response says quite a lot about how The Kyiv Independent treats other journalists. My Ukrainian editor used five seconds of your animated map and cropped out your logo. I didn’t know, and I didn’t catch it. That was wrong. He’s apologised, and I take responsibility. But why on earth didn’t you just email me? One message and I would have removed or replaced it immediately. Instead, your team had an entire documentary with 1.3 million views taken down and put a copyright strike against my channel. And now you’re lecturing me about journalistic solidarity? Nobody disputes that your team deserves credit. But there’s a difference between protecting your work and choosing the most damaging option available without even attempting a conversation. Your suggestion that I can simply re-upload the video is particularly insulting. You don’t magically recover 1.3 million views, the audience, the momentum or the damage to a channel by uploading another file. As the editor of a digital publication, you know that. And this isn’t the first time I’ve heard troubling accounts of your organisation’s approach to copyright, including disputes with other journalists over terminology used by Ukrainians themselves to describe Russian attacks on civilians. I’m not naming those journalists, but I think the pattern deserves scrutiny. You claim to champion independent journalism, yet when another journalist makes a correctable mistake, your first response is to have their work removed. What kind of journalistic culture is that? I emailed your organisation seeking a resolution. I received no response, but you’ve found the time to publicly accuse me of lacking respect for journalism. I’ve admitted my mistake. You’ve shown absolutely no willingness to question your own conduct. You had every right to ask for credit. You chose to escalate instead. This could have been fixed with one email. The fact that you still seem unable to recognise that is a far more damning reflection on your editorial judgment than anything you’ve accused me of. Retract the complaint. Remove the strike. And treat independent journalists with the same respect you demand for your own.

Trump’s envoy called Putin a humanitarian today. This is the sound of his humanitarian ballistic missiles exploding in Kyiv right now