One Ukrainian election protest - small but bold
Category: News Commentary...
Posted Monday, November 29, 2004 at 04:27 PM [GMT-6]

As the dispute over the outcome of the recent presidential election in Ukraine continues to occupy center stage, we're beginning to hear stories of individuals who are taking small but bold steps to make their voices heard. Sometimes those voices aren't audible...but they nevertheless speak quite loudly.

Take, for example, Natalia Dmytruk, the sign-language interpreter at Ukraine's state TV channel. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Ms. Dmytruk, fed up with the broadcaster's slanted view of the election and the resulting protests, took matters into her own hands.

Conspiring with her makeup artist, Ms. Dmytruk tied an orange ribbon inside her sleeve. Orange is the color of Mr. Yushchenko's campaign, and of the spreading protest movement that many Ukrainians now call the Orange Revolution. Then after interpreting the news broadcast for the deaf on Nov. 25, Ms. Dmytruk bared her wrist. "Everything you have heard so far on the news was a total lie," she says she told viewers in sign language. "Yushchenko is our true president. Goodbye, you will probably never see me here again."
...
As she walked out of the studio after her broadcast, Ms. Dmytruk, who has been at the station for three years, was greeted with hugs from her shocked colleagues. Word quickly spread around the building, already in turmoil. Even the station's technicians and the staffs of the daily children's show and other nonpolitical programs decided to join the strike over the coverage, some of them inspired by Ms. Dmytruk's broadcast.

Ms. Dmytruk has kept her job, which is an indication of the extent to which the state TV station has caved to pressure from the masses to offer a more neutral view of current events.

There's a lesson here for all of us. We can influence our broadcast media with simple hand movements. In the Ukraine, it was done with some sign language and a wristband; in our country, a couple of clicks on the remote control will send a similar message, if performed by enough people.

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