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  • How Belarusian officials withhold information about COVID-19 from the public. Editors of Belarusian media tell their stories

    State propaganda accuses independent colleagues of misinformation and whipping up public hysteria, authorities threaten them with warnings and fines. At the same time, officials meet the journalists with a wall of silence.

    It is extremely difficult to get either their comments, or official responses to media enquiries.

    Belarusian Association of Journalists asked colleagues from different media to tell their stories on how officials denied them information.

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    Iryna Leushyna, BelaPAN chief editor: it is practically impossible to get a comment from the Health Ministry

    The Min­istry’s press ser­vice posts on Viber and Telegram for jour­nal­ists who cov­er COVID-19. The posts are reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed. How­ev­er, the infor­ma­tion is incom­plete. For exam­ple, there is no data on patients with severe dis­ease on mechan­i­cal ven­ti­la­tion, or on local out­breaks of COVID-19.

    There is no infor­ma­tion on the method­ol­o­gy of how COVID-19 deaths are deter­mined. There­fore,  it remains unclear why Belarus has such a low COVID-19 death toll, while the dis­ease cas­es grow fast.  The Min­istry of Health says that patients who died had had chron­ic dis­eases, but in some cas­es, their rel­a­tives dis­agree with the Min­istry.

    The Min­istry’s Spokesper­son is very reluc­tant to com­mu­ni­cate with reporters, mak­ing it almost impos­si­ble to get her com­ment. Only in iso­lat­ed cas­es, she helped to inter­pret the con­fus­ing fig­ures in sit­u­a­tion reports.

    The Min­istry of Health has not held press con­fer­ences for jour­nal­ists since April 17.

    The behav­ior of pub­lic health offi­cials dur­ing press con­fer­ences is a sep­a­rate mat­ter. They turn on caps lock voice, and lec­ture jour­nal­ists on how to work and what to write about instead of giv­ing clear answers to ques­tions.

    About 10 years ago, a new pol­i­cy was imposed in the health care sys­tem. It required all its offi­cials and experts not to talk to reporters, unless it was coor­di­nat­ed with the Min­istry’s press ser­vice. Unequal access to infor­ma­tion for the state and inde­pen­dent media has become espe­cial­ly vis­i­ble dur­ing COVID-19 cov­er­age.

    For exam­ple, it is telling that the offi­cial covid-19 page stopcovid.belta.by with the Health Min­istry’s logo is host­ed by the state news agency BelTA.

    The state-run media reg­u­lar­ly pub­lish inter­views, com­ments, and expla­na­tions by med­ical and pub­lic health offi­cials, while inde­pen­dent media are denied such an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Pub­lic health experts are afraid to give com­ments in the open, or to pro­vide their names. Often they are reluc­tant to have their com­ments audio record­ed. In this sit­u­a­tion, jour­nal­ists con­stant­ly feel stressed and vul­ner­a­ble: they risk being pros­e­cut­ed for alleged defama­tion or fake news.

    Nev­er-end­ing reproach­es of scare mon­ger­ing and spec­u­lat­ing on the dis­ease by the state leader and oth­er offi­cials also put psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure on inde­pen­dent media and reporters.

     

     

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    Valiantsin Zhdanko, RFE/RL: We received no responses, even to our written enquiries.

    By the epi­dem­ic, we had a work­ing rela­tion­ship with the press ser­vice of the Min­istry of Health. Yes, doc­tors had to get per­mis­sion from the Min­istry to give any inter­view or com­ment.

    In fact, there is some­thing odd about a chief physi­cian or a pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine hav­ing to ask per­mis­sion from health offi­cials to talk about their work. We had to put up with it.

    How­ev­er, in the new cir­cum­stances of COVID-19, this sys­tem presents a pow­er­ful bar­ri­er to the free­dom of speech. You call any hos­pi­tal, pub­lic health office, or insti­tu­tion, and get a ‘no’ every­where: they refuse to talk and refer you to the Min­istry of Health.

    Its press ser­vice was great in the first weeks of the epi­dem­ic.  Spokesper­son Yulia Baradun com­mu­ni­cat­ed with reporters on her mobile phone and in her social media accounts.

    That did­n’t last long. Now, every RFE/RL reporter has dozens of unan­swered calls in their phone. Well, some­times our jour­nal­ists suc­ceed in reach­ing her from some­one else’s num­ber.

    To be fair, I man­aged to get through to Ms. Baradun on 29 April, and she promised to respond to a for­mal enquiry.

    Well, RFE/RL has sent dozens of such enquiries since ear­ly March — both in social media and to the Min­istry’s email.  We have received zero answers.

    In health care cri­sis, these issues are urgent. With dis­turb­ing reports of over­crowd­ed hos­pi­tals that start­ed to come from Viteb­sk in late March, we need­ed to ver­i­fy infor­ma­tion imme­di­ate­ly. What is the use of fig­ures on the infect­ed in late March if we receive them in 30 days?

    The Min­istry of Health car­ried out week­ly press con­fer­ences, but RFE/RL jour­nal­ists are not informed about them.

    We have repeat­ed­ly asked their per­mis­sion to inter­view the doc­tors who work with COVID-19 and pub­lic health experts, or to report from a hos­pi­tal. We man­aged to get the Min­istry’s per­mis­sion once, and made a great inter­view with Fio­dar Karpen­ka, direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Trans­fu­sion and Med­ical Biotech­nolo­gies. It was pub­lished on 30 March.

    To our deep regret, the ghost­ing that we have been encoun­ter­ing recent­ly on the part of the Health Min­istry’s press ser­vice makes it very dif­fi­cult to deliv­er infor­ma­tion to pub­lic.

     

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    Mikalai Kazlovich, chief editor of Onliner.by: We keep stumbling on cold backs of officials: «That’s not in the rules».

    Our news­room dis­cuss­es all the non­sense around access to offi­cial infor­ma­tion that some­times occurs in the Belaru­sian media space. We just can’t con­nect the dots. In the era of COVID, we are bom­bard­ed with tons of rumors in social media and Telegram chan­nels. Our email is bar­raged with let­ters.

    How­ev­er, while try­ing to check all this stuff and stop the cir­cu­la­tion of fake news, our reporters keep stum­bling on cold backs of offi­cials: «It’s not in the rules». Keep­ing silence gives a green light to rumors! Hell no. No place for log­ic here.

    Dur­ing the first major out­break (Viteb­sk), we tried to ver­i­fy the infor­ma­tion on the road blocks that had alleged­ly been enforced at the city. We heard from peo­ple that stu­dents were not allowed to return to col­lege, that bus­es are turned back, and much more. A clas­sic ‘pan­ic attack’ caused by the lack of infor­ma­tion. But it was impos­si­ble to get their com­ments quick­ly.  There was a sim­i­lar sto­ry a bit lat­er, when para­medics dis­closed the out­break at one of Min­sk emer­gency sta­tions. All gov­ern­ment agen­cies, includ­ing Min­sk city exec­u­tive com­mit­tee, stopped their com­mu­ni­ca­tion with reporters and decid­ed to remain silent.

    No mat­ter where our reporters go, any city or town, they face the prob­lem with access to infor­ma­tion.  Beshankovichy, Sto­bt­sy, Slonim… Local cities are the main areas of silence. I can under­stand health work­ers.  Their job is to treat peo­ple. We appre­ci­ate that.  I can not under­stand health care offi­cials respon­si­ble for com­mu­ni­ca­tion.  Local ide­ol­o­gists call quit­sies, in their usu­al man­ner: the virus is not their busi­ness. Increas­ing­ly, they jump on jour­nal­ists accus­ing them of fuel­ing pan­ic.

    How­ev­er, this entire pan­dem­ic sto­ry is bring­ing some­thing new on the agen­da. The rapid growth of Health Min­istry’s Telegram-chan­nel cer­tain­ly gives a boost to the devel­op­ment of such chan­nels of oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies .  This will facil­i­tate access to infor­ma­tion. The Press Cen­ter start­ed livestream­ing. That’s a good thing. It’s no world-shak­er: these are fun­da­men­tals of a healthy and open infor­ma­tion soci­ety that is able to defeat the pan­dem­ic (just as WHO says) much faster than a closed and intim­i­dat­ed one.

     

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    Yahor Martsinovich, chief editor of Nasha Niva: Their system of communication with media is a disaster

    The Health Min­istry’s sys­tem of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the media is a dis­as­ter. Local offi­cials, or head physi­cians at hos­pi­tals do not pro­vide any infor­ma­tion: ‘Talk to the press ser­vice of the Min­istry, please.’

    The Min­istry’s spokesper­son, Yulia Baradun, would sim­ply not return calls. Or, she would read mes­sages and give no answer. She might answer one in five mes­sages.

    In fact, she had the same man­ner of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the media when she served as spokesper­son of the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion. I see that Baradun is not good for this job. It is biz­zare that jour­nal­ists have less prob­lems reach­ing Min­is­ter Karanik on his cell phone, risk­ing to dis­tract him at work.

    The death of a woman in Viteb­sk, whose fam­i­ly was told about COVID as the death cause, is a typ­i­cal exam­ple. Baradun ignored NN reporters for hald a day. When the arti­cle came out with­out her com­men­tary, she imme­di­ate­ly answered in direct mes­sages: «She had many diag­noses, but not COVID.»

    When we added her words to the arti­cle, she got angry: «I told you this pri­vate­ly.»

     

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    Ulyana Babayed, editor of Society section at TUT.BY: We have accumulated many questions, and we want experts to answer them.

    At the begin­ning of the pan­dem­ic the Belaru­sian Health Min­istry was more open. For jour­nal­ists, it was a plea­sure to work with them. Then the sit­u­a­tion changed. But even in this new sit­u­a­tion, the Min­istry of Health is more open for the media than oth­er agen­cies.

    Well, the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists are not spoiled by access to infor­ma­tion. We have very few agen­cies will­ing to prompt­ly pro­vide infor­ma­tion, many col­leagues are used to fight­ing their way to them. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the Min­istry of Health remains one of few agen­cies that gives at least some infor­ma­tion to jour­nal­ists.

    How­ev­er, for some rea­son, their most recent brief­in­gs were held in ‘no ques­tions’ for­mat. This is real­ly bad: we have accu­mu­lat­ed many ques­tions, and we want experts to answer them. Read­ers need exper­tise and analy­sis. This is what we real­ly need to stop the pan­ic and tell peo­ple some­thing more than sit­u­a­tion reports and sta­tis­tics.

    But even with this stunt­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the Min­istry of Health behaves bet­ter than many oth­er state agen­cies. Although WHO rec­om­men­da­tions say that dur­ing pan­dem­ic, oth­er agen­cies should demon­strate greater open­ness, too.

    It would be great if oth­er state agen­cies gave us and our read­ers some clear and sim­ple tips, and told peo­ple what to expect. For exam­ple, we need to know how they will grade school stu­dents, how social ben­e­fits are to be paid, etc.

    Still, we can’t get every­thing what we need from the Health Min­istry, either. We receive a lot of infor­ma­tion from read­ers, and we need to ver­i­fy it. But the Min­istry is not always eager to pro­vide us with infor­ma­tion. Then we try to ver­i­fy it in oth­er agen­cies.

     

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    Alaksei Shota, editor of Hrodna.life (Hrodna): «We had to fake cookie delivery to find out about the lockdown.»

    The main prob­lem is that no one wants to take respon­si­bil­i­ty and pro­vide infor­ma­tion. Agen­cies just refer you to some­where else.  That’s hap­pen­ing every­where: in pub­lic health ser­vices or com­pa­nies with covid sus­pi­cions, for instance, at the local mar­kets.

    We had to phone every man­ag­er at the region­al state com­pa­ny run­ning local mar­kets to ver­i­fy infor­ma­tion about one of the mar­kets in Hrod­na. Final­ly, we had to pre­tend to be a cook­ie deliv­ery to hear about the lock­down of one of its parts. This is not what jour­nal­ists do, but it was the only option.

    Pub­lic health ser­vices are the same way: there are spe­cial phone num­bers, hot­lines, etc., but they are not ready to say any­thing beyond gen­er­al fig­ures pro­vid­ed by the Health Min­istry.

    To find out infor­ma­tion from par­tic­u­lar hos­pi­tals, we have to search the social media for their staff, doc­tors, who are not too keen to talk to us. This is the only way how we can ver­i­fy infor­ma­tion from anony­mous Telegram-chan­nels. Some things turn out to be true, some not.  Almost every­thing is unof­fi­cial infor­ma­tion.

     

    Piotr Kuzniatsou, Silnye Novosti (Homel):

    In Homel, this is our usu­al mode of oper­a­tion: the author­i­ties do every­thing pos­si­ble not to share infor­ma­tion with Sil­nye Novosti. This is true not only about the cur­rent pan­dem­ic, but about every­thing. We are often encoun­tered sit­u­a­tions when an offi­cial seems to be okay about talk­ing to us but asks us to call back in some time. Call­ing back, we usu­al­ly hear ‘no com­ments’  from them. We under­stand that they have just dis­cussed this with the local ide­ol­o­gy depart­ment. We also know about the tac­it pol­i­cy not to com­mu­ni­cate with our out­let. Some­times it goes beyond com­mon sense.

    In the begin­ning of the epi­dem­ic, we tried to go through offi­cial chan­nels to find out about the sit­u­a­tion in Homel region: we called our Region­al Health Author­i­ty and san­i­tary-epi­demi­o­log­i­cal agency, but no one would talk to us. Sullen silence, with ref­er­ence to the offi­cial press releas­es of the Health Min­istry.

    There­fore, we have adopt­ed a dif­fer­ent strat­e­gy of work­ing with the sources who have access to infor­ma­tion and are ready to share it anony­mous­ly.

    We pub­lish news about the sit­u­a­tion in the region, if we can ver­i­fy it by at least two anony­mous sources. I am proud hat now we are the only local media in the coun­try that pro­vides com­plete and reli­able cov­er­age on the spread of COVID in our area, despite the resis­tance and silence of the author­i­ties.

    How­ev­er, fig­ures are ot enough. Often we have to work with per­son­al sto­ries. Obvi­ous­ly, the lack of trans­paren­cy plays a huge role in such cas­es. The author­i­ties do not only hide infor­ma­tion, but are pret­ty good at manip­u­la­tion.

    Remem­ber the first non-import­ed case of infec­tion in Zhytkavichy?  Hav­ing learned about the case from our sources, we were the first ones to write about it.  Health min­is­ter Karanik con­firmed that pub­licly, but refused to com­ment on it for us or oth­er media.  How­ev­er, lat­er the diag­no­sis was ‘can­celed.’ This is pure manip­u­la­tion when they tried to hide the prob­lem but we still found out.  A real man of his word: he gives it, and he takes it back.

    Anoth­er exam­ple. We know that one of Homel schools prin­ci­pal is in hos­pi­tal with coro­n­avirus. Since this is about some­one in par­tic­u­lar, we can’t just pub­lish this infor­ma­tion with­out ver­i­fy­ing it. Oth­er­wise the author­i­ties could do the same as with the woman from Zhytkavichy: just say it was not true — and how could we check if they were not lying?  We call the school, and they tell us we need to call the hos­pi­tal to find out about the diag­no­sis.

    The hos­pi­tal says it’s a med­ical secret. We’ve come full cir­cle. But this is social­ly sig­nif­i­cant infor­ma­tion, as the school con­tin­ues to teach stu­dents, and uni­formed peo­ple can’t make infomed deci­sion about their behav­ior.

    We have dozens of cas­es like these two. The author­i­ties are at pains to keep con­crete cas­es in secret or manip­u­late real­i­ty and try to squeeze it into their vision. Some­times they do it in hind­sight, when the fact has already been pub­lished.

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