PUBLIC INTEREST JOURNALISM LAB
‘WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MURDER OF GEORGIY GONGADZE?’ IS ONE OF THEM.
The Murder of Gongadze: 20 Years of Searching for the Truth
At the time of his murder, in September 2000, Georgian-born Gongadze was a successful journalist and a household name in Ukrainian society. Starting his journalism career on Ukrainian TV, he quickly gained ground and appeared as a guest on the most popular political talk shows.
When the number of internet users in Ukraine was only around 200,000, Gongadze, alongside journalist Olena Prytula, founded the political news site Ukrainska Pravda.
“Ukrainska Pravda was one of the pioneers amongst publications. I can’t say that the internet had any special role at the time, at least not in political journalism. But [Gongadze] already started gaining momentum, specifically with his texts on Ukrainska Pravda,” said chief editor of Ukrainian newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, Yulia Mostova.
Gongadze’s fast-growing bullish success in political journalism quickly started making waves in Ukraine’s central government. A man whose success as the president of Ukraine depended on his iron fist and a strict hierarchy, Leonid Kuchma, was finding it hard to accept Gongadze’s frank articles and approaches in political journalism.
“Look at that *** bastard, Georgian, that Georgian,” then-President Kuchma allegedly said about Gongadze in audio recordings famously made public after the murder. “Someone must be sponsoring him.”
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