From 27 October to 14 November 2025, the GDIP Media Center hosted the Media Standards in Public Communications training course.
The project was organized by the GDIP team with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the West Ukrainian National University.
The project’s goal was to raise participants’ awareness of media standards, principles of ethical communication, countering disinformation and covering sensitive topics in wartime.
Over the course of three weeks, participants from all over Ukraine developed professional and general competencies in the field of public communications. The programme covered six thematic units: from the basics of media standards, language culture and visual material design to communicating sensitive topics using a human-centred approach.
The final week of the training featured lectures by Lina Kushch, First Secretary of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine and co-founder of the Numo, Sisters! organization; Eleonora Chornomorchenko, Editor-in-Chief of Veteran Hub; and Kateryna Datsenko, journalist and co-founder of the Vshanui public initiative (Moment of Honour NGO).
On Monday, 10 November, during her lecture on Sensitive Materials in Public Communications, Lina Kushch outlined the key principles of ethical communication with victims of gender-based violence and conflict-related sexual violence: respect for dignity, informed consent, confidentiality, do-no-harm, and the avoidance of sensationalism. She explained how to build dialogue appropriately, which terms should be avoided, how to preserve anonymity, and why it is essential to refrain from language that deprives people of their agency. The expert illustrated these points with examples from journalistic practice and an analysis of improper media materials:
‘A person must always come first — even above the interests of an investigation or society.’
On Wednesday, 12 November, Eleonora Chornomorchenko delivered the second lecture on the same topic. During her presentation, the expert shared practical recommendations on ethical interaction and the creation of materials about service personnel, veterans and their family members. The session focused on the idea that communication with veterans and military personnel must be not only sensitive, but also honest, respectful and professional.
‘Today, both civilians and military personnel, veterans and their families are living through wartime. And therefore, in order to move forward, we must be ethical, sensitive to one another and aware of each other’s context,’
emphasised Eleonora Chornomorchenko. The expert also addressed the trauma-informed approach in public communications, the formulation of messages that avoid retraumatisation, stereotypes, generalisations and manipulation, as well as the use of correct terminology and ethical language.
On Friday, 14 November, participants of the training attended a lecture by Kateryna Datsenko titled Memorialisation of War in Public Communications. The speaker discussed the culture and politics of memory, explaining that individual experiences become the foundation of collective memory, which is shaped through the media, everyday practices and rituals — from moments of silence to personal forms of commemoration. The expert emphasised the scale of the present-day process of creating shared memory:
‘Everything you have lived through, or what your loved one is living through… In this way, we are in fact forming this shared collective memory — when we, as witnesses of these events, pass them on to our relatives, family members and friends. This process is now expanding, and over time it will evolve into certain small rituals.’
The training course brought together civil servants, members of civil society organizations and educators from Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Donetsk, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv and the Kyiv region, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zakarpattia, and Zhytomyr regions. After attending 9 sessions and completing the final test, nearly 70 participants received a professional development certificate in D4 specialty ‘Public Management and Administration’, as approved by the Order of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine No. 100-l dated 20 June 2025.
