Journalism Ethics Commission complains about film on Ukraine's revolution aired by French Canal+

The complaint will concern the video film that was aired by the Canal+ entitled 'Ukraine: The Masks of the Revolution' and will contain a request to consider and evaluate the work of the journalist and the editor, who made and aired this film, as regards whether it complies with the norms of professional ethics. "The French press association has expressed its readiness to consider the complaint as a part of the cooperation of the self-regulatory agencies of the Alliance of Independent Press Councils of Europe, where Commission on Journalistic Ethics is a member. The complaint will be based on the materials of Ukrainian and foreign journalists, who are outraged by the one-sided visuals, sound bites, comments that distort the meaning, and are in fact attempts by the author of the video film to create the 'body of evidence', supporting their own preconceptions," secretary of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics NGO Tetiana Kotiuzhynska was quoted as saying. The NGO said it had experience in lodging complaints against journalists from other countries and also of cases where these were successfully considered. Canal+, a channel of the paid TV broadcasting service of the Group Canal Plus, aired the mentioned video film on February 1, presenting it as a documentary, despite requests of the Ukrainian Embassy to France to take it off the air. Experts said the film contained anti-Ukrainian and propagandistic cliches, manipulations and false facts, and was overall a product of the Russian propaganda, in particular, it portrayed the Revolution of Dignity as staged by the U.S. and bringing neo-Nazi groups in control of the country.