Ukrainian media community since 2013 is undergoing a painful process of continuously adjusting to and counteracting the circumstances of conflict, with external and internal propaganda, economic pressure being a consequence of the more general crisis, and guidelines coming from the state institutions, such as the Ministry of Information Policy (MIP) (e.g. Bolin, Jordan & Ståhlberg 2016, Pantti 2016, Nygren & Hök 2016). Nygren et al. (2016), based on content analysis and interviews with journalists, conclude that one of the main challenges for the Ukrainian journalists today is a conflict between the ideal of neutrality in coverage and favoring of “patriotic journalism” in practice. According to Ukrainian scholars, there are today three groups of journalists: patriotism-charged, who give up standards for the sake of fighting propaganda; supporters of universal standards; and a mixed group (Dutsyk 2017). 

In order to highlight the role of professional journalism organizations in this divide, this paper focuses on a specific case: project “Two countries – one profession” initiated and supported by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. Being based on the dialogue between Ukrainian and Russian professional journalism organizations around professional standards and safety of journalists, the project is perceived as contradictory and provocative by a part of the Ukrainian media community who suggest that it is “non-patriotic” and “anti-Ukrainian”. 

The paper is based on analysis of observations of meetings between the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine and the Russian Union of Journalists, interviews with representatives of these and other media organizations and experts in Ukraine, focus groups with the journalists involved in the project, and negative and positive reactions to this project by the Ukrainian media community. It uses Hanitzsch’s model of deconstruction of journalism culture (Hanitzsch 2007, Nygren et al 2016) and Mouffe’s (2013, p.7) conceptualization of agonistic vs. antagonistic struggle.