Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on a liberal movement for reform of the Ukrainian media who members perceive most Ukrainian journalists as failing the standards of good professionalism. I examine possible explanations for their ascriptions of systemic and individual failure.

Paper long abstract:

Exploring the role of failure in ethical change, I focus on a group of western-funded Ukrainian journalists who embraced a vision of liberal, 'Europeanising' professional reform as a project of moral transformation. Seeking to re-organise news reporting around the ideals of balanced objectivity and impartiality, they perceive most Ukrainian media as failing such standards. I argue that their own experiences of professional failure, foundational to their activism, lead them to interpret journalistic malpractice as a matter of individual lack of virtue. Such declarations of systemic ethical-professional failure, in turn, fuel divisive claims to moral distinction and conflict within the profession.