Belarusian Television’s propagandist fired for a picture of sleeping journalists?

Ex-head of the information staff of Lukashenka Dzmitry Kostsin does not work at BT anymore.

A month ago the host of the talk-show “Forum” was changed. The TV program became famous after the episode with the “chain tourists”, which aired in October last year, Nasha Niva reports.

“Forum” was launched a year ago and one of the old-timers of the Belarusian Television and Radio company Dzmitry Kostsin, immediately became the host of the show. At the time he was also the section head of the TV-news agency department.

He was one of the TV-stars at the beginning of the 1990-ies. He first went on air on 1 January 1992, dealt with music broadcasting, later he created projects in the youths editorial office of the Belarusian Television, was the creator of “Autopark” - the first program about cars.

In 2005 the TV anchor received a special Lukashenka’s award for culture and arts figures, and in 2006 he headed the ruler’s information office during the presidential elections.

Lately Kostsin worked at two TV projects – “Around the planet” and “Forum”.

In December 2012 the position of the talk-show’s host was suddenly taken by Dzmitry Bachkou from “Panarama”.

By the way, Bachkou got the position at “Panarama” also after a sudden leave of a colleague. Back then it was Yury Kruglik who left for St. Petersburg.

But what about Kostsin? The newspaper managed to reach the TV anchor on the phone. He explained that he is on a sabbatical leave. Kostsin is studying at the graduate school of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts and confesses that the preparations for the defense of a scientific work takes too much time for him to be able to superpose it with television.

When asked whether he intended to come back on air, Dzmitry Kostsin confidently responded: “Yes”. Nevertheless, on the Belarusian Television and Radio Company’s web-site he is already deleted from the list of anchors.

However, the sources link his leave with the publication of a scandalous photo on the internet, where journalists of the ONT were pictured sleeping before the press-conference of Aliaksandr Lukashenka.