Roman Ivanovych Vintoniv (born March 5, 1982 in Karaganda) is a Ukrainian television journalist, actor, screenwriter, and musician. He is known to Ukrainian viewers by the name of his humorous image - Michael Schur.
Former member of the board of PJSC "NSTU", responsible for socio-political activities.
He was born on March 5, 1982 in Kazakhstan (then the Kazakh SSR). He grew up in the town of Dolyna, Ivano-Frankivsk region.
In his last school years he was preparing to become an economist, but entered the Faculty of Journalism of Ivan Franko Lviv State University, where he graduated from the Department of Television and Radio Broadcasting. During the school years he was an intern at the Khmelnytsky newspaper "Ye" and at the Lviv TRC "Lux", where he was later invited to work at a TV studio. After that he worked for about a year on the K1 TV channel.
Since January 2007 - journalist on the TV channel "Inter". Since May 2007 - journalist of the newly established company LLC "National Information Systems" (NIS), which produced news for the TV channel "Inter". He was a reporter for the "Details of the Week" program. After the change of NIS leadership and editorial policy to the pro-government one and the dismissal of Natalka Humeniuk, who held the position of the head of the international department, Roman Vintoniv resigned on December 11, 2009.
From January 15, 2010 he worked as a journalist in the Ukrainian service of the BBC.
From June 2010 he held the position of editor-in-chief of the information service of the new TV channel "ZIK", and from September, after the launch of the channel, he also played the role of TV presenter of the program "Look at the Week". At that time, Vintoniv was responsible for launching and releasing four news programs - "Day View", "Week View", weather forecast and "It's really serious". The last program combined elements of hidden camera, humor and social issues. He resigned in November 2010.
After that he worked as a journalist in the editorial office of the program "Breakfast with 1+1". In December 2010, after a fight in the Verkhovna Rada, Vintoniv came to parliament in a New Year's hare costume, commenting on it: "If the Verkhovna Rada turns into a circus, it must be officially recognized and dressed accordingly."
Since February 2012, Roman Vintoniv has been working as a senior editor of the new social talk show "Ukraine Speaks", which is filmed by "The Show Time" for the TV channel "Ukraine".
In February-March 2012, he was also transferred from the "Breakfast with 1+1" editorial office to the "1+1" channel's investigative journalism department. However, his first plot for the program "Money" was not aired. The department's editor-in-chief, Maksym Sukhenko, explained that Vintoniv's "cheerful joke" in the style "developed at Breakfast" does not fall under the format of the program. On October 3, 2012, the Toronto Television channel was created on YouTube, where Roman Vintoniv appeared in the image of Canadian journalist Michael Schur. A series of interviews with Ukrainian politicians was funded by a grant from New Citizen and Honest.
In March 2013, the program "But there is one but" (AEOA) was launched, the author and host of which was Roman Vintoniv in the image of Michael Schur. The program was a non-profit project implemented jointly with the site ukrlife.tv. Later, Yevhen Samoilenko and Andriy Kondratenko also co-wrote the script.
On April 26, 2014, a month before the 2014 Presidential Elections in Ukraine, Roman Vintoniv, together with Public Television, began filming the program "Vyo to the Throne", in which he considered presidential candidates in the image of Michael Schur. In total, there were five issues of "Vyo to the Throne", dedicated to eight of the 21 candidates. After the election, starting from June 3, 2014, four more issues of the program were released under a changed name - "Already on the Throne".
On October 18, 2014, the First National hosted the premiere of a new weekly satirical news digest "Uteodin" with host Roman Vintoniv as Michael Schur. Creative producer of the project - Eugene Samoilenko, screenwriters and editors - Andrew Kondratenko, Alexander Ochakovsky, Yurko Kosmina. On July 25, 2015, the last, 35th issue of this show of the season was released.
At the same time, Roman Vintoniv was drafted into the army (in the last sixth wave of mobilization) and he was to take part in the Embedded Journalism project, which aims to establish cooperation between the military and journalists. However, he served in the 169th training center in the village of Desna, where he spent a total of more than a year (about 444 days). He was involved in an intensive training group, which was being prepared for participation in the anti-terrorist operation, but the training was stopped due to contradictions with the statute of the Armed Forces. He was demobilized on October 18, 2016.
On November 6, 2016, the first issue of the new program "#@)₴?$0" ("Lattice, dog, parenthesis, hryvnia, question mark, dollar, zero") was released, which is led by Roman Vintoniv as Michael Schur. The co-author of the program is creative producer Yevhen Samoilenko. The new program is broadcast on Sundays in three broadcasters - UA: Pershom, Channel 24 and Hromadsky, and Toronto Television YouTube.
On October 29, 2017, the late-evening talk show "Chereshchur" with Michael Schur began airing on UA: Pershom.
On August 1, 2019, he resigned from Public, where he has been a member of the board since 2017, to focus on his own project.
For some time, Roman Vintoniv called his creative methods of non-banal journalism "stupid" and "hooliganism" (hooligan journalism).
Music
In his spare time, Roman Vintoniv writes music. He was a member of the Lviv band "Tracer", as well as created with friends by the band "Extra! Extra!" In Kiev.
The song "Guitar Bust", performed in the image of Michael Schur, gained popularity during the Euromaidan.
Awards
2017 - Alexander Kryvenko Award "For Progress in Journalism"
2020 - award from "Ukrainian Truth" - Inspiration of the Year
Nominations
2020 - Georgy Gongadze Prize
