The Media Missionaries

4. RUSSIA, CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

OVERVIEW: A DECADE OF DEVELOPMENT

The story of U.S. public and private media development aid to the post-Communist world has been so extensive and complex that it is worthy of book-length, scholarly assessments impossible to provide under the scope of this report. However, some of the points listed below should be helpful to understanding what kind of aid has been delivered, what questions have arisen, and what lessons have been learned.(1)

With glasnost and the fall of Communism, Americans poured into the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe to participate in their exciting rush toward democracy. In 1990, Secretary of State James Baker announced at Charles University in Prague the establishment of a new International Media Fund, headed by former USIA official Marvin Stone, to help establish independent, non-governmental media across the former Communist bloc. Prominent American journalists swarmed into the trendy capitals: Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Moscow. Charles University in Prague suddenly found itself besieged by American journalism school partners. But soon it was clear that this "parachute professor" model was designed more for the Americans than for the foreigners. "The joke became something like, 'We've had U.S media assistance; Ben Bradlee was here for lunch one day,'" recalled veteran trainer Ed Baumeister.(2)

No non-governmental philanthropic organization arrived earlier, was more generous or more influential in democracy building across the former Communist world, than George Soros' Open Society Institute. For example, it was OSI who provided $80,000 to found Moscow's first independent radio station, Radio Echo, through Internews as the intermediary. "If Echo hadn't been in the Moscow White House, Yeltsin wouldn't have been able to broadcast, and might have lost the coup," said Manana Aslamazian of Internews. Soros funded everything: training, production, competitions, and direct assistance to media, transmitters.

Soros has spent $360 million over the last decade on democracy building in Russia alone.(3) While just an estimated 10% of that went specifically to media development, all of OSI's grants aimed to help support the development of democracy and civil society, the "enabling environment" necessary for independent journalism to survive.

In the heyday of media development in 1993-94, thousands of new non-state commercial television stations were created across the former U.S.S.R. "There was a time when two new companies were being opened every day," said Aslamazian. Under her leadership, Internews is credited with developing independent broadcast television all across Russia with USAID and Soros funds.

COORDINATING THE MEDIA MISSIONARIES

As American journalism trainers in the early 1990s tripped over each other in foreign restaurants, they decided more coordination would be useful. The Center for Foreign Journalists (later ICFJ) was asked to track media development and training by creating the Clearinghouse on the Central and East European Press, with $50,000 each from the International Media Fund and the Freedom Forum. A government contractor, the Academy for Educational Development, tracked broadcast media for a year, but then gave it up so ICFJ has been collecting both print and broadcast assistance data ever since, now published on its IJNet website.

James Greenfield, a longtime New York Timesman, also concluded that a more systematic in-country approach also was needed. His Independent Journalism Foundation (IJF) (4) , backed by the Knight and New York Times foundations, established Centers for Independent Journalism first in Prague, then Bratislava (after Czechoslovakia's velvet divorce), Bucharest and Budapest with Don Wilson and Nancy Ward. These resource centers have been offering help ever since in basic journalism, research, database building, circulation, and business practice. (The Prague center was closed in 2000 as a new center was opened in Cambodia.) They worked with visiting American Knight fellows, local print and broadcast journalists, and their professional organizations. "In my view, they are the ideal form of media assistance," concluded Baumeister, who has worked in the region for much of the decade.

In 1992, Greenfield, Tom Winship and Dana Bullen of the World Press Freedom Committee brainstormed with Creed Black of the Knight Foundation in Miami and created the Knight International Press Fellowship Program. The program, run by ICFJ, emphasized long-term media assistance by carefully prepared American journalists whose work would be tailored to specific local needs.

Meanwhile, in Russia, the New York Times was partnering with Izvestia, Hearst started a paper in Moscow, and a small San Francisco-based organization called Internews began to build Russia's first independent television network, training thousands of broadcasters across the country. Soon the U.S. government was spending more than just about anyone else, except perhaps George Soros. Internews won ever-increasing government grants as USIS and USAID's primary broadcast development contractor in the former Soviet Union. Five years later, the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), a government-funded Cold War scientific exchange contractor, jumped in to do print training and now has huge AID contracts in the Balkans and newly independent states (NIS).

The Freedom Forum started to build media libraries in coordination with the Centers for Independent Journalism and other partners. In Moscow, New York University's Center for War, Peace and the News Media, run by Robert Manoff, founded RAPIC, the Russian Press and Information Center (now the Press Development Institute.) They did print training with 19 field offices around Russia. But RAPIC/PDI has become by all accounts an expensive quagmire of union problems and other management issues; it serves today as a cautionary example, which has not yet been adequately analyzed.

The first development organizations to arrive often dominated that country's media training for years, like Internews and RAPIC in Russia. In Bulgaria, the American University in Bulgaria was launched by the University of Missouri, and has been a success in teaching journalism and other subjects. In Warsaw, however, Rutgers' media center was plagued with internal problems and lost its U.S. government funding. In a far more successful venture, Cox newspapers arrived in Warsaw to invest in Gazeta Wyborcza, the Solidarity paper. In Prague, recent college graduate Lisa Frankenberg started up the commercially successful English-language Prague Post newspaper, while a few blocks away, John Siegenthaler, one of America's most respected newspapermen, worked to revive the Czech newspaper, Lidove Noviny.

CASE STUDY: LIDOVE NOVINY VS. GAZETA WYBORCZA

In the economic free-for-all after Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, a group of entrepreneurs managed to take control of the assets of the 100-year-old Lidove Noviny, which had been the most important Czech intellectual newspaper before World War II. The Freedom Forum's John Siegenthaler came to Prague and spent six months training the staff in all aspects of newspaper management. Meanwhile, Czech-American Martin Stransky, whose grandfather had owned the newspaper before the Nazis and then the Communists took over, stepped up with other investors to buy shares that the entrepreneurs offered for sale. Stransky was able to buy back for a high price only 2% of his grandfather's paper, while the entrepreneurs kept the majority of shares for themselves. Soon $10,000 was being spent to paint giant ads for Lidove Noviny on Prague tram cars. The paper's business directors had listened well to Siegenthaler, in fact, perhaps too well. The Czech entrepreneurs sold their stock to the Ringier publishing empire. They had made their own personal fortunes, while Stransky was left out in the cold, and his Czech national treasure was just another newspaper owned by the Swiss.

To be sure, Siegenthaler's efforts may have had positive ripple effects on journalists now working throughout Central Europe. But there is an important lesson in this case: Training at an organization whose owners are not committed to the same values may be a waste of time and money.

In contrast, Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza (Electoral Gazette) started as an underground Solidarity paper and became the first independent daily in a communist country in 1989. Now it is the major newspaper in Poland, helping define Polish politics, and making solid profits. When the Communists fell, Le Monde gave Gazeta some old presses, but what the paper really needed was capital. Cox invested $5 million in cash and sweat equity, and sent over advisers in every area except editorial. "They wouldn't take that; their fear was that we would control the editorial page," said Cox's Andy Glass. (5) Cox saw it as a good business model and entry point for other communications in Poland, including cable and cell telephones. When Gazeta launched an IPO, Cox's investment multiplied. "We could pay for our Cox Washington bureau many times over for what we made on Gazeta," Glass said. It was Cox's 12% interest that enabled Gazeta to buy color presses, instead of limping along on Le Monde's hand-me-downs. To be sure, much of Gazeta's success was due to the Poles' enabling environment, which had elements of civil society lacking in Czechoslovakia-including a vibrant labor movement and strong Catholic church-as well as an early economic "shock treatment" shift to capitalism.

U.S. GOVERNMENT AID EXPANDS, 1996-2000

In 1996, Marvin Stone disbanded his International Media Fund because his USAID funders wanted a tighter policy rein on media development. USAID had won a turf battle with USIS over managing media aid, which meant that government-funded media development projects now had to serve USAID's policy objectives. At that point, "helping independent media was not seen as an independent activity," one IREX veteran recalls. "Those doing the assistance to independent media were looked on more and more as agents of the U.S. government, as indeed they were."

Previously, USAID had been funding Internews for five years without seeking competitive bids. Now USAID put out an RFP (request for proposals) for a three-year grant starting in 1997 to work in Central and Eastern Europe. (6) "Five years after the dramatic end of Communism, too many media in the region-especially outside the capitals-continue struggling along in an in-between world: half free, unprofitable, demoralized, dependent, living hand to mouth, uncertain whether they have a future," USAID noted in the RFP. IREX won the Promedia contract. As with Internews, the emphasis of the Promedia project was on practical business needs for self-sustaining media organizations, rather than "exercises in journalism theory." (7)

The Knight fellowships served as a model for Promedia's work. ICFJ became a partner in the $19 million Promedia project, bringing in the journalism expertise that IREX and a third partner, the National Forum Foundation (now Freedom House), lacked. But the consortium arrangement did not work well, according to a subsequent USAID assessment. ICFJ withdrew 18 months later over differences with both the progress of the project and USAID's micromanagement of it.

Promedia started off with lots of problems: endless field studies, a chaotic work planning process, inconsistent aims and poor coordination. While IREX worked on training, in-country activities and association building throughout the region, Freedom House identified future leaders for study tours and narrowed its work to running the Romania program. The harshest criticism in the USAID assessment was directed at Freedom House, which vigorously contested that analysis.(8)

Despite these problems, the Promedia consortium's work made a positive difference. In Croatia, for example, they strengthened the Croatian Journalists Association. In Romania, they founded an Audit Bureau of Circulation, representing 60 publications throughout the country. In Slovakia, IREX Promedia worked with the Slovak Syndicate of Journalists and designed a "model station" technical template. They negotiated reduced prices so local television stations could upgrade their equipment. In Ukraine, they helped establish a western-style student newspaper at the state university's journalism department. The Covington & Burling law firm worked pro bono with IREX Promedia to analyze proposed laws, engage in program design and policy debates, and train media lawyers for work throughout the region.

By 1998, the project's assessors found that some media were still struggling, some were successful and free, and quite a few were profitable. "Only a few are demoralized, and rarely do these organizations live 'from hand to mouth.' None of the media leaders interviewed felt the field "lacked a future," the report found.(9)

INTERNEWS AND IREX: COMPETING GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA DEVELOPMENT

In 1999 USAID funded a second, $48 million Promedia II contract, won again by IREX for Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Ukraine. (10) ICFJ won the contract for work in Georgia. In post-war Bosnia, IREX built a small commercial Sarajevo news agency into the only independent, countrywide news agency. It also poured resources into Nezavisne Novine, a Bosnian Serb daily whose editor had his legs blown off by a car bomb in October, 1999 but who returned to work, joking that he was now a "limited edition" of his former self. IREX planted a satellite-fed TV transmitter permanently in a hotel room in bombed-out Srebrenica, a devastated community which otherwise had no television. And it helped create freedom of information and Western-style civic defamation laws, as well as training in journalism, newspaper graphics and media business. IREX's work got high marks in Kosovo from Veton Surroi, the editor of Kosovo's KOHA newspaper.(11)

Meanwhile, Internews also was winning millions in USAID media development contracts (12) and expanding into 22 countries. It did what IREX did, and more. Most importantly, Internews developed a sustained local presence. Its media trainers focused first on developing local Internews organizations to take over the work with indigenous trainers. They dove into independent broadcast development throughout the 1990s, helping start up television stations in provincial cities, linking them into program-sharing networks, enlisting them to do programming projects and sponsoring news awards competitions.

Skeptics wondered how Internews President David Hoffman could raise so much money and expand so quickly if his organization was trying to do meaningful, long-lasting work. But admirers cited Internews's remarkable network of dedicated local media activists, who continue to work today in such difficult settings as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Georgia. Wired magazine wrote "Feisty, independent, market-driven TV has taken hold across the former Soviet Union, thanks largely to the efforts of…Internews." (13)

Ann Olson, a Knight fellow who worked in Russia and is now in Cambodia, said that Internews "made independent TV in Russia what it is, step by step, because it was the one on the ground when everything started, and grew as independent TV grew. The importance of that mutual growth cannot be underestimated." (14)

The two rival USAID-funded organizations evolved from different cultures, missions, and ideology. IREX came to the media development field after establishing itself in Washington as an NGO with government grants to do scientific and cultural exchanges with the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War. It still does 2/3 of its work in areas other than media. (15) IREX generally hires outsiders to do its journalism training, including a number of former Knight fellows. IREX's Promedia program works on four areas: journalism skills, media business skills, media law and media associations. IREX has worked mostly with print and only recently branched out to broadcast. In some places where the relevant USAID personnel in charge of the country program are flexible, proactive IREX trainers can do more, such as IREX's helping private Bosnia television stations lobby on broadcast regulation issues.

Internews also came to the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, as a small ngo founded by San Francisco-area peace activists who created televised "space bridge" forums to foster U.S.-Soviet citizen dialogue. Still working today out of a clapboard house in tiny Arcata, California, Internews tries to spin off in each country a local Internews media assistance ngo, at least one media industry association (such as the Russian or Ukrainian television networks), at least one journalists' association, and a "media monitoring" ngo. (16) Internews' style is more collaborative than didactic. Each local Internews organization typically recruits the most promising local broadcasters and trains them further as they make Internews-contracted programs. This provides programming to share among participating stations, linking a formidable local network of Internews alumni.

Internews alumni now are leaders in Russian broadcasting, providing some lasting impact for media development there even as the independence of most stations is thwarted by a weak advertising sector, Russian politicians, and media oligarchs.

In the transitional societies where Internews and IREX have been working, media urgently have needed business, technical, marketing and management training, and legal assistance. The speeches about American-style "objectivity" and balance have been harder to sell to local journalists. (17) Some American media missionaries criticize Internews for working to build independent broadcasting on commercial marketplace terms, without paying as much attention to journalism values. In fairness, however, it must be mentioned that Internews has sponsored highly successful journalism awards competitions and other incentives that emphasize journalism quality. Internews' Russia director, Manana Aslamazian, is held in high regard by other media developers and she sits now on a Russian broadcast regulatory body and an advisory board for George Soros's Network Media Program, as well as the board of Internews Network, the California home base of Internews' far-flung empire.

Independence from government meddling is a central point of media development work. Internews recently adopted an explicit code of ethics against accepting journalism content directives from any donor. (19) Several insiders and other media developers said IREX has been less successful in maintaining the boundary, although IREX President Mark Pomar disagreed that his organization is catering to U.S. policymakers.(20) There is "daily tension" with government officials about IREX's mission, he said, but IREX people have "stood their ground" against improper requests. His organization's mission is capacity building for civil society, not the advancement of specific US government foreign policies, he contended. "Most of our trainers are former Knight fellows…We're not a human rights organization, we do not lobby against or for certain governments."(21)

Recently both IREX and Internews, to their great credit, avoided taking the assignment when a U.S. official tried to enlist them to create news coverage against a current NIS (newly independent states) regime (which was, to be sure, repressing independent media and democracy activists). Both organizations refused to direct their affiliated journalists to provide the biased content sought by the U.S. official. It would have made them into partisan players, even though a change in that country's political leaders would probably have served the cause of open media.

Government pressure on its media development contractors is not proper USAID practice, according to its June 1999 report on the Role of Media in Democracy, which emphasized "…the need for clear distinctions between media assistance and public information campaigns that promote U.S. policies and viewpoints." The report warned U.S. policymakers that "Democratic transitions may not be strengthened through the creation of a media which, while free from its own government control, espouses views of foreign governments and reflects their interests. An outlet's credibility depends on its ability to report news freely."(22)

IREX and Internews sometimes overlap in the field, sharing contract relationships or working side by side, as they do in Ukraine. IREX is doing more broadcast development in Central Europe and Internews is starting to branch out into print in Central Asia.

DISAPPOINTING RESULTS: INDEPENDENT MEDIA STILL ELUSIVE

Despite Internews', IREX's, OSI's and others' efforts, an environment to support independent media still is struggling to evolve in the former Soviet bloc. In Russia, the fledgling advertising industry was too small to sustain the explosion of stations, so many fell victim to shady investors. By 1995, the new stations, newspapers and magazines were falling into the hands of two rival oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky (TV-6) and Vladimir Gusinsky (NTV).

Gusinsky and Berezovsky used their media empires to fiercely challenge the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin. Some important journalism was done, particularly on the war in Chechnya and other embarrassments to the Putin regime. But at times, the two media barons did not behave like neutral, independent broadcasters, trying to develop civil society through a watchdog press.

"The media didn't learn too well to preserve themselves. They gave many pretexts to be closed, to be punished, to be silenced," Aslamazian said. Putin's allies used the courts to close both media empires down and pursue Berezovsky and Guskinsky on criminal charges stemming from irregular business practices. "Formally speaking, the government never closes the media down for speaking freely. There is always some economic, some business issues to be used as a pretext" Aslamazian said. Both broadcasting companies were tried under a law that experts said was antiquated and only used once before. "If it was applied universally, many (non-media) companies would be liquidated," concluded Anya Kachkaeva, professor of journalism at Moscow State University.

Now even Radio Echo, which broadcasts breaking news and analysis to 70 cities as part of Gusinsky's network, is back under the control of the state, as are the once-independent national television stations created with help from foreign media developers. A debate continues about the Kremlin's motives, whether Putin is trying to reinstate state controls over the media or is just trying to neutralize political rivals Gusinsky and Berezovsky, who recently started a new opposition party.

There still are some 11,000 television companies working in Russia, over half of them calling themselves "independent," but the important national television and radio channels, as well as the major newspapers and magazines, are clearly under Putin's thumb. One problem is that the public makes no distinction between those who truly are trying to operate independently and those who are direct shills for the government or local politicians, Aslamazian said. "The concept of reputation does not really work. It is not possible to say who is good and who is bad. We have to strive for self-regulation."(23) Audiences often believe fantastic stories in the popular press, and few seem to imagine that there can be a more public service-oriented "independent" press.

What has happened to media in Russia has been repeated, in some fashion, in most former U.S.S.R. newly independent states, including especially Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia. A downward economic and political spiral is afflicting them all, making it harder for media to establish a financial footing. Many if not most locals who invest in media there know they are going to lose money, but do so in order to accrue political or financial influence. (24)

Much of the media training by Internews and others in the former Soviet republics has been focused on advertising revenue, market research, and production of shows with broad audience appeal, such as soap operas and game shows as well as news. Their governments and societies are generally corrupt and officials are hostile, sometimes violently so, toward investigative journalism that unmasks this corruption. Self-censorship is a way of life for most local journalists, who may take money to write or avoid certain stories.

Even in freer Central and Eastern Europe, the privatized media have not offered consistently reliable journalism about government corruption or consumer advocacy. In the Czech Republic and Hungary, dominant politicians control broadcast councils which give out licenses. Broadcast ownership is not transparent, accountability is rare and the journalism is often amateurish. Getting journalists to ask the pertinent questions, to find out what the government actually is doing, and to publish or broadcast the answers, is still surprisingly difficult in many CEE countries. The challenge of media development in post-Communist societies was eloquently summarized by Czech journalist Jan Urban. It's like trying to "teach old cats to bark."(25)

Case Study: Media Assistance in the Balkans

Since the media helped fan the flames of war in both Yugoslavia and Bosnia during the 1990s, the international community came in with huge sums of money and media management structures after the Dayton Peace Accords. By 1996 there were 110 print media, 41 radio stations, 17 television stations and four news agencies in Bosnian-controlled Federation territory, because the international community had plowed $7 million into them from 1992-95. (27) Typical projects included the Free Elections Radio Network (FERN) which was financed with 2 million DM by the Swiss government, and which covered much of the Bosnian and Serb areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but didn't reach well into the Croat area or Republika Srpska. An influential alternative newspaper, Nezavisne novne, evolved with financial assistance from the UK's Overseas Development Agency, USAID (IREX), and Soros' OSI.

The London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting partnered with Sarajevo-based Media Plan in June 1996 to do comprehensive media monitoring. This project was funded by OSI, the Winston Foundation for World Peace (USA) and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (Germany). Despite large investments, the International Crisis Group's (ICG) 1998 report concluded that there had been "few breakthroughs" and that the problems were the still unstable situation where trust had not yet been established. In one of the worst embarrassments, a U.S.-donated satellite dish meant for alternative media was hijacked by anti-democratic forces and used to broadcast hate messages serving the Milosevic cause.

The biggest disappointment was the disastrous $10.5 million Open Broadcast Network (OBN) which was set up in 1996 by the Office of the High Representative and thus was seen from the beginning by all sides as a foreign creation, to be viewed with suspicion. Sarajevo-based OBN was created out of a network of nominally independent television stations, all founded during the war in Bosnian territory. These stations were unprofessional and biased. One of them NTV Studio 99, was set up in 1995 with "massive" financial backing from UNESCO and European governments, and joined OBN briefly "in order to acquire new equipment. It left the network almost immediately," the ICG report said. For on-air talent, OBN Sarajevo used foreigners instead of investing in and training local journalists. The ICG report concluded in 1998 that "by all objective criteria" OBN "a disaster which should be scrapped." It was.