The Education of a Free Press in Post-Communist Eastern Europe by John Maxwell Hamilton Lecture at UNO Innsbruck Summer School July 2001               Ladies and gentlemen.  I am delighted to be here with you this evening to talk about a subject of great importance:  the challenges to the emergence of a free press in the newly independent states of Eastern Europe. It is axiomatic in the United States that a free press is essential to political and economic democracy.  As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Not everyone shares such enthusiasm for a free press these days.  Take that great media critic, basketball player Charles Barkley. "There's lots of idiots out there," he once said, "and most of them happen to be reporters." But, Sir Charles notwithstanding, a free press is as indispensable to democracy as the ballot box.  Without an independent media informing voters, in fact, a ballot box becomes an empty expression.  Moreover, a vigorous media abets economic freedom and growth.  Information is a key ingredient to entrepreneurship.  Consumer choice and economic competition depend on advertising, which takes place largely through our news media-and which in the process provides the revenue that allows news media to survive independent of government support. Not surprisingly, anything so important and complex as independent news media is difficult to achieve.  It is one thing to topple a repressive government; it is quite another to create a new democratic system in its place.  Anyone who doubts this should look at the evolution of our media system.  Indeed, to understand the current struggle to create a modern, independent media in post-communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe today, it is instructive to look at the state of our American media at the founding of the republic.  Media in the Early Republic The early press in the United States was irresponsible and disruptive.  Unlike the mass media of today, which strive for balance and fairness, newspapers catered to narrow special interests.  Many newspapers were tied to political parties.  News stories often were highly partisan, full of invective.[1]  Here is what Tom Paine said about George Washington's farewell address as president in the newspaper Aurora: "The world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any."  Paine also used the occasion to pray for Washington's death. Thomas Jefferson, for all of his praise of a free press, commissioned a scandalmonger to attack his old pal John Adams, noting, among other things, that Adams was "a hoary headed incendiary" who wanted to be president for life.  This attack helped Jefferson win the election. During his political career, Jefferson took some licks himself, leading him to observe that "the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." A letter in the archly Republican newspaper the Albany Register led to a duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.  The letter, written by a third party, recalled once hearing Hamilton saying "despicable" things about Burr.  It resulted in the death of Hamilton, one of the nation's leading statesmen, and the ostracism of Burr, who had been vice-president.             In view of all of this, we should not be surprised that the Founding Fathers often did not want journalists around.  When they wrote the Constitution, they worked in secret.  It is doubtful that the Constitution would have been written as it was written if the press had been inside the Philadelphia hall with the delegates.             Early in the Republic, President Adams showed his disdain for free speech when he supported -- and Congress passed -- the Alien and Sedition Acts.  Among other things, those acts made it a crime to publish "any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the Government of the United States."  The Federalists filed eighteen indictments against Republican editors and writers.  Newspapers were forced out of business.  The government prosecuted people for erecting a "liberty pole" with the words "No Stamp Act; no Sedition, no Alien-Bill; No Land Tax; Down fall of the Tyrants of America; Peace and Retirement to the President." As a recent New York Times article reported, "One critic of the Federalists received an 18-month sentence for writing that the government permitted the wealthy to gain at the expense of ordinary people."[2]             How far is this from what we see in countries struggling to climb out of decades of communism?  The answer is not far at all. Parallels with Newly Independent States Today             Many newly emerging journalists have no experience in the concepts and values of modern journalism.  This is not surprising.  Communism inspired outspoken opposition.  But opponents worked underground, not as part of a democratic system with open debate.  There was no tradition of an opposition leader holding a press conference to criticize the government's position on, say, the economy and for the government to respond by holding a press conference of its own.   Journalists were not expected to provide balance or fairness in news coverage, to seek out a range of opinion rather than dutifully express the party line.  When communism tumbled and journalists had more freedom, they did what came naturally.  Rather than provide fact-based news, they continued to provide opinion, but now it was their own opinion - or the opinion of owners.    Here is another parallel with conditions early in our republic.  The media are largely dominated by special interests - often banks or political parties.  Wanting outlets for their opinions, they acquire media properties.  Sometimes owners invest openly, sometimes secretly.  When questioning staff at a newspaper or magazine in Warsaw, St. Petersburg, or many other cities, it is difficult to find out who, really, is the owner. So, at long last, journalists can say whatever they want to say - often to settle scores.  But this is not to say that newly democratic governments have happily endured unpleasant news stories.  Like our Founding Fathers they have fought back.  In an important recent episode, the state-dominated monopoly Gazprom took control of Russia's only major independent television network, NTV, as well as other media properties owned by Media MOST.  What was NTV's crime? Criticism of Russian policies in Chechnya.  "Sometimes the media turn into means of mass disinformation and a tool of struggle against the state," said Russian President Vladimir Putin.  As a former member of the KGB, he should know. Such attitudes do not exist only in Russia. And sometimes the response can be bloody.  A Ukrainian journalist who asked tough questions was found beheaded earlier this year. What Did the American Media Change?             If there are similarities between the press in the early years of our republic and in Eastern Europe today, an obvious question arises.  Why did the press change in the United States?  Why did it develop its professional codes of ethics and talk of itself as a public trust?  Now, before answering that question, let me digress for a moment.  I do not want to promise too much for the media.  The media have never been perfect in any country.  It has many failings in the United States today. Sure, we get balance.  But sometimes that means that we get two sides of a six-sided story.  The press today - as in Jefferson's - finds it far easier to talk about people than ideas and broad concepts.  As both Jefferson and Linda Tripp have understood, a little scandal is a fine way to win political points. Anyway, the question before us is how our press system also has evolved to a higher level of social responsibility.  I believe that there are three answers to this question.  The first is the rise of a strong middle class and ownership by people who want to make money reaching those potential consumers.  Journalists like to think that they are the keepers of the flame of objectivity.  They often overlook the fact that objectivity has been good business.  It is an invention of owners. Let me explain.  Early newspapers did not rely on advertising for revenue.  They relied on sales to readers.  Then, in the mid-19th century, newspaper entrepreneurs came up with a new idea.  Instead of a relatively expensive newspaper that reached a small audience, they would sell a low-priced newspaper to a large audience.  The penny press, as it was called, paved the way for modern journalism.  Although the transformation occurred slowly, owners learned that the best way to reach a wide audience was to avoid partisan reporting appealing to a narrow interest group.  They made money because this approach was just right for advertisers who wanted to reach the growing middle-class, consumer market.  The modern newspaper makes a small percent of its revenue - generally around 20 percent - from sales.  Most of its money comes from advertisers.  This model is even more pronounced within broadcast journalism, where you pay for the radio or television set, but the advertiser pays for content.  This arrangement has made our press free and independent of government financial support and thereby accentuates its ability to serve as a check on government. In most Eastern European countries, the conditions for a financially independent media that reaches large middle-class audiences do not exist.  Many economies are weak.  The people who make the most money often are crooks specializing in the black market.  "If you are poor," someone told me in Almaty, Kazakhstan, "you are a good person."            Consider the difficulty media have sustaining themselves in a place like Bosnia. When I visited a few years ago, I was struck by how clear the rivers were.  No pollution.  This was because the civil war brought business to a halt.  Industrial output was five percent of previous levels.  A UN report estimated that 80 percent of the people were dependent at least in part on humanitarian aid.  Lack of pollution was a happy side effect.  But lack of economic growth was not.  What is the point of advertising if you have nothing to sell and the public has no money to buy? Coupled with this, the boom in press freedom has lead to more publications than the market can sustain. The government in Belarus estimated in 1998 that the country had 1,000 newspapers.  In such cases, the tiny advertising market is divided into small pieces.  In the Republic of Georgia last year, the situation presented some other wrinkles.  Many companies who might want to advertise worried what would happen if they did.  The best job you can get in Georgia is as a tax collector.  You rip off most of the money, give a little to the government.  An ad in the newspaper is a sign that a business must be making money.  When they see an ad, tax collectors do the logical thing; they drive over to shake down the owner. Here, by the way, is what a journalist typically earned last year when I was in Georgia: $150 a month.  It is difficult to be independent and fearless when you cannot feed your family or heat your apartment during a cold winter.  Why not take some bribes on the side, or moonlight as a ghostwriter for the same organizations you cover?  In such circumstances the following factoid from a recent issue of Harpers magazine should not be surprising.[3]  ·        Number of Russian news organizations that were sent a press release in February touting a fake company: 21. ·        Number that offered to run an article about the company for a fee: 13. There will always be some idealistic journalists out there who care about good journalism and are willing to sacrifice.  But there are really only two good reasons for most people to own a newspaper.  One is to make money; the other is to buy influence.  Some good government types, like Roman Gotsiridze, head of the Georgian Parliament's Budget Office, have tried to find a third way -- to use government money to subsidize newspapers.  This gets back to an old problem: Is the government really willing to support media that will be critical of its actions?  Besides, even if government-supported media does its job well, the public has deep suspicions that it may be holding back.  Good journalism is only effective if it is credible. This is not to say that government support for selected media cannot be helpful - as it has been with public radio for a time in our country.  But the dominant support for media must come from the private sector.  Thus, the future - if it is bright - rests with people like Michael Orletsky.  I met him in Minsk, Belarus.  He was a 28-year-old advertising executive with a twice-weekly, 20,000-circulation newspaper Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta - which in English means Belarusian Business News.  He wants to sell ads.  And to do that, he says, the paper must give readers what they want, reliable information.             The second thing that needs to happen is for the government to find ways to manipulate a free media system.  I am putting this more provocatively than I have to, but I want to make a point.             Our press system works because political, economic, and social interests on all sides have found ways to use the independent media system to promote their point of view.  This is why we have so many spin-doctors, public relations consultants, and political handlers in our country.              We may decry some of this special interest politicking as not serving broad national interests.  We may lament that some poorly funded special interests do not have the resources to promote their important agenda.  But our free press system would not be sustained if large numbers of people could not find a way to express themselves through it.             As noted, newly democratic countries of Eastern European and the former Soviet Union do not have long traditions of open political debate.  They have traditions of strong central government ruled by powerful individuals who send dissidents to work camps'or worse. The president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, stands out in this regard.  Under the Communist regime he ran a collective farm.  He pines for the good old days, including rule by Moscow, which he hopes will return.  He is insensitive to public and international opinion.  He is clumsy.  Some days one wonders if Peter Sellers is playing his part.  When Lukashenko was angry with the United States ambassador a few years ago, he turned off services to his residence saying that repairs had to be made.  I interviewed one of his henchmen, Michail Podgainy.  Previously he oversaw the Communist Youth Organization.  He is a survivor.  When I spoke to him he headed the State Committee on Press.  Seven people on Podgainy's staff monitored Belarus' newspapers, although the independent ones (that is, non-government owned) get the most attention, he admitted.  A veteran at explaining why the government favors free speech, provided it is "responsible," he holds up a copy of an independent newspaper.  He has circled a paragraph in the middle of the front page.  BelaPan, an independent news service, wrote the offending story.  It quotes an opposition leader who says Bealarussian soldiers have been sent abroad. The opposition leader is wrong, Podgainy said.  He is sending the story to the lawyers to see if the newspaper should receive a reprimand for quoting the erroneous statement. After three such warnings, he said, the courts can close down a newspaper. My reaction to this story was quite different from Podgainy's.  Here was a case when the reporter actually quoted an official, rather than giving his own view.  I thought BelaPan should be given an award. Attitudes such as Podgainy's exist elsewhere.  This is from a report of the World Press Freedom Committee about the persistence of "insult laws" around the world - that is, laws prohibiting negative comments about leaders: "The Czech Republic, supposedly a model of democracy in Central Europe, clings to portions of an insult law inherited from the old kingdom of Bohemia.  An amended version omits the president, but continues to cover other officials." It is difficult to generalize about newly independent countries in Europe.  Some have leaders with strong affinities to political discourse. Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic comes to mind.  But generally speaking the American founding fathers were building on the free press ideas of the people they rebelled against.  This is not the case in Eastern and Central Europe.  They must break with their past. To help with this, much more needs to be done to promote government training on how to work with media in order to develop political constituencies and support for policy initiatives.             The third remedy I want to suggest is press training.   For the most part, journalism training under communism was worse than meaningless.  It offered little practical education.  The professors were heavy on theory.  This is not unlike much Western European journalism training.  But it was worse by degree and the fact that the theory was heavy with Communist ideas about the role of the press. If the old professors are reluctant to retool today, the same can be said of many of the old-guard journalists who worked under communism.  They are unprepared by experience to deal with the economic realities of a market economy.  As a former Communist editor in Vladivostok put it to me ruefully, "These days a cat does not walk across the street without being paid for it." The young offer more hope.  Even under difficult financial circumstances, they often are idealistic. Once trained, they are quick to understand the techniques. But in training, one has to start with the basics.  If your story says something negative about someone, you have to give the subject of the story a chance to respond.  "Why should I do that?" young reporters have often said to me, "I know that guy is a criminal." If you want to be seen as a reliable source of information, you cannot let businesses pay you to write positive news stories.  Michael Orletsky, the ad manager in Minsk, told me that if a positive story is true, why not take the money and run it. Not only are modern journalism schools needed, so are journalism associations.   Media leaders need to band together to protect themselves politically and to swap ideas about how to reach readers, sell ads, and so forth.  In the old regime, journalism associations were a form of control.  Now they can be liberating. What Will Happen? Will Eastern Europe meet these challenges? Economic and political conditions are not the same in all countries.  Some are doing well economically; some less so.  Not all countries look the same in terms of media ownership.  The Russian government is showing itself heavy-handed in its media takeovers.  In the Czech republic, three German publishers dominate the newspaper market.  Hungarian businessmen are managing their television properties along the lines of western style economics.  On the plus side, Eastern Europe and Russia do not have to invent a modern media system entirely from scratch.  They can look at models from abroad.  But it is unlikely that their free independent media will look exactly like what exists in established democracies.  After all, the press systems in Western Europe and the United States differ from each other.  The Dutch have discouraged commercialized radio and television.  The Swedes subsidized minority publications to ensure that those constituencies have a voice.  Right here in Austria the public TV broadcaster, ORF, is unchallenged nationally.  Privately owned stations are limited to the local level.  In addition, European journalists are generally more comfortable with inserting opinion in news than Americans are. Whatever comes out the other end, the transition will take time.  Media professionalism did not arise on the day that the penny press was launched in the United States.  It took decades to develop concepts of balance and fairness.  We lived through sensational yellow journalism.  My university, Louisiana State University, did not offer journalism courses until 1913 - and it was one of the first to do so.  Our journalism associations are still fighting over details in their codes of ethics.   It is wrong to expect that newly independent countries will instantly create a viable, ethical free press system in a decade, when it took much longer in the United States, which enjoyed more prosperity and a strong tradition of free speech.  The West should be willing to help on all fronts - building strong economies, training government officials how to work in a democratic system, and building media expertise.  There was a time, a time around the era of John Aubrey and his Brief News, when the news did not matter so much.   In 1670 the Dublin Gazette stopped because "there was no news."[4]   Democracy is not possible without reliable sources of information and news.  If we are serious about promoting open societies in newly free countries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union - or anywhere else on the planet - we must help the press develop. And, judging from our own historical experience, we must be patient.     [1]Such episodes are described vividly and meaningfully in two recent books: Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen: A History of Civic American Life (1998) and Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutinary Generation (2000), p. 8-9. . [2]Floyd Abrams, VIs John Adams Overrated?V New York Times, July 3, 2001. [3]Harper's Index' Harper's, July 2001. [4] Antonia Fraser, King Charles II (1997), p. 315.

The Education of a Free Press in Post-Communist Eastern Europe

by John Maxwell Hamilton

Lecture at UNO Innsbruck Summer School

July 2001

            Ladies and gentlemen.  I am delighted to be here with you this evening to talk about a subject of great importance:  the challenges to the emergence of a free press in the newly independent states of Eastern Europe.

It is axiomatic in the United States that a free press is essential to political and economic democracy.  As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Not everyone shares such enthusiasm for a free press these days.  Take that great media critic, basketball player Charles Barkley. "There's lots of idiots out there," he once said, "and most of them happen to be reporters." But, Sir Charles notwithstanding, a free press is as indispensable to democracy as the ballot box.  Without an independent media informing voters, in fact, a ballot box becomes an empty expression.  Moreover, a vigorous media abets economic freedom and growth.  Information is a key ingredient to entrepreneurship.  Consumer choice and economic competition depend on advertising, which takes place largely through our news media-and which in the process provides the revenue that allows news media to survive independent of government support.

Not surprisingly, anything so important and complex as independent news media is difficult to achieve.  It is one thing to topple a repressive government; it is quite another to create a new democratic system in its place.  Anyone who doubts this should look at the evolution of our media system.  Indeed, to understand the current struggle to create a modern, independent media in post-communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe today, it is instructive to look at the state of our American media at the founding of the republic. 

Media in the Early Republic

The early press in the United States was irresponsible and disruptive.  Unlike the mass media of today, which strive for balance and fairness, newspapers catered to narrow special interests.  Many newspapers were tied to political parties.  News stories often were highly partisan, full of invective.[1] 

Here is what Tom Paine said about George Washington's farewell address as president in the newspaper Aurora: "The world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any."  Paine also used the occasion to pray for Washington's death.

Thomas Jefferson, for all of his praise of a free press, commissioned a scandalmonger to attack his old pal John Adams, noting, among other things, that Adams was "a hoary headed incendiary" who wanted to be president for life.  This attack helped Jefferson win the election. During his political career, Jefferson took some licks himself, leading him to observe that "the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."

A letter in the archly Republican newspaper the Albany Register led to a duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.  The letter, written by a third party, recalled once hearing Hamilton saying "despicable" things about Burr.  It resulted in the death of Hamilton, one of the nation's leading statesmen, and the ostracism of Burr, who had been vice-president.

            In view of all of this, we should not be surprised that the Founding Fathers often did not want journalists around.  When they wrote the Constitution, they worked in secret.  It is doubtful that the Constitution would have been written as it was written if the press had been inside the Philadelphia hall with the delegates.

            Early in the Republic, President Adams showed his disdain for free speech when he supported -- and Congress passed -- the Alien and Sedition Acts.  Among other things, those acts made it a crime to publish "any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the Government of the United States."  The Federalists filed eighteen indictments against Republican editors and writers.  Newspapers were forced out of business.  The government prosecuted people for erecting a "liberty pole" with the words "No Stamp Act; no Sedition, no Alien-Bill; No Land Tax; Down fall of the Tyrants of America; Peace and Retirement to the President."

As a recent New York Times article reported, "One critic of the Federalists received an 18-month sentence for writing that the government permitted the wealthy to gain at the expense of ordinary people."[2]

            How far is this from what we see in countries struggling to climb out of decades of communism?  The answer is not far at all.

Parallels with Newly Independent States Today

            Many newly emerging journalists have no experience in the concepts and values of modern journalism.  This is not surprising. 

Communism inspired outspoken opposition.  But opponents worked underground, not as part of a democratic system with open debate.  There was no tradition of an opposition leader holding a press conference to criticize the government's position on, say, the economy and for the government to respond by holding a press conference of its own.   Journalists were not expected to provide balance or fairness in news coverage, to seek out a range of opinion rather than dutifully express the party line. 

When communism tumbled and journalists had more freedom, they did what came naturally.  Rather than provide fact-based news, they continued to provide opinion, but now it was their own opinion - or the opinion of owners.   

Here is another parallel with conditions early in our republic.  The media are largely dominated by special interests - often banks or political parties.  Wanting outlets for their opinions, they acquire media properties.  Sometimes owners invest openly, sometimes secretly.  When questioning staff at a newspaper or magazine in Warsaw, St. Petersburg, or many other cities, it is difficult to find out who, really, is the owner.

So, at long last, journalists can say whatever they want to say - often to settle scores.  But this is not to say that newly democratic governments have happily endured unpleasant news stories.  Like our Founding Fathers they have fought back. 

In an important recent episode, the state-dominated monopoly Gazprom took control of Russia's only major independent television network, NTV, as well as other media properties owned by Media MOST.  What was NTV's crime? Criticism of Russian policies in Chechnya.  "Sometimes the media turn into means of mass disinformation and a tool of struggle against the state," said Russian President Vladimir Putin.  As a former member of the KGB, he should know.

Such attitudes do not exist only in Russia. And sometimes the response can be bloody.  A Ukrainian journalist who asked tough questions was found beheaded earlier this year.

What Did the American Media Change?

            If there are similarities between the press in the early years of our republic and in Eastern Europe today, an obvious question arises.  Why did the press change in the United States?  Why did it develop its professional codes of ethics and talk of itself as a public trust? 

Now, before answering that question, let me digress for a moment.  I do not want to promise too much for the media.  The media have never been perfect in any country.  It has many failings in the United States today.

Sure, we get balance.  But sometimes that means that we get two sides of a six-sided story.  The press today - as in Jefferson's - finds it far easier to talk about people than ideas and broad concepts.  As both Jefferson and Linda Tripp have understood, a little scandal is a fine way to win political points.

Anyway, the question before us is how our press system also has evolved to a higher level of social responsibility.  I believe that there are three answers to this question. 

The first is the rise of a strong middle class and ownership by people who want to make money reaching those potential consumers.  Journalists like to think that they are the keepers of the flame of objectivity.  They often overlook the fact that objectivity has been good business.  It is an invention of owners.

Let me explain.  Early newspapers did not rely on advertising for revenue.  They relied on sales to readers.  Then, in the mid-19^th century, newspaper entrepreneurs came up with a new idea.  Instead of a relatively expensive newspaper that reached a small audience, they would sell a low-priced newspaper to a large audience.  The penny press, as it was called, paved the way for modern journalism.  Although the transformation occurred slowly, owners learned that the best way to reach a wide audience was to avoid partisan reporting appealing to a narrow interest group.  They made money because this approach was just right for advertisers who wanted to reach the growing middle-class, consumer market. 

The modern newspaper makes a small percent of its revenue - generally around 20 percent - from sales.  Most of its money comes from advertisers.  This model is even more pronounced within broadcast journalism, where you pay for the radio or television set, but the advertiser pays for content.  This arrangement has made our press free and independent of government financial support and thereby accentuates its ability to serve as a check on government.

In most Eastern European countries, the conditions for a financially independent media that reaches large middle-class audiences do not exist.  Many economies are weak.  The people who make the most money often are crooks specializing in the black market.  "If you are poor," someone told me in Almaty, Kazakhstan, "you are a good person." 

          Consider the difficulty media have sustaining themselves in a place like Bosnia. When I visited a few years ago, I was struck by how clear the rivers were.  No pollution.  This was because the civil war brought business to a halt.  Industrial output was five percent of previous levels.  A UN report estimated that 80 percent of the people were dependent at least in part on humanitarian aid.  Lack of pollution was a happy side effect.  But lack of economic growth was not.  What is the point of advertising if you have nothing to sell and the public has no money to buy?

Coupled with this, the boom in press freedom has lead to more publications than the market can sustain. The government in Belarus estimated in 1998 that the country had 1,000 newspapers.  In such cases, the tiny advertising market is divided into small pieces. 

In the Republic of Georgia last year, the situation presented some other wrinkles.  Many companies who might want to advertise worried what would happen if they did.  The best job you can get in Georgia is as a tax collector.  You rip off most of the money, give a little to the government.  An ad in the newspaper is a sign that a business must be making money.  When they see an ad, tax collectors do the logical thing; they drive over to shake down the owner.

Here, by the way, is what a journalist typically earned last year when I was in Georgia: $150 a month.  It is difficult to be independent and fearless when you cannot feed your family or heat your apartment during a cold winter.  Why not take some bribes on the side, or moonlight as a ghostwriter for the same organizations you cover?  In such circumstances the following factoid from a recent issue of Harpers magazine should not be surprising.[3] 

• ·        Number of Russian news organizations that were sent a press release in February touting a fake company: 21.

• ·        Number that offered to run an article about the company for a fee: 13.

There will always be some idealistic journalists out there who care about good journalism and are willing to sacrifice.  But there are really only two good reasons for most people to own a newspaper.  One is to make money; the other is to buy influence. 

Some good government types, like Roman Gotsiridze, head of the Georgian Parliament's Budget Office, have tried to find a third way -- to use government money to subsidize newspapers.  This gets back to an old problem: Is the government really willing to support media that will be critical of its actions?  Besides, even if government-supported media does its job well, the public has deep suspicions that it may be holding back.  Good journalism is only effective if it is credible.

This is not to say that government support for selected media cannot be helpful - as it has been with public radio for a time in our country.  But the dominant support for media must come from the private sector.  Thus, the future - if it is bright - rests with people like Michael Orletsky.  I met him in Minsk, Belarus.  He was a 28-year-old advertising executive with a twice-weekly, 20,000-circulation newspaper Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta - which in English means Belarusian Business News.  He wants to sell ads.  And to do that, he says, the paper must give readers what they want, reliable information.

            The second thing that needs to happen is for the government to find ways to manipulate a free media system.  I am putting this more provocatively than I have to, but I want to make a point. 

           Our press system works because political, economic, and social interests on all sides have found ways to use the independent media system to promote their point of view.  This is why we have so many spin-doctors, public relations consultants, and political handlers in our country. 

            We may decry some of this special interest politicking as not serving broad national interests.  We may lament that some poorly funded special interests do not have the resources to promote their important agenda.  But our free press system would not be sustained if large numbers of people could not find a way to express themselves through it.

            As noted, newly democratic countries of Eastern European and the former Soviet Union do not have long traditions of open political debate.  They have traditions of strong central government ruled by powerful individuals who send dissidents to work camps'or worse.

The president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, stands out in this regard.  Under the Communist regime he ran a collective farm.  He pines for the good old days, including rule by Moscow, which he hopes will return.  He is insensitive to public and international opinion.  He is clumsy.  Some days one wonders if Peter Sellers is playing his part.  When Lukashenko was angry with the United States ambassador a few years ago, he turned off services to his residence saying that repairs had to be made. 

I interviewed one of his henchmen, Michail Podgainy.  Previously he oversaw the Communist Youth Organization.  He is a survivor.  When I spoke to him he headed the State Committee on Press. 

Seven people on Podgainy's staff monitored Belarus' newspapers, although the independent ones (that is, non-government owned) get the most attention, he admitted.  A veteran at explaining why the government favors free speech, provided it is "responsible," he holds up a copy of an independent newspaper.  He has circled a paragraph in the middle of the front page.  BelaPan, an independent news service, wrote the offending story.  It quotes an opposition leader who says Bealarussian soldiers have been sent abroad.

The opposition leader is wrong, Podgainy said.  He is sending the story to the lawyers to see if the newspaper should receive a reprimand for quoting the erroneous statement. After three such warnings, he said, the courts can close down a newspaper.

My reaction to this story was quite different from Podgainy's.  Here was a case when the reporter actually quoted an official, rather than giving his own view.  I thought BelaPan should be given an award.

Attitudes such as Podgainy's exist elsewhere.  This is from a report of the World Press Freedom Committee about the persistence of "insult laws" around the world - that is, laws prohibiting negative comments about leaders: "The Czech Republic, supposedly a model of democracy in Central Europe, clings to portions of an insult law inherited from the old kingdom of Bohemia.  An amended version omits the president, but continues to cover other officials."

It is difficult to generalize about newly independent countries in Europe.  Some have leaders with strong affinities to political discourse. Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic comes to mind.  But generally speaking the American founding fathers were building on the free press ideas of the people they rebelled against.  This is not the case in Eastern and Central Europe.  They must break with their past.

To help with this, much more needs to be done to promote government training on how to work with media in order to develop political constituencies and support for policy initiatives.

            The third remedy I want to suggest is press training.  

For the most part, journalism training under communism was worse than meaningless.  It offered little practical education.  The professors were heavy on theory.  This is not unlike much Western European journalism training.  But it was worse by degree and the fact that the theory was heavy with Communist ideas about the role of the press.

If the old professors are reluctant to retool today, the same can be said of many of the old-guard journalists who worked under communism.  They are unprepared by experience to deal with the economic realities of a market economy.  As a former Communist editor in Vladivostok put it to me ruefully, "These days a cat does not walk across the street without being paid for it."

The young offer more hope.  Even under difficult financial circumstances, they often are idealistic. Once trained, they are quick to understand the techniques.

But in training, one has to start with the basics. 

If your story says something negative about someone, you have to give the subject of the story a chance to respond.  "Why should I do that?" young reporters have often said to me, "I know that guy is a criminal."

If you want to be seen as a reliable source of information, you cannot let businesses pay you to write positive news stories.  Michael Orletsky, the ad manager in Minsk, told me that if a positive story is true, why not take the money and run it.

Not only are modern journalism schools needed, so are journalism associations.   Media leaders need to band together to protect themselves politically and to swap ideas about how to reach readers, sell ads, and so forth.  In the old regime, journalism associations were a form of control.  Now they can be liberating.

What Will Happen?

Will Eastern Europe meet these challenges?

Economic and political conditions are not the same in all countries.  Some are doing well economically; some less so.  Not all countries look the same in terms of media ownership.  The Russian government is showing itself heavy-handed in its media takeovers.  In the Czech republic, three German publishers dominate the newspaper market.  Hungarian businessmen are managing their television properties along the lines of western style economics. 

On the plus side, Eastern Europe and Russia do not have to invent a modern media system entirely from scratch.  They can look at models from abroad.  But it is unlikely that their free independent media will look exactly like what exists in established democracies. 

After all, the press systems in Western Europe and the United States differ from each other.  The Dutch have discouraged commercialized radio and television.  The Swedes subsidized minority publications to ensure that those constituencies have a voice.  Right here in Austria the public TV broadcaster, ORF, is unchallenged nationally.  Privately owned stations are limited to the local level.  In addition, European journalists are generally more comfortable with inserting opinion in news than Americans are.

Whatever comes out the other end, the transition will take time.  Media professionalism did not arise on the day that the penny press was launched in the United States.  It took decades to develop concepts of balance and fairness.  We lived through sensational yellow journalism.  My university, Louisiana State University, did not offer journalism courses until 1913 - and it was one of the first to do so.  Our journalism associations are still fighting over details in their codes of ethics.  

It is wrong to expect that newly independent countries will instantly create a viable, ethical free press system in a decade, when it took much longer in the United States, which enjoyed more prosperity and a strong tradition of free speech. 

The West should be willing to help on all fronts - building strong economies, training government officials how to work in a democratic system, and building media expertise. 

There was a time, a time around the era of John Aubrey and his Brief News, when the news did not matter so much.   In 1670 the Dublin Gazette stopped because "there was no news."[4]  

Democracy is not possible without reliable sources of information and news.  If we are serious about promoting open societies in newly free countries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union - or anywhere else on the planet - we must help the press develop. And, judging from our own historical experience, we must be patient.