Global Journalist

Western Journalism Goes East

By Byron T. Scott Posted Wed, Apr 2 2008

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Transitional societies spawn, among other things, hordes of new media, clamoring for attention and hordes of untrained journalists clamoring to express themselves and perhaps gain some advantage while scuttling a few old enemies. Suddenly, it seems everyone’s a journalist.

Nearly two decades of working with efforts to build and reform professional journalism in many transitional nations has brought a mix of partial and satisfying successes and partial and frustrating failures. Lessons learned have taught those involved, including myself, to be less naïve and idealistic than when we flooded over the ruins of The Berlin Wall or followed the hopes of accords in Oslo or Ohrid, Dayton or elsewhere.

Here are 10 questions we’ve found it wise to ask beforehand along with partial answers still being sorted out.

1. What are the important events in the history and culture of our partner? The unexpected end to “The Cold War” left many Westerners ignorant of the nations and cultures now open to them. The bliss of seeming victory caused many reform-minded teams to charge right in, assuming that a total transplant of professional journalism standards and training was possible. From the Baltics to the Adriatic and beyond we were taught a lesson. I still chuckle recalling a forum in Sofia where more than 100 Bulgarian journalists listened patiently while a morning panel of famous American journalists lectured them on the basics of journalism. The distinguished Westerners spoke as if the Bulgarian journalists were students in a high school journalism class who had ended up enrolled because another class was full, spending time with the inverted pyramid, attribution and a number of other basics. Their audience sat silently, then ate the free lunch and left, leaving the puzzled U.S. “missionaries” to talk to themselves in the afternoon. Cultural insensitivity wasted millions of dollars and built barriers that teams who came later had to overcome.

It’s impossible to work effectively with Balkan journalists without knowing something of the nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule, for example. Successful new programs at the American University in Bulgaria and the Independent Journalism Center in Sarajevo were founded on the kind of background and careful cooperation that recognized the influence of history and the importance of interpersonal clans to the hidden social infrastructure.

2. What is the current status of journalists and press freedom? Over 100 media advocacy groups exist around the world, mostly regional, such as the InterAmerican Press Association, headquartered in Miami. Several have a global perspective: New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders in Paris, Vienna-based International Press Institute and London’s Article 19 among them. Their annual surveys of press freedom are worth studying; not so much from the news-making global ranking rankings but rather the detailed, descriptive reports of individual nations. The very location of these organizations suggests that their standards are based on Western concepts of press freedom that are not completely transferable.

The basic human right of free expression is also monitored in a more culturally nuanced fashion by such regional organizations as Russia’s Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, The Bahrain Center for Human Rights or Kenya’s African Free Media Foundation, to name only a few. In Southeastern Europe a network of independent journalism centers has provided realistic analyses for nearly two decades. Partnerships with such organizations have resulted in a new journalism school in Moldova and continuing reform efforts in Albania, Montenegro and elsewhere. Such organizations have local credibility with the region’s journalists and educators, although their nations’ governmental officials tend to see them differently.

3. How does the current educational process work? Second only to the monetary rewards of globalization, the greatest stimuli to reform have come from multi-national organizations, not individual governments. The so-called Bologna Accords of The European Union have proven the biggest stimulus to overall educational reform worldwide. The 1999 agreement by Ministers of Education from 29 European nations to essentially create a common framework for academic degrees and standards has led to reforms throughout transitional nations, seeking access and transferability seeking exchanges and access for their own students. In June 2007, UNESCO issued the ponderously title “Model Curricula for Journalism Education for Developing Countries and Emerging Democracies” that outlined best-practice syllabi and procedures for teaching 17 fundamental journalism courses.

Despite the strong pressures for change, nevertheless, there is little hope for metamorphosis. Efforts to create practical, hands-on journalism curricula have found an older generation of journalism faculty understandably resistant to change. Transitions have left in place bureaucrats, administrators and academicians raised on the often theoretical teaching approaches and centralized, paternalistic processes of their generation. Overall, it has been easier to establish new programs than to alter existing structures, particularly in Russia and the former Soviet system.

4. What are the current resources and facilities? The economic chaos that invariably goes with the early years of transition typically leave universities rundown and neglected, with overcrowded classrooms and dispirited, underpaid faculty working at 2-3 jobs to survive. Centralized printing and distribution systems as well as the suddenly crowded kiosks create a kind of desperation in which journalistic professionalism and ethics are hard to implant or enforce.

Albania was only one of the nations where the lack of state funding and the meddling of politicians retarded reform. It was not unusual for University of Tirana’s faculty of journalism to admit on the basis of entrance exams as well as staffing and classroom facilities, a realistic number of students, only to find on the first day that higher officials had doubled the enrollment.

5. Who wants reform and/or change and why? “Can’t you just give us the computers, then leave us alone?” This frustrated question, offered only half in jest over a late night brandy by a Balkan professor, reflects a central problem. Reform can be dictated by governments or foundations, but the teachers, their students and most important, the journalism community, has to make it work. In several nations reformers discovered that what really was wanted were equipment, library books and study trips to the West. Often those who were not being nominated by the embassies for such privileges gave a more realistic picture of the possibilities for change.

6. Who will support us and under what terms? Before starting projects in Poland, Bulgaria and elsewhere we found it useful to spend time in newsrooms and classrooms, sitting and listening before talking and advocating change. Independent journalism centers in transitional nations are often fonts of realism about the “(Fill in country name) reality.”

Change is essentially an interpersonal process, not a political or administrative one, particularly in journalism. Journalists and students alike in transitional societies tend to be even more critical and cynical than their counterparts in developed nations. When a top-down, ministry-governed structure appears to be impenetrable by an individual project, the concentration has to be on individual groups of students, individual teachers and journalists who will have the background knowledge and experience when the time for change truly comes.

7. Who will oppose or compete with us? In late October 2007, President George Bush of the U.S., following a rebuff from his Russian counterpart on several issues that included press freedom restrictions, commented: “Now, in terms of whether or not it’s possible to reprogram the kind of Russian DNA, which is centralized authority, that’s hard to do.” Perhaps impossible.

In every nation there are cultural differences that impede or prevent innovation or change based on the standards of another culture. Examples are easy to find in efforts to establish journalism programs in the Persian Gulf nations or in parts of Asia. Traditions of individualism versus the welfare of the community or state clash in newsrooms and classrooms daily.

Competition frequently comes from the independent journalism schools, some high quality and some not, that sprout early in transition. In Hungary, Armenia and elsewhere, teams sometimes joked whether there were more new newspapers or new journalism schools – the latter often offering evening classes in rented secondary school buildings. In other nations, such as Albania or Moldova, postgraduate classes are best left to the independent journalism centers.

8. Is there enough time and money to do the job properly? Never. Whether the budget is a few thousand or a few million dollars, euros or riyals, the money tends to run out before the ideal is achieved. In part this is because the process of change is continuous and multi-generational. There is no such thing as “converting to responsible journalism” in a few months or a few years. In part it is because the attention spans of governments and foundations are usually shorter than the need. “Seed money” assumes “sustainability” before the achievements can be sustained. The onus shifts to local or regional media investors whose goals may be more political than professional.

9. How will we know when the job is done? When the European Union granted membership to 10 post-Communist nations in 2004 and 2007, funders of journalism reform marched onward –largely abandoning projects in these and neighboring nations. The newest frontiers of journalism reform are the Middle East and Central Asia. With a few noteworthy exceptions, the time has yet to come for transitional societies in Africa and Latin America.

Because free expression is a human right that is constantly challenged, even in developed nations, journalism reform is a constant process. But in an individual project, the conditions may shift to prevent completion as in Palestine and Zimbabwe.

Nevertheless, the reform project that does not include an exit strategy and specific goals for the outsiders is doomed to slow, withering failure.

10. What will we both do in the future? The future is never in the hands of the reformers. Nor is it in the hands of the bureaucrats or administrators or even the editors and senior faculty. It is the students, and to a lesser extent the junior faculty and young journalists, who will reflect success or failure in the next generation.

At the conclusion of a self-evaluating essay at the conclusion of a University of Tirana class that used the inspirational essays of Kovach and Rosenstiel’s “The Elements of Journalism” as a text, a student –wearing gloves over her hands because the generator was needed to run the computers rather than the classroom heaters – typed: “At the beginning I thought this was all dream stuff. Now I see how it can happen.”