TRAINING CENTRAL ASIAN JOURNALISTS: OVIET LEGACIES MEET LESSONS FROM U.S. EDIA HISTORY
Abstract
western governments, international development agencies, foundations, and donor organizations regard “democratic journalism” as a tool to liberalize authoritarian re gimes and contain religious fundamentalism and anti-Western sentiments abroad. It has become synonymous with Western-style journalism and is regarded as dedicated to extending democracy and free market economics. Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, democratic journalism has been exported to its former republics through seminars and workshops that generally emphasize traditional U.S. news values such as impact, conflict, novelty, prominence, proximity, and timeliness.1 As journalism educators and trainers, we have participated in this process. These values are often touted as alternatives to values connected to Soviet-era news conventions, policies, and underlying ideology.
There is no generally accepted definition of “democratic journalism,” but commonly accepted elements are drawn from the libertarian press model of Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm. Although the relevance of their Cold War-era categorization may be outdated, as critics2 argue, their model includes identifiable attributes of “democratic journalism:” “The press is conceived of as a partner in the search for truth… The press is not an instrument of government, but rather a device for presenting evidence and arguments on the basis of which the people can check on government and make up their minds as to policy. Therefore, it is imperative that the press be free from government control and influence… There must be a ‘free market place’ of ideas and information.
Downloads
References
See: Missouri Group, Telling the Story, Bedford/St.
artin’s, Boston, 2004.
See: J.C. Merrill, J.C. Nerone, “The Four Theories of the Press Four and a Half Decades Later: A Retrospec-tive,” Journalism Studies, No. 3 (1), 2002, pp. 133-136.
F.S. Siebert, T. Peterson, and W. Schramm, Four Theories of the Press, University of Illinois Press, Urbana,Illinois, 1956, pp. 4-5.
T. Brislin, “Empowerment as a Universal Ethic in Global Journalism,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics, No. 19 (2),2004, pp. 130-131.
R. Schlesinger, “Problems of the Soviet Press as Illustrated by the Soviet Journalists’ Monthly Sovetskaia Pe-chat,” Soviet Studies, No. 9 (2), 1957, pp. 223.
See: R. Shafer, “Comparing Development Journal-ism and Public Journalism as Interventionist Press Mod-els,” Asian Journal of Communication, No. 8 (1), 1998,pp. 31-52.
See: C. Rich, Writing and Reporting News: A Coaching Method, Thompson Wadsworth, Belmont, Cal-ifornia, 2005; B. Itule, D.A. Anderson, News Writing and Reporting for Today’s Media, McGraw Hill, New York,1997; A.L. Lorenz, J. Vivian, News Reporting and Writ-ing, Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, Massachusetts,1996.
J. Miller, “Research Report, IREX Short-Term Travel Grant,” available at [http://www.irex.org/programs/
esearch/02/index.asp, 2002].
See: A. Jones, “The Russian Press in the Post-Soviet Era: A Case Study of Izvestia,” Journalism Studies, No. 3 (3),2002, pp. 359-575.
See: A. Juraev, “The Uzbek Mass Media Model: Analysis, Opinions, Problems,” Central Asia and the Caucasus,No. 1 (13), 2002, pp. 130-138.
See: R. Shafer, E. Freedman, “Obstacles to the Professionalization of Mass Media in Post-Soviet Central Asia: A Case Study of Uzbekistan,” Journalism Studies, No. 4 (1), 2003, pp. 91-103; E. Freedman, R. Shafer, “Policing Press Free-dom in Post-Soviet Central Asia: The Monitoring Role of Press Rights Activists and Their Web Sites,” paper presented to Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication Kansas City, Missouri, 2003.
V. Abisheva, “Self-Censorship Rife in Kazakh Media,” Institute for War and Peace Reporting, RCA 207, 27 May,2003.
J. Merrill, “Chaos and Order: Sacrificing the Individual for the Sake of Social Harmony,” in: The Mission Jour-nalism, Ethics, and the World, ed. by J. B. Atkins, Iowa University Press, Ames, Iowa, 2000, p. 18.
E. Vartanova, «Media Structures: Changed and Unchanged,» in: Russian Media Challenge, ed. by K. Nordenstreng,E. Vartanova, and Y. Zassoursky, Kikimora Publications, Helsinki, 2002, pp. 21-22.
See: F. Muminova, “National Identity, National Mentality, and the Media,” Central Asia and the Caucasus,No. 5 (17), 2002, pp. 132-139.
See: L. McReynolds, The News Under Russia’s Old Regime: The Development of a Mass-Circulation Press, Prin-ceton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1991.
See: V.E. Edwards Jr., Journalism in a Free Society, William C. Brown Company, Dubuque, Indiana, 1970.
Ibidem.
See: D.R. Pember, C. Calvert, Mass Media Law, 2005/2006 Edition, McGraw Hill, Boston, 2005; The Media in America: A History, ed. by W.D. Sloan, Fifth Edition, Vision Press, Northport Alabama, 2002.
See: The Media in America: A History.
See: V.E. Edwards Jr., op. cit.
Ibidem.
J. Folkerts, D. Teeter Jr., Voices of a Nation: A History of Mass Media in the U.S. Fourth Edition, Allyn & Bacon,Boston, 2002, p. 121.
G. Fiacconi, E-mail to lead author, 17 November, 2002.
See: C.Y. Wei, B.E. Kolko, and J.H. Spyridakis, The Effect of the Internet on Society in Uzbekistan, paper presented at the Association of Internet Researchers, Toronto, Ontario, 2003.
See: R.R. Rodgers, Tainting of the Stream of Pure News: Collier’s Criticism of the Newspaper Press During the Norman Hapgood Years, 1902 to 1913, paper presented to Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communica-tion, Toronto, Ontario, 2004.
N. Zokirova, Tough Life for Tajik Journalists, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, RCA 206, 23 May, 2003.
443 U.S. 97 (1979).
See: M. Emery, E. Emery, and N.L. Roberts, The Press in America, 9th Edition, Allyn & Bacon, Boston,2002.
713 U.S. 403 (1971).
467 F. Supp. 990 (1979).
427 U.S. 539 (1976).
H.S. Parmet, JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy, Dial Press, New York, 1983, p.163.
See: C. Bernstein, B. Woodward, All the President’s Men, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1974; The Media in America: A History.
See: M. Kim, More Likely to Withhold Information? Comparison of Implementation of FOIA Policies under the Clinton and Bush Administrations, paper presented to Association for Journalism & Mass Communication, Toronto, On-tario, 2004); N. Laughner, Secrecy or Security: Identifying Trends in State Access Law Legislation, paper presented to Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication, Toronto, Ontario, 2004; Reporters Committee for Free-dom of the Press, “Homefront Confidential: How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information and the Public”s Right to Know,” 2003.
See: K. Uhm, The Communication Crisis During the Cold War: The Right to Know Movement, paper presented to Association for Journalism & Mass Communication, Kansas City, Missouri, 2003.
For example, Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555 (1980); Publicker Industries v. Cohen, 733 F. 2d 1059 (1984); Press-Enterprise v. Riverside Superior Court, 478 U.S. 1 (1986).
See: D.L. Edwards, Can the Effect of Richmond Newspapers Stretch Even Further? An Analysis of the Right of the Press to Cover Immigration Hearings, paper presented to Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication,Kansas City, Missouri, 2003.
For example, United States v. Maldonado-Norat, 122 F. Supp. 2d 264 (2000).
K. Bakhriev, Slovo o svobode slova, R. Elinin Publishing House, Moscow, 2003.
See: E. Freedman, M. Walton, “Independent News Web Sites’ Coverage of Religion in Central Asia,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (37), 2006; E. Freedman, “Coverage of Environmental and Environmental Health News of Cen-tral Asia by Independent News Web Sites,” in: History and Society in Central and Inner Asia, University of Toronto Asian Institute, Toronto, 2005.
See: U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” 2006.
See: K. Paulson, “Jailed for Speech: Criminal Libel is an Old—and Bad—Idea,” First Amendment Center, 18 Jan-uary, 2004.
D. Elliott, “Terrorism, Global Journalism, and the Myth of the Nation State,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics,No. 19 (1), 2004, pp. 30.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2006 Author
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
You are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
- The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation .
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.