University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2013 Communities of Journalists and Journalism Practice at Radio Free Europe during the Cold War (1950-1995) Susan D. Haas University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History Commons, and the Journalism Studies Commons Recommended Citation Haas, Susan D., "Communities of Journalists and Journalism Practice at Radio Free Europe during the Cold War (1950-1995)" (2013). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 869. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/869 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/869 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Communities of Journalists and Journalism Practice at Radio Free Europe during the Cold War (1950-1995) Abstract Susan D. Haas Dissertation Chair: Dr. Carolyn Marvin This study describes the construction, maintenance and defense of news practices by journalists at Radio Free Europe (RFE), an experimental U.S. government-sponsored organization whose mission was to act as a "surrogate free press", in effect, to disrupt state media-controlled public spheres of totalitarian states during the West's Cold War with communism. At RFE from 1950-1995, two groups of journalists cooperated to produce content: politically activist, exiled citizens - self-trained journalists -- from East- Central Europe working in semi-autonomous language services (radios) broadcasting through the Iron Curtain to the people of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, and, experienced journalists from Western democracies working in the Central Newsroom, an internal news agency serving the broadcast desks. This study outlines aspects of RFE and its Cold War context -- including journalists' knowledge of the human rights and informational deficits of audiences -- critical ot understanding these groups of journalists.