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Media Reform in Post-Communist Europe

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Media Reform in Post-Communist Europe Fighting Legacy: Media Reform in Post-Communist Europe Marius Dragomir Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council of the United States Senior Fellows Publication August 2003 The Atlantic Council promotes constructive U.S. leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the central role of the Atlantic community in meeting the international challenges of the 21st century. The Council embodies a nonpartisan network of leaders who aim to bring ideas to power and to give power to ideas by: • stimulating dialogue and discussion about critical international issues with a view to enriching public debate and promoting consensus on appropriate responses in the Administration, the Congress, the corporate and nonprofit sectors, and the media in the United States and among leaders in Europe, Asia and the Americas; • conducting educational and exchange programs for successor generations of U.S. leaders so that they will come to value U.S. international engagement and have the knowledge and understanding necessary to develop effective policies. Fighting Legacy: Media Reform in Post-Communist Europe Marius Dragomir Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council of the United States Senior Fellows Publication August 2003 For further information about the Atlantic Council of the United States and/or its Senior Fellows Program, please call (202) 778-4956 Information on Atlantic Council programs and publications is available on the world wide web at http://www.acus.org Requests or comments may be sent to the Atlantic Council via Internet at [email protected] 10TH FLOOR, 910 17TH STREET, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 Table of Contents Foreword.............................................................................................................................................vii Introduction.......................................................................................................................................viii I. The Communist Legacy .................................................................................................................1 Fighting the Legacy .........................................................................................................................2 II. Transitions ......................................................................................................................................6 Revamping Communist Law .........................................................................................................7 Censorship at Work.........................................................................................................................9 The Fate of Public Broadcasting.................................................................................................11 At War with the Press...................................................................................................................14 Soviet Dictatorship Ends, But Dictatorship Lives On ............................................................21 High Poverty, Low Journalism....................................................................................................27 Ethnic Hatred and Ravaging Wars..............................................................................................32 Western Capital and Local Tycoons...........................................................................................35 Soviet Political Machinery at Work.............................................................................................40 III. Reform.........................................................................................................................................43 The American Way........................................................................................................................44 Rising from the Communist Ashes.............................................................................................52 Reforming Public Broadcasting...................................................................................................56 IV. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................65 Annex: Czech Case Study................................................................................................................68 Market Evolution...........................................................................................................................68 The Fate of Czech Public Television..........................................................................................69 Conclusion......................................................................................................................................71 About the Author...............................................................................................................................72 vii Foreword Few aspects of the process of democratization in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are more important than the liberalization of the media. Unless free and independent media can be established on a sound financial footing, the new democratic institutions will be seriously incomplete. This study, by a Romanian journalist who spent six months at the Atlantic Council as a Knight Fellow in 2002, provides both a survey of the experience of the media reform to date, an assessment of the challenges that must still be faced and conclusions and recommendations on what is needed to bring the process to a successful conclusion in the light of Western experience. The Knight Fellowships were established at the Atlantic Council in 2002 by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. A competitive selection process resulted in Marius Dragomir becoming one of the first cohort of two fellows. A biographical note on Mr. Dragomir can be found elsewhere in this report. The Council is pleased to be able to offer this stimulating and comprehensive analysis to a wider audience. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Atlantic Council, but the Council does believe that the issues treated in this report are important and serious. We hope that Mr. Dragomir’s analysis and conclusions will be useful to a wide readership concerned with the future of Europe and the states of the former Soviet Union. Christopher J. Makins President, The Atlantic Council of the United States viii FIGHTING LEGACY: MEDIA REFORM IN POST-COMMUNIST EUROPE Introduction When the Polish anticommunist Lech Walesa said in 1993 that, “the level and state of the mass media determine the development of democracy,”1 few put much value on his remark. A decade later, however, Walesa’s comment has proven prescient. As we evaluate mass media in Central and Eastern Europe, we see a lack of able managers, low levels of journalistic training, and media outlets on the verge of bankruptcy, with governments and emerging businesses systematically attempting to stifle this young, yet already sickly press. Enlarging the picture, we see former communist systems having difficulty finding the path to democracy. Despite the enthusiasm and euphoria that accompanied the anticommunist earthquake in Europe in the late 1980s, the much-expected societal and economic change has proven to be a formidable task in the region. The process of democratization in the former communist countries remains far from complete. Facing a backward mentality entrenched in many levels of society and striving to resuscitate ailing economies, Central and Eastern European nations have been slow to complete desperately needed reforms in all spheres – including the media, an important part of the democratic process, as Walesa foretold. Following several libel suits as a journalist in my native Romania and extensive informal research on the state of mass media in former communist countries, I came to recognize that the focal issue in the transformation of media in the region is the legal framework in which the press operates. The newly established media laws in the former Soviet-controlled countries indicate the state of the media there. This legal framework is the real Gordian knot that needs to be cut by the post-communist regimes to accelerate the democratization process. Understanding the importance of this nascent legal culture in the creation of a democracy- building press in the region, I embarked upon a comparative analysis of media laws in the former communist countries. I chose to look at the whole former Soviet-controlled region of Europe, as these nations share a common political and cultural history, having experienced the same development path for half a century. Some of the countries in the region have been more successful in reconstructing the legal system, while others still lag behind, but all these young, struggling democracies are experiencing a painful transformation, with unexpected challenges and obstacles. As Bernard J. Margueritte put it, the press reflects this checkered communist past. “Beset by weak professional training and standards, by intense competition, by an invasion of Western investors, managers and press models, today the Eastern European press is at sea, freed of its old Communist moorings (or shackles), but without a clear course to sail.”2 1 Quoted from Margueritte, Bernard J. Post-communist Eastern Europe: The Difficult Birth of a Free Press. [Cambridge, Mass.]: Joan Shorenstein Center, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 1995.
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