Handicapped by History

Media Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe

"There is no such thing as an Independent Press. You know it and I know it. There's not one of you who would dare write his honest opinions. The business of a journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell himself, his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the property of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

This poignant observation by John Swinton, a former editor of the New York Times, is very much relevant today as when it was first written. In Central and Eastern Europe it appears even more so when taking into account digital media (i.e., the Internet). Indeed, for many journalists and media professionals within the region, the time is not yet ripe to even consider the question of digital media freedom. As a result, the media partisanship and a brutalised intellectualism among journalists which has plagued the region for over a decade looks set to continue.

This lingering media framework was made very clear recently in Budapest at a conference entitled "Freedom of the Media in Central and Eastern Europe". Sponsored by the Soros Foundation and the Council of Europe,leading journalists and media specialists from throughout the region met to discuss issues surrounding press and media freedom. While insight from various countries of Central and Eastern Europe provided a comprehensive view into the question of media freedom, it nevertheless failed to deal with some fundamental problems.

Opening statements to the conference were delivered by Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, the Deputy Executive Director of the European Youth Center of the Council of Europe in Budapest. As media representatives of accession countries to the European Union, she reminded participants of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right of access to important information. She also noted the political importance of media, in that media equals power.

The first speaker was Barbara Trionfi, press advisor at the International Press Institute in Vienna. She observed that press freedom is still an illusion in most areas of Central and Eastern Europe. Accordingly, she noted four general trends impeding press freedom in the region. The first and foremost is the threat to press freedom by old communist methods which are still practiced in most countries of the former East Bloc. These methods include limits to the right of access, harassment, lack of money and resources, and the concentration of media ownership. The next is that of privatisation, which has taken advantage of a weak economic environment. Consequently, in order to secure support from sponsors, journalists are exposed to certain restrictions; also, because of low wages, bribery is often used in order to influence their work. This, in turn, has led to a general decline in quality. The third trend is that of legal provisions and self-censorship. Defamation law is commonly used to silence critics, through the threat of prohibitive fines and even imprisonment. This trend, unfortunately, appears endemic to the region. Finally, mention is made of the lack of legislation to protect access to information which is in the public interest.

In order to combat these trends, Trionfi sees a stronger reliance on the European Court of Justice as one solution, as in a recent case brought against Romania. In addition to this, self-regulation -- not to be confused with self-censorship -- in the form of a code of ethics among journalists is desperately needed.

The next speaker, Jeremy Druker, director and editor-in-chief of Transitions Online in Prague, dealt with the question of whether "western-style" journalism should be the goal for Central and Eastern Europe. Referring to "western" media norms of proof and identification as examples, which can be a problematic in countries where fear of retribution -- both real and imagined -- are prevalent, he ended up concluding that western models are not always appropriate for the region's media landscape. Nonetheless, he does feel western (read US) media can be a useful model in the area of media analysis and self criticism. As with Trionfi, he sees what Central and Eastern Europe needs is a self-regulatory regime. Unlike Trionfi, however, Druker opines that self-criticism, as opposed to self-regulation, is more of an appropriate solution to the problems faced by the media in the region.

Following Druker was Emmy Barouh, member of the board of directors of the Bulgarian Branch of Transparency International. Barouh finds it hard to say that independent media exists within Central and Eastern Europe. She acknowledges that a new media situation within the region has taken hold since the end of communism. However, the difference between then and now is that in the past it was the political regime which censored journalists; now, in the present, it's the journalists themselves who choose to censor the media.

Martin Simecka, editor-in-chief of Sme in Bratislava, meanwhile, notes that the relationship between media and politics have been reversed. The media is now stronger than politicians. Yet, far from being an independent entity, Simecka observes that the media is used to influence and promote commercial interests. Like Barouh, he sees a clear difference between the communist past and the post-Cold War present: then, the media was unsophisticated and easier to sift through; now, it has become more sophisticated and much more difficult to analyze. As with Trionfi, Simecka regards press freedom as an illusion, one which we need to recognise.

Unlike other speakers, in where media decline at the end of the Cold War era was the point of departure, Tomas Vrba, editor-in-chief of the Czech publication "The New Presence", recalled the advent of a progressive press since the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic, one that had its roots in the samzidat activities of the communist period. Even so, he warned that the freedom of the media in the Czech Republic is also very much in danger. He sees corruption as the biggest threat to not only the media, but also the very foundation of democracy. According to Vrba, professionalism among journalism is needed as a remedy for this.

The vice president of Academia Catavencu, the Media Monitoring Agency in Romania, Mircea Toma, went a step further calling for a clearer definition between journalists and editors. According to Toma, journalists have extended their activities to beyond that of simple journalism. Hence, they have ended up wielding much social and political power: they not only define the debate, but frame the public interest as well. Yet the problem is not only with journalists. Toma also sees the cost of production and consumption of media as prohibitive. What is more, there has been an incomplete transition from the past to the present, with old penal codes from the communist period still in place. At the same time, there is no legislation preventing the formation of media monopolies.

The situation of the media in Russia, meanwhile, differs from elsewhere in the region, in that prior to the fall of Gorbachev and the end of communism, the media was in an optimal position, asserts Alexei Pankin, editor of the Moscow publication Sreda. He contends that perestroyka was the best period for Russian media because it was free from financial constraints but, at the same time, was actively critical of the government. Thus, journalists could afford to be outspoken and frequently bit the hand that fed them. Since then, however, the situation has changed dramatically for the worse. Pankin explains that the media has been used primarily as a political instrument for the privatisation of state property. As far as Pankin is concerned, it is democracy itself which represents the biggest threat to the media in Russia, for a plethora of political opinion is passed through the media under the guise of pluralism. Consequently, there is a lack of objectivity in journalistic reporting since "freedom of expression" has been taken to extremes, with journalists writing whatever they want. Pankin asserts that 80% of complaints made by journalists in terms of harassment are unfounded: when a journalist is attacked, it's most likely due to some private business or black market activity, and not because of anything they wrote.

Fatos Lubonja, editor-in-chief of Perpjekja, regards the media situation in Albania as more or less in line with the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. He also feels the media is not independent, relying instead on the fragments of power. He classifies journalists into three basic categories: the first are foreign news correspondents, who represent a professional veneer; next are the semi-professionals who are capable journalists linked with political and business interests; and, finally, there are the slaves, who basically write the way they are told to write.

The rest of the speakers at the conference, which dealt with the topic of civil society and the media, expounded variations on the themes presented. Unfortunately, none of the speakers on either of the days of the one and a half day conference was able to break out of the confines under which they operate. As a result, the conference appeared as an exercise in regional doublethink and therapy than a critical approach to the question of the freedom of the media in Central and Eastern Europe.

This is not to say that there were no critical insights at all. On the contrary, some of it was quite profound, especially in discussions over "eastern" and "western" models of journalism. This debate was instigated by Druker, who stressed the need for Central and Eastern Europe to adopt what are considered some universal standards to journalism. Subsequently, he feels good journalism is practiced to a much higher degree in the west. On the issue of source anonymity, he feels that it all depends on the sophistication of the readership. In conjunction with this, he is wary of the manipulation of facts by authors. Thus, as an editor, he finds it difficult to decide from whom to accept articles and from whom not.

Based on these premises, editors seem to walk a very fine line between censorship and press freedom. It also reflects the structural framework which drives mainstream media on a global scale. Far from providing objective, quality journalism, this framework disempowers the individual by dictating what issues make or don't make the news. From here, it's just a short step to where reports are biased in favour of commercial and political interests in order to secure funding through advertising and economic cooperation.

Although confronted with this fallacy, Druker was reluctant to abandon the false dichotomy between "eastern" and "western" journalism. Instead, he was intent on perpetuating the all encompassing mantra which runs along the lines "the east is least and the west is best." This is a typical example of Anglo-American ethno-centrism and prejudice, in where rumor-based journalism is considered typical of Central and Eastern Europe, as if such journalism doesn't exist elsewhere (i.e., the US and UK).

Contrary to what Druker believes, much of what he regards as "western" media is unfounded and illusionary. Mainstream "western" media is not critical, while media criticism in Central and Eastern Europe does exist sporadically. Druker's main contention is that media criticism must come from the media itself. Yet, it seems that when he speaks of media he is mainly talking about mainstream media. No consideration is given to alternative or underground media at all. Thus, because a lot of media critique in the region is either underground or alternative, and since these avenues are not considered "proper" media in the first place, he concludes that media criticism doesn't really exist in Central and Eastern Europe.

Ironically, Druker himself seems to operate under a double standard. While bemoaning the fact that the region's media lacks self-criticism, when applied to his own online publication it takes on the strange form of self-appraisal. In a section of his pamphlet advertising Transitions Online, entitled "Critical Response", without exception all four excerpts echoed the line "congratulations" and "keep up the good work". Is this supposed to be an example of critical response and self-criticism?

Participants generally rejected Druker's notion of "western" journalism out of hand. It was regarded as something which doesn't exist or, if one had to classify it somehow, then it could be classified best as "safari" journalism and not respectable journalism. One person even raised the question of when speaking about "western" journalism, why are the US and UK used as representative models when other models, such as those from the Nordic countries of Europe, could be used as better examples.

To this extent, Trionfi argued that what is usually considered to be "western" journalism is not a good model for the region to adopt. She rejected many of Druker's claims about the need for citation of sources and identification of authors, noting that the quotation of sources is not that important and that identification should not be a pre-requisite. Barouh, meanwhile, pointed out that the term "western" journalism is often associated with "perfect" journalism, which doesn't exist anywhere. To underline her point, she gives the example of the war against Yugoslavia which polarised journalists into either one of two camps: those who were either pro or anti Milosevic, with the end result being that it was extremely difficult to be both against the NATO bombing and against the Serbian leader at the same time.

Another topic which initiated much debate was that of corruption. Most are of the opinion that since the press is politically motivated, corruption is seen as a political issue based on personal vendettas. According to Simecka, corruption is the biggest threat to press freedom in the region, even bigger than nationalism. He notes that whereas nationalism actually motivates society, corruption doesn't. Trionfi agreed that corruption is a major problem and, along with many other participants, stressed that the European Court of Justice provided some sort of a counter-weight to this.

Some, however, argued that corruption is, in many ways, a stability factor of sorts, a necessary evil which journalists must live with -- but not be a part of. Along these lines, it was recognised that individual journalists had a lot to do with this in terms of personal responsibility. There was general agreement that journalists lacked a sense of media ethics. Speakers like Trionfi, Barouh, Toma, and Pankin all raised the issue and called for a stronger sense of personal responsibility and a code of ethics among journalists, albeit this call was weak and did not penetrate far enough.

The responsibility of journalists not only covered corruption, but also that of setting the political agenda as well. Catavencu accused journalists of often framing the debate. In Hungary this was clearly seen last summer during the World Conference on Science, when no Hungarian journalists were present, their collective interest diverted instead to a major sporting event which happened to be on at the same time. In a sense, this highlights the classical paradox of the responsibility and freedom of journalists: without responsibility there is no freedom; yet without freedom you can't be responsible.

Some, however, had taken the issue of personal responsibility to the extreme. Commenting on the bombing of journalists in Belgrade, Simecka felt that those who were inside the building at the time of the attack got what they deserved, for they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Despite these and other critical analyses, the conference fell noticeably short of the mark. One question which was not fully answered was whether the move of many print publications online (such as Druker's Transitions) was symptomatic of the dangers present in a weak economic environment (as mentioned by Trionfi). Information overload (for anyone who has used the Internet for the first time or for those who use it nfrequently, it can be quite overwhelming and confusing), information retention (with an accelerated refresh rate, users find it increasingly difficult to grasp the essentials as the focus of discourse quickly shifts), and the so-called "digital divide" (print available in libraries gives more opportunities for access; in addition to this, Internet access in Central and Eastern Europe is very low as it is, putting a formidable economic barrier to access) are just a few of the problems that are apparent with the move of print media online.

Surprisingly, Trionfi failed to make a comment on this, even though this aspect of media freedom fit squarely with her speech. The only other speaker to address this, Jeremy Druker, ended up skirting around the issue. He failed to answer whether the trend of print media moving online is symptomatic of a weak economic environment, and thus a barrier to press freedom; or, to put it in another way, that this present media shift actually represents a subtle form of press control. He did, however, raise awareness of the difficult position many print publications now find themselves in, in that they are confronted with one of two choices: either move to the Internet or die. Hence, most print publications end up moving to the Internet as a survival strategy brought about by economic considerations, in that it's more cost-effective to do so.

What was even more surprising than the reluctance of some speakers to deal with such questions was the overall disinterest among participants toward the issue of digital media in general. Indeed, there was a clear lack of awareness toward the myriad issues surrounding digital media and press freedom.

None of the speakers or participants at the conference appeared aware of legislation in their own countries or abroad (including the institutions of the European Union) regarding digital media law, no less the issues surrounding them such as ICANN and ENFOPOL. This was quite shocking, for digital media is clearly an important issue since the vast majority of journalists use computers for writing and to store information. Some of this information is highly sensitive, containing the identity and references of sources who wish to remain anonymous. Thus, failure to become aware of the issue and to deal with it in some way is actually putting journalists and their sources at risk, not to mention the question of media freedom.

In addition to this, present attempts by governments to define harsh digital media laws are putting online access to information at risk. Many of these laws are being developed or even implemented in western countries, such as the UK. The trick in all of this is if the accession countries of Central and Eastern Europe wish to be a part of the European Union, they will also have to implement similar legislation which is presently being framed by the European Commission.

Indeed, this has already been taking place in a number of countries within Central and Eastern Europe. In Hungary, for example, the country expects to complete its application for membership by 2002, and hopes to be a member state soon after. Consequently, this year has seen the implementation of many regulations pertaining to the use of the Internet. Since March it has become a crime to abuse national symbols, engage in character defamation, traffic in illegal substances (i.e., drugs), instigate social discord and hatred, use certain symbols (such as the swastika and hammer-and-sickle), and spread rumors or slander over the Internet.

The problem with this and other such laws is that they are vague and open to abuse. For instance, this law in Hungary applies not only to those pages which contain "illegal" information, but also to those which in some way or form become an accessory to a crime. This being the case, J.D. Salinger could have been thrown in jail for writing "A Catcher in the Rye" and putting it online because of the crime committed by John Hinckley Jr. and his admission that the book influenced him.

At the moment, the police in Hungary don't have and "Internet Surveillance Service" through which it is to accomplish its task of "protecting" users against "illegal" content. Nevertheless, a special unit was established which, since January, has been surfing the web 24 hours a day searching for "illegal" content on Hungarian domains. Internet Service Providers, meanwhile, maintain they are not responsible for the traffic passing through their domains, and the law still has to clarify this point.

Trionfi's view of the stronger reliance on European Courts, as a counter-weight to the political control of the media, subsequently loses much of its credibility when faced with such online realities. In terms of digital media, it actually turns out to be counter-productive, for European Union institutions themselves are the ones drafting laws which can inhibit press freedom (e.g., ENFOPOL).

In some ways, it should not come as much of a surprise that the conference was unwilling to delve into the issue of digital media freedom, since the Council of Europe, as one of the organisers, is part of the cluster of EU institutions which is averse to the unrestricted freedom of digital information. In conjunction with this, another major sponsor, the Soros Foundation, is another indication of how the terms of the conference were framed in advance. Most of the participants were somehow directly or indirectly related to Soros philanthropy, and the structural framework of the foundation to support NGOs that, in essence, reinforce or mirror government bureaucracies, made sure that critical or dissenting voices may have been seen, but not heard.

When confronted with their ignorance on the topic of digital media, the majority of participants were silent. The handful that attempted to muster a response were only able to provide a feeble answer. Pankin, for instance, was totally unaware of Storm-2 in Russia, and was under the impression that digital media law was just fashionable political hype that comes and goes. Little did he realise the FSB, the successor of the KGB, is the driving force behind it.

Vrba, on the other hand, chastised the notion of online journalism. He regards the quality of online journalism as poor and dubious, since anyone can define themselves as a journalist on the Internet. Consequently, he felt there was a need to redefine what is a journalist and possibly provide for some sort of accreditation. This, however, runs counter to the practice of international law, in which there are no stipulations on defining who and who isn't a journalist.

For most journalists and media players in Central and Eastern Europe, their attitude toward digital media is that the time is not yet ripe to consider the issue. They argue that more time is needed to digest the phenomenon of the Internet. In essence, they don't regard digital or online media as a real or legitimate form of media. Little do they realise that the change in the media landscape in Central and Eastern Europe -- and elsewhere around the world -- has been affected by the change in technology.

Mass media has changed substantially over the past ten years. Whether traditionalists like it or not, online media has now added itself to the ranks of print and broadcast media. While print and broadcast are reluctant to embrace the Internet as an authentic form of media, and online media tends to regard "traditional" print and broadcast as passe, the truth of the matter that all three are complimentary to one another and have their respective strengths and weaknesses. It is highly unlikely that one form of media will truncate another to the point of extinction (a commonly held western view of print vis-a-vis the Internet) or that one is incapable or not appropriate for a certain region (a view held by many within Central and Eastern Europe).

In many ways, digital media has already proved itself as a legitimate form of media many times over. Most recently, in pointing out the lack of mainstream media coverage of the CNN-PSYOPS story (in where a unit from the psychological warfare branch of the US Army worked for a time at CNN during the closing stages of the war against Yugoslavia, learning about CNN and helping in the production of news), an action alert from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) stressed that it was online media which initially picked up the story, with the website Emperor's Clothes being the first to translate the report in question and put it on the Web, from where it eventually made its way to several other political sites, with Alexander Cockburn being the first journalist in the U.S. to discuss the story in print, and the first to get it into a mainstream US outlet.

By failing to take into account the impact of digital media, many of the potentials of online journalism are being forsaken. For instance, access to information for journalists and the general public can be facilitated by the Internet. Also, while it's commonly recognised that media is a commodity, in where news is bought and sold, the Internet can, in a number of ways, help to decommodify the media to a certain extent.

Finally, new trends brought about by online media, such as the concept of "civic journalism", can help to transcend some of the shortcomings inherent in a corporate-dominated media structure. This concept -- a change in basic journalism culture, converting cynicism into civic exploration -- is the latest approach among many attempting to draw citizens into public discussions about community life.

When speaking of digital or online media, this doesn't mean the use of only the Internet. Other devices, such as hand-held video recorders or camcorders, provides accessibility to the structures of media production. As one observer noted recently on the Nettime list about the current state of the media:

"The media is modern man's most effective tool of persuasion, now dominating the role of storyteller and teacher. The current monopoly of media ownership and information distribution is in the interests of the power and wealth of the few controlling elite. Effectively dissenting voices are squashed and instead we must watch what we are told to watch. The failure of mainstream media to adequately cover social and environmental issues leads to massive ignorance by the public about issues not deemed worthy of coverage."

As the author explains, the media is increasingly commercial and more subordinated to the desires of corporate interests. As a result, news has become tamer and more irrelevant, with more emphasis on lurid stories which are titillating and diverting and sometimes rising to a certain level of importance, but not really at the heart of the matter.

Hence, economic inequality, foreign policy, white collar crime, corporate abuse, etc will never make the headlines unless it's so apparent that it can't be avoided, and even then the purpose of reporting such incidents is primarily for damage control and to put a positive spin on the things.

The de-centralisation of the media, therefore, would allow for more widespread coverage and increased awareness. The importance of technological change, which has accelerated in tandem with the socio-political changes in Central and Eastern Europe, is that improvements in equipment now allow a single person to provide broadcastable footage with less technical baggage between themselves and their subject, enabling them to uncover stories larger organisations can or will not cover. Thus, not only do tools like the Internet facilitate the access to, and dissemination of, information, but devices such as camcorders can help to bridge the gaps in corporate sponsored media by conveying what would otherwise remain unseen.

In the end, the conference can be said to have been a failure. A lot of the criticisms raised were quite self-evident. Moreover, a lot of the problems with the media in Central and Eastern Europe also exist in other countries -- from First World democracies to Third World dictatorships -- but were presented in such a way as if examples from outside the region (i.e., the US) were not as severe or somehow more manageable than those in the "east". Thus, while Zoltan Kovacs, editor-in-chief of the Hungarian publication Elet es Irodalom, laments the lack of an independent press in Hungary and puts publications such as the New York Times on a pedestal, he fails to consider that the struggle for media freedom in Hungary -- not to mention Central and Eastern Europe -- is mirrored elsewhere, including "great democracies" like the US.

While issues related to political and economic control were adequately covered, as well as themes related to them such as corruption, bribery, and responsibility, not much mention was made of the process of self-censorship per se. Media outlets in Central and Eastern Europe are either directly linked to major political parties or a specific ideological line. As a result, a newspaper will give widespread and generally uncritical coverage to the party they support or the ideological line they represent, and only provide selective, highly negative and polemical, coverage of the opposition.

As a result, the "free press" is fragmented along political lines, lending itself to a unique form of self-censorship. Delving into the truth of a matter becomes not only an arduous and frustrating task, but usually results in disillusionment and apathy, reinforcing the feeling that nothing will ever change. These attitudes bear a frightening resemblance to the desired effect achieved under Nazism, in which the populace were cowed by a feeling that "nichts daegen zu machen" (nothing to do about it), a state of mind that can enable a state to get away with anything -- even mass murder.

Aside from all this, mention was made of supposedly progressive developments within the region, such as the new access to information law which will be established in Albania. However, as with many such progressive elements within Central and Eastern Europe, there exists a glaring difference between theory and practice. Albania's access to information law sounds good, but has yet to be put to the test. And even though the phrases and words used in such legislation sound nice, it's another question altogether of whether politicians obey the rule of law in the first place. In a political climate like Albania's, this is highly unlikely.

Meanwhile, the recommendations put forward were short-sighted. Calls for proper defamation laws lacked substance and any sort of guarantee for press freedom. In addition to this, having the European Court of Justice address the question of media control (economic, political, and self-censorship) is unlikely to offer any guarantees of press freedom, especially taking into account restrictive laws regulating the Internet and ENFOPOL.

By the end of the conference, there were also some questions which were left unanswered. To what extent does journalism thrive because of hardships? There were also suggestions that perhaps expectations were too high. This may help to explain in part why many journalists from the region have become so exasperated. Has the premise of media freedom been exchanged for the reality of repression?

This conference was just the first in a series, with two others following later in the summer. Hopefully the other two will be able to overcome some of the limitations this first one faced. For now, the final word belongs to A. Cygni, who once succinctly observed: "Journalists are like whores; as high as their ideals may be, they still have to resort to tricks to make money."