The Post-Communist Media World

During the Cold War, the mass media were considered key propaganda and ideological tools in the European and Asian socialist systems. In order to get a job, a socialist journalist needed the approval of the ruling Communist Party – and any journalist who did not stick to the party line was gone in a flash. “The question of employing journalists was of high importance for the Communist Party,” says Urmas Loit, director of the Estonian Press Council, a professional organization. A journalist did not have to join the party per se, Loit says, but such a move often was “necessary for career-making.” Similarly, nobody had to join the journalists’ union, he adds. “It was rather a question of prestige, and enabled some benefits.” In the shadow world of that era, figurehead governments did not explicitly license journalists, but the ruling parties chose journalists and controlled every aspect of their careers.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, that kind of rigidity has broken down across the former communist world. In China, the largest remaining nominally socialist state, the rules on licensing depend very much on whether a media outlet is considered a central government or national level, provincial, or local organization. Journalists at national organizations, including People’s Daily and China Central Television, have press credentials and are at least expected to join the All-China Journalists Association. Today, however, even these key national organs sometimes use the work of journalists who aren’t officially on staff and therefore may not be as stringently controlled.

At provincial and local levels, regulations and enforcement become murkier. Different regions are developing different media “personalities,” so that the media overseers in the southern manufacturing center of Guangdong province, for example, are widely perceived as being less heavy-handed. When it comes to online media and blogs, the picture is murkier still. Technical levers of control – such as requiring credentials – become less important, and the role of a journalist’s supervisors more important; editors and webmasters are responsible for making sure content adheres to government expectations.

For foreign media, the rules are tougher. All correspondents working for foreign media who live and report in China are expected to have a “J” press visa and a press card issued by the Foreign Ministry; those who are caught working without these documents may find they’re no longer able to enter China on other types of work visas or tourist visas. Foreign journalists may report in China on short-term press visas as well, but these can be time-consuming to procure and short-lived in duration. Foreign correspondents who are legal residents have to renew their J visas yearly, and have been increasingly threatened with non-renewal if government authorities are unhappy with their behavior or coverage.

The mother of all socialist systems, Russia, has dropped licensing requirements entirely since the fall of the Soviet Union. Journalism is open to all entrants, regardless of education and experience. Publishers and broadcasters face  easy hurdles. A publisher must register a new newspaper with the Federal Service for the Oversight of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Communications, for example, but the process is easy and the fee is only about $70 for a national paper, $35 for a regional or local paper.

All the same, the Russian system remains something of a shadow world, an environment that heavily favors state institutions. The tax system and various benefits give strong preferences to Russian state media. In addition, libel is prosecuted as a criminal offense, threatening serious consequences for any editor who takes on a government official. Generally speaking, constitutional protections of free speech work selectively. Russia can be a dangerous place for independent journalists. Eight were killed in 2009 alone, according to the Glasnost Defense Foundation, and dozens assaulted. And in Russia, says the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), which compiles a media sustainability index, the cases of murdered journalists often are not prosecuted vigorously (due mainly to the general ineffectiveness of the justice system).

In the former spheres of Soviet influence, the record is mixed. In Central Asia, governments generally have preserved elements of party-like control. “The legacy of the Soviet media environment remains problematic for today’s journalists in the region,” says a report on the region by Article 19, the free-expression champion. “The remnants and consequences of the old structures that formerly served to hinder or restrict independent journalism are still observed in some areas of Central Asia.”

Kazakhstan, for one, has ratified international covenants on human rights, and the government has played up its support for human rights in its present role as chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. On the surface, this record is “very good. They want to be seen as good guys,” says Peter Noorlander, legal director of the Media Legal Defence Initiative, which helps media defend their rights in legal cases. “But if you scratch the surface you see the most horrendous repression of journalists. The international community looks at the top level of reform and does not bother to scratch the surface and look underneath.”

In Uzbekistan, Noorlander helped bring a case involving the arbitrary closing of a newspaper to the U.N. Human Rights Committee. In a 2009 expression of views, the committee criticized the government for refusing to renew the registration of Oina, the minority Tajik-language newspaper. Uzbekistan’s government claimed that the publication had incited inter-ethnic hostility. But the committee said the government’s action had violated the newspaper’s and its readers’ freedom of expression. “The use of a minority language press as means of airing issues of significance and importance to the Tajik minority community in Uzbekistan, by both editors and readers, is an essential element of the Tajik minority’s culture,” the U.N. committee stated.

In Eastern Europe, where governments have worked hard to develop ties with the West, a much more western-style press has developed in the last 20 years. Poland prohibits censorship and press licensing. Its media have formed their own self-regulating Council of Media Ethics. In Hungary, a law guarantees freedom of the press, and the government provides no supervision. In the Czech Republic, only a minority of journalists belong to Union of Czech Journalists. The Ethical Commission of the Union of Journalists acts as an independent professional body and handles complaints from the public.

The Cold War era is history for much of Eastern Europe – but for other areas of the former Soviet Empire, maybe not quite.