Year by year it seems the west is spreading further east. Some may lament the homogenization of cultures that globalization brings about but for those in the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe the incremental changes since the fall of communism have largely been a blessing.
Among these changes have been the reemergence of civil society and the economic growth of nations previously shackled with plodding, centrally planned economies. While the road to market economics has not been all rewards, and granting that there are still considerable obstacles to be overcome, it is important to reflect on the gains made towards improving post-communist societies.
In my own personal experience running a newspaper association that seeks to help broaden the range of debate in Eastern European newspapers I can look to the growth of the free press as an achievement worth being proud of. Newspapers in many of the transition countries in the region have made admirable strides in investigative reporting, economic analysis and many other journalistic disciplines that were previously dormant under the Communist regimes. Unfortunately the skill levels of journalists in the region has not always been concurrent with the level of debate within the political establishment. As the murder of Georgy Gongadze, from Ukrainskaja Pravda, in the Ukraine proves, journalism can still be a dangerous business in Eastern Europe. But the daily newspaper Den provides a counterpoint by showing how a newspaper can make a difference in the functioning of a society by promoting transparency.
Regarding economic growth, it is important to study numbers and indicators but the clearest example of growth in region is that I increasingly see that newspapers are able to purchase material for their newspapers whereas only a few years ago this was impossible for all but the richest few. With economic growth comes a more prosperous society and with that come advertisers that seek to interest an emerging class of people in their products. All of this returns to newspapers, who helped promote the initial growth of the economy in the first place, when advertisers buy space in their newspapers. In this way you might say that newspapers are an economic barometer for the general health of a society’s economy.
Newspapers in Eastern Europe have many challenges ahead of them that they are, happily, better able to handle. The expansion of NATO and the European Union will present an innumerable number of stories that warrant serious coverage by studious journalists. The continuing political evolution of pivotal countries like the Ukraine, Belarus and, to a lesser extent, Moldova are extremely important aspects of the ongoing saga of globalization and the politics of transition in the twenty-first century. As the countries of Eastern European continue to pull themselves out of the morass of their communist pasts we can only hope that the gains society has made through its journalists are continued and improved upon as they strive boldly towards their brethren in the west.
