Welcome to GlasNews online! GlasNews is a quarterly publication on East-West contacts in communications - including journalism, telecommunications, advertising and public relations. It's published by the Art Pattison Communications Exchange Program, based in Seattle.
This is your guide to the Winter 1993-1994 issue of GlasNews. New issues are distributed quarterly via the *soc.culture.soviet* newsgroup on UseNet, and via *glasnost.news* on PeaceNet.
GlasNews wants to hear from you - and we extend a special invitation to communications professionals in Russia and other newly independent states. We regret to report that we are suspending publication of GlasNovosti - our Russian-language edition - due to tough financial straits.An on-paper version of GlasNews is available for an annual subscription of $20. Send us a message at glasnews@eskimo.com or at the Art Pattison Communications Exchange Program, 111 W. Harrison, Seattle, Wash. 98119. Voice phone: Communications Northwest, 206-285-7070. Fax: 206-281-8985.
Tax-deductible contributions to CEP are greatly appreciated and acknowledged. Thanks to our latest contributor: The U.S. Agency for International Development through The Eurasia Foundation.
Acknowledgments also to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Ray Berry, Kim Carney and Lorraine Pozzi for technical assistance.
GlasNews articles, as well as GlasNet bulletins and material related to the October crisis, are available via ftp from eskimo.com in directory GlasNews. Coming soon: access via the World Wide Web.
- David Endicott, CEP Chairman; Alan Boyle, Managing Editor; Carol Rogalski, Contributing Editor; and other members of the CEP.
P.S.: We apologize if you have received multiple copies of some articles. Please let us know and we will adjust our mailing list accordingly.
By Vladimir Orlov
Russian journalists received a wonderful gift this Christmas from the Soros Foundation, known in Russia as the Cultural Initiative Foundation: It gave awards of $1,000 to $5,000 to 120 winners in a competition focusing on Russian parliamentary journalism.
The winners were in no mood to celebrate, however. The common opinion of the journalists, political analysts and the judges was that independent political journalism could hardly survive in Russia, in the wake of attacks from politicians of different "wings." There was a lot of pressure -- and a very weak response from Russia's mass media.
October's tragic events forced the media to different sides of the barricades. Communist Pravda and Sovietskaya Rossiya, nationalist Dyen and liberal Nezavisimaya Gazeta were on one side, actively supporting the rebellious parliament headed by Vice President Alexander Rutskoi and Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov. The daily Rossiiskiye Vesti, radio and television took the presidential side.
Perhaps the only two newspapers that tried to be independent from the "barricade viewpoint" were Komsomolskaya Pravda and Moscow News.
We at Moscow News tried to express different positions and avoid showing our own position. There was great discussion at Moscow News about how to react to Boris Yeltsin's appeal. The majority opinion was this: In practice, there is no way out of the political crisis other than to destroy the parliament. At the same time, the disbanding of parliament creates a huge danger, and such a step is immoral.
Unfortunately, very few media outlets viewed the crisis in terms of "morality" in conflict. Our opponents followed different logic: It is a conflict, the president is right, therefore we shall support the president by giving information from his point of view.
The circulation of all media during the conflict, naturally enough, went up considerably. But people wanted little or no discussion of ideology. They needed information only. In comparison with April 1985 (Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power) and August 1991 (the abortive Kremlin coup), the mass media in Russia couldn't play the role of "the fourth power." It was not a power at all. The best course was that taken by CNN: It could objectively show what Yeltsin was doing with the parliament, minute by minute... But it was not Russian media.
After the crisis, Russian political journalists felt exhausted. The election races were not of much interest. It was mostly an interesting "game," without serious consequences. After the October shock, the journalists were not ready for a new one. When it happened, in the form of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's triumph with 25 percent of the vote, it seemed unreal, absurdist. But it was true.
No one had forecast anything like this. Factor Z was very unusual and new in the Russian political scheme. That is why many journalists found, in Z, their own renaissance: The threat of Russian fascism is evident -- let's fight the threat -- etc., etc. Once again, barricades. Once again, "danger." Once again, no serious analysis. Who were the people who voted for Z? Which business structures financed him?
Paradoxically, even the Z phenomenon is not of great interest to the majority of Russians who are sick of reading about politics. To buy a serious, upscale daily? Oh, no! A customer would rather buy a downscale tabloid with topless girls on page 1. The British quasijournalistic experience can be very productive in Russia. But maybe it's normal after all, when politics is too dirty...
The conference, "New Media for a New World," will focus on how new forms of electronic communications, such as on- line networks, multimedia and desktop publishing, affect societies in both the West and the East.
"During the past few decades, 'the media' have come to be seen as monolithic, impersonal and in league with the powers that be, particularly in the East Bloc," says CEP Chairman David Endicott. "In the post-Cold War world, new media can reverse that, making every computer owner a potential publisher or broadcaster. But there's also the potential for no change at all, or even the worst 'Big Brother' nightmares of '1984.' We hope to examine the most important of these issues at this conference."
Among the topics on the agenda for the conference are the roles of private, public and foreign investment in new media, East-West routes on the international information highway, access and privacy in the context of interactive media, and how new media can promote democratization and community-building.
The conference is scheduled for July 26 to August 2, during the Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg. It is the successor to a similar citizen initiative conference held in Seattle during the 1990 Goodwill Games, which attracted journalists and participants from other communications disciplines from throughout the United States and the former Soviet Union.
Money for the grant was provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development and awarded by the Eurasia Foundation. It will enable the CEP to further its contacts with sponsors, Russian partners and potential American participants in the fields of publishing, software and telecommunications.
Further information about "New Media for a New World" is available from the CEP, 111 West Harrison Street, Seattle, Wash. 98119. Telephone: 206-285-7070. Fax: 206-281-8985. E- mail: glasnews@eskimo.com.
For more than six years, the Art Pattison Communications Exchange Program has encouraged exchange projects among journalists, public relations and advertising executives and other communications professionals in the United States and the former Soviet Union. The CEP is part of the Seattle-Tashkent Sister City Association, an official arm of the Office of the Mayor of Seattle.
The Web is a potentially powerful tool for pulling together lots of resources from different places around the world - but it's sometimes hard to find the right content (to get beyond, say, the really cool graphics illustrating road construction projects in North Carolina).
"Friends and Partners" is in the process of putting together a comprehensive gateway to information about Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, ranging from at-a-glance factoids to descriptions of everyday life to funding sources. It's still a work in progress, but well worth watching. It also has an associated listserver that tells you about new services and feedback from subscribers.
To subscribe to the listserver, send a message -
SUBSCRIBE FRIENDS Firstname Lastname- to listproc@solar.rtd.utk.edu.
To visit the Web, you can either use the command "go http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/friends/home.html" from your own Web server, or telnet to solar.rtd.utk.edu and log in as "friends."
Your hosts are Greg Cole of the University of Tennessee (gcole@solar.rtd.utk.edu; phone: 615-974-2908) and Natasha Bulashova of Pushchino (natasha@ibpm.serpukhov.su).
To sign up, send a message requesting subscription to "fsu-request@sovset.org," "policy-request@sovset.org," and/or "politics-request@sovset.org," respectively.
U.S. contact is Christopher Kedzie of the RAND Corp. (kedzie@rand.org). Other contacts: Alex Vostrikov (postmaster@silk.igc.apc.org); regional director Mac Viers (macviers@silk.igc.apc.org).
The titles are available on floppy disk, with CD-ROM versions rolling out during 1994.
For more information, contact Cascade at 115 E. School Road, Wenatchee, Wash. 98801. Phone: 509-663-9523. Fax: 209-664-7398. CompuServe: 76400,2274.
MN is printed in English and Russian (and is available on-line for a fee via American Cybercasting). The weekly newspaper is also a partner in publishing The New York Times' Russian edition. Moscow News also puts out MN Confidential, a compilation of exclusive inside information available via fax and e-mail. MN's e-mail address: mosnews@sovamsu.sovusa.com.
GlasNews is the quarterly publication of the Art Pattison Communications Exchange Program, fostering links between communications professionals in the United States and the Newly Independent States. Address: 111 West Harrison Street, Seattle, Wash. 98119. Phone: 206-285-7070. Fax: 206-281-8985. E-mail: glasnews@eskimo.com. Back copies available via anonymous FTP from eskimo.com; cd u/g/GlasNews; get readme.1st.