Journalism in Central Asia: A Victim of Politics,Economics,and Widespread Self-censorship

Abstract

Significant efforts to develop an independent journalism have stumbled badly in Central Asia, where politics, economics and the unforeseen consequence of widespread self-censorship have derailed development of a Western-style media and the democracy it serves. What is worse, from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, prospects for developing a believable, fact-based journalism look grim. Much of this trouble can be laid at the doorstep of self-censorship, which flourishes across the region with uncommon vigor. Central Asian journalism is in worse shape than the rest of the post-Communist world, largely because the socioeconomic and political situations in this relatively remote region remain in flux from a backwardness that modernity is only of late and slowly affecting. One of the most confounding elements that stymie the evolution of Central Asia journalism is a culture that drives the new post-Communist institutions and the mentalities of the region's sociopolitical, economic, and cultural elites. Consequently, those who endeavor to aid the evolution of Central Asian media should look to the history and culture of the region and then impart a more complete understanding of Western journalism's mission, values, roles, and sound news business practices before addressing journalistic techniques.

Keywords

authoritarianism Central Asia democracy freedom of the press

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References

See, for example, Karol Jakubowicz , Rude Awakening: Social and Media Changes in Central and Eastern Europe (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2006); and Peter Gross , Entangled Evolutions: Media and Democratization in Eastern Europe (Baltimore, MD and Washington, D.C.: The Johns Hopkins University Press/Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002).

International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) , "Media Sustainability Index-Europe and Eurasia 2008" http://www.irex.org/programs/MSI_EUR/2008/exec.asp (accessed May 15, 2008).

Umed Babakhanov, interview by Gross, Dec. 8, 2007, Dushanbe,Tajikistan.

Akbarali Sattorov, interview by Gross, Dec. 7, 2007, Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Open Society Justice Initiative , "The Growing Threat of Soft Censorship: A Paper on Indirect Restrictions on Freedom of Expression Worldwide," Dec. 12, 2005. http://www.justiceinitiative.org/db/resource2/fs/?file_id=16599 (accessed May 15, 2008).

A 2004 report by Ellen Hume for the Knight Foundation, "The Media Missionaries," estimated the total amount of U.S. assistance for the development of independent media worldwide at $600 million since 1989. A July 2005 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (http://www.gao.gov/ new.items/d05803.pdf) estimated that the State Department and USAID together spent some $40 million on developing independent media in 2004. If that conservative figure of $40 million (others put the number at $50 million) is set as the annual media assistance since 2004 when Hume's accounting ended, the U.S. total stands at $760 million.

Mary Myers , "Media and Information Accountability: What Are Other Donors Doing, What Works, What Are the Gaps?" paper commissioned by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development's (DFID) "Effective States Team," March 2007. The report does not provide a total amount spent by European countries on media development, so difficult is it to unravel the budget vagaries of dozens of European agencies involved.What the authors have done here is total up spending from various years as outlined in the DFID report. Not all of the years are the same.The total spending number we arrived at does, however, reflect as an estimate the vast amounts being spent on an annual basis by European governments.

Hume, "The Media Missionaries;" her 2004 report about U.S. support for media development, found that the "Soros foundations spend at least $20 million annually on media development," 19. But Gordana Jankovic, director of the Open Society Institute's (OSI) Network Media Program based in London, said in a telephone interview with Timothy Kenny on May 19, 2008, that Hume's figure was "conservative." Jankovic said she puts OSI spending on media development at $35 million to $40 million annually since 1991.

See International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) , "Media Sustainability Index- Europe and Eurasia 2008"; Reporters Without Borders, "Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007," http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24025 (accessed June 15, 2008); and Freedom House , " Freedom of the Press Survey 2008," http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=362 (accessed June 15, 2008).

10.

Assel Karaulova, interview by Kenny, June 13, 2007, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

11.

Voris Nazar, interview by Gross, December 12, 2007, Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

12.

Jaroslav Razumov, interview by Kenny, June 18, 2007, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

13.

Alyona Alyoshina, interview by Kenny, August 21, 2005, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

14.

The anonymous, online survey of twenty-five questions was composed by the authors and administered by Survey Monkey for six months beginning in May 2007.

15.

Kairat Zhantikin, interview by Kenny, June 13, 2007, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

16.

Bermet Akayeva, interview by Kenny, June 22, 2007, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

17.

Kiberly Verkuilen, interview by Kenny, June 25, 2007, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

18.

Rosa Otunbayeva, interview by Kenny, June 26, 2007, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

19.

Gulnar Assanbayeva, interview by Kenny, June 11 and 12, 2007, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

20.

Two journalists languish in prison in Turkmenistan and three in Uzbekistan; Alisher Saipov, one of Central Asian's most outspoken journalists, was killed in Kyrgyzstan in 2007.