The managers of RFE/RL today
While the first group was out shooting their first assignment, I went over the RFE/RL headquarters in downtown Prague to make the case for the digital revolution to the management of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.
Eastern Europe is free and democratic but many of the former Soviet Republics, particularly in Central Asia are in great need of honest and open reporting and journalism.
The web and new technologies open vast opportunities for the continued ‘democratization’ of the medium, in places were democracy and free speech are goals to be achieved and aspired toward.
There is a whole generation of very brave very qualified journalists who often risk their lives to get the story and get it out.
It is something that we in the US simply are not aware of, or all too often don’t pay much attention to.
We are so inundated with a plethora of choices on TV, newspaper and the web that we forget that there are still places in the world where local journalism is a very risky profession.
Today I had the priviledge of addressing the heads of all the various language and cultural services that RFE/RL serves.
The Azerbaijan Service, the Kazakh Service, the Turkmenistan Service, Farsi and so many more.
These people are on the front lines of journalism. I would like to give the most powerful, dynamic and fluid tools a journalist can have today, and to use them to their maximum benefit.
We have many clients around the world, both commercial and public service, but there are none that I can think of at this moment who do so important a job as these people.
