11/27/96
CONTACT: Joe Richie, 614/593-4867
ATHENS, Ohio -- An Ohio University telecommunications professor travels to Estonia Sunday (Dec. 1) on the last leg of the university's four-year journey to support democratization and independent media development in the Baltic states.
Joe Richie, associate director of the School of Telecommunications, will lead a contingent of American broadcast and newspaper association officials and consultants that will advise Baltic representatives on how to strengthen public and commercial broadcast, cable and print media associations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The five-person contingent returns to America Dec. 13.
Richie's trip will mark the fourth and final project with the three Baltic states sponsored by the Ohio University's Institute for Telecommunications Studies, in cooperation with the School of Journalism, since 1992. The projects have been funded by the U.S. Information Agency, the U.S. Baltic Foundation, the International Media Fund, and Voice of America.
In response to Baltic independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ohio University faculty and staff also worked at the radio and television station level in managerial training and production, and at three national universities in establishing audio and video production facilities.
Faculty and staff in the schools of Telecommunications and Journalism and the Telecommunications Center have conducted on-campus workshops for Baltic broadcasters on news reporting, electronic news gathering, satellite communications, audience research and public broadcasting.
Last spring, a five-person delegation of journalists and media association officials from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania visited Ohio University and toured U.S. media outlets to learn more about western journalism. Ohio University Associate Professor of Journalism Marilyn Greenwald and Richie traveled to the Baltics in August to work with officials in developing strategies for improving existing media associations.
In December, the Americans will conduct special seminars and workshops for association members on media association structure and activities; lobbying; U.S. public broadcasting models; and issues of piracy, copyright and media ethics.
Accompanying Richie on the trip will be Frank Deaner, executive director of the Ohio Newspaper Association; Lillian Fernandez, senior vice president and government relations general counsel for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and Kay Jackson, president and CEO of KMJ Communications, a government relations consulting firm in Baton Rouge, La. Ohio University Ph.D. student Max Grubb also is making the trip. Richie said the group is expected to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Estonia Lawrence Taylor, a 1963 Ohio University graduate.
When you look at the rapid changes that have taken place in the '90s in the Baltics, there are a lot of independent entrepreneurs in the media, and one challenge has been to develop a community of professionals that can address common issues and develop strength," Richie said. We've gone from an era where the government dictated how the Baltic media were run to a new era in which the entrepreneurs still have to deal with government officials. . . . Government lobbying is a major issue there in trying to strengthen the free-market media."
Director of the Institute for Telecommunications Studies Don Flournoy, who coordinated the Ohio University project over the past four years, said the Baltic media have made tremendous progress" in moving from a communist system to a free-market environment.
There's been a dramatic change in the mentality and attitude of the working professionals toward their work duties and obligations, and it's gratifying to know we played a role," he said.