Conservative Newspaper Beachhead Abroad p.

By: Ron Chepesiuk

Washington-based Madison Center carries its conservative message to Eastern Europe by funding student newspapers there
DURING THE PAST 12 years, the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, a Washington-based conservative research and public policy organization, has concentrated much of its time, money and resources establishing a national network of more than 70 conservative college and university newspapers and magazines across the country.
Now the center is carrying its conservative message to the universities of the fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe through an initiative called the European Journalism Program.
Begun in the fall of 1991 with a $60,000 grant from the International Media Fund, the program has established two Czech student newspapers ? Babylon at Charles University in Prague and Kurs at the University Paleckeho in Olomouc ? and by this month, the program expects to have three more in operation, one in Slovakia and two in Hungary.
The European Journalism Program got started in May 1991 when former Collegiate Network program officer Johnathan Bacal returned to the Madison Center after a six-month stay in what was then Czechoslovakia. There he had founded the Lockhart Institute, a conservative educational foundation designed to help Czech higher education, and conceived the idea of a journalism network for universities.
"We have grown slowly and have had to build from the ground up, especially on the business side," says Scott Alexander, director of the European Journalism Network. "We are not just being good benefactors. We are trying to teach the East European students that newspapers are business entities, so they have to learn how to sell advertising and be efficient in order to survive."
The biggest challenge in the early part of the program, Alexander reveals, has been to set up a distribution network that can get the publications out to the public.
Unlike American student newspapers, the Madison Center-sponsored East European publications are seeking a wider readership outside the campus.
"Under the communist regimes, the state distributed everything," says Alexander. "It's been three years since the revolution and a lot still hasn't changed."
The Madison Center has helped Babylon and Kurs locate office space, provided them with computers and state-of-the art desktop publishing, and taught them how to write editorials, lay out their publications, sell advertising, distribute copies, and organize and manage staff.
Alexander says the program's mission is not to inculcate East European students with the message of American conservatism.
"All we are really trying to do is to deliver some resources and advise the students on how to run a newspaper. We have no influence over editorial policy or what type of articles they publish. The East European students aren't very ideological. They have been beaten over the head with ideology. I find them very open to ideas."
"Poppycock," counters Jason Ramas, a staff person with the non-profit National Liberation News Service, a Cambridge, Mass.-based wire service providing copy to more than 160 liberal student publications.
"The Madison Center is trying to establish a vanguard of young people with right-wing ideological ideas. It is working to establish support for American big business so it can do anything it wants to do in Eastern Europe."
Ramas adds, "There are a large number of left-wing student groups in Eastern Europe, and the center will have its work cut out if it wants to establish a conservative beachhead for unbridled capitalism."
Entering its third year of operation, the NLNS has clients in Canada and Asia but has had little contact with Eastern Europe.
"At this point, the left hasn't gotten around to funding its youth programs as well as the right," Ramas explains, "but we do the best we can."
The NLNS' better financially supported conservative counterpart, the Collegiate Network, was founded in 1980.
"About half of the 70 publications in the network receive a grant from us, which averages about $3,200 annually," says Brian Fraley, program officer for the Collegiate Network. "The money must be used for operating and production costs."
Tomas Palicka, editor of Kurs, describes himself as a conservative but says his newspaper is not trying to shape itself in the image of the American press.
"We expect to follow our own voice," he says. "I don't like a lot of things about the U.S. press, especially its inclination to chase sensational stories and to ignore the issues."
Kurs is a monthly with a circulation of 5,000 and sells for about 18? an issue, expensive by Czech standards considering that mainstream dailies sell for two to three cents an issue.
Palicka operates with a staff of four plus several free-lance contributors who provide articles debating the wisdom of marijuana use and the death penalty, profiling and interviewing important political leaders, and investigating important social and political issues.
"We appreciate the Madison Center's support, but we expect to operate eventually without its financial assistance," Palicka explains. "We expect to do that by increasing circulation and selling advertising."
The center recently joined the international computer network known as Internet and now newspapers in both the Collegiate Network and the European Journalism Program can communicate directly with each other.
The International Media Fund has given another $75,000 for the European Journalism Program's second year of operation, a development that makes the Madison Center confident about the program's future.
"If the funding continues to come in, we will have no problem expanding to major cities in Russia such as Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as to Kiev, Warsaw and other major Eastern European cities," says Alexander. "The young newspaper editors will be leaders in their countries, possibly in from five to 10 years. As opinion leaders, they will have a big impact." nE&P