Post-Communist Eastern Europe: The Difficult Birth of a Free Press

Abstract

Margueritte, surveying the scene across Eastern Europe, displays the disappointment and apprehension that many share who've looked closely. As he says, "There are no more taboos anymore .. but we are still far away from what Poles, Czechs, Slovaks-indeed all the peoples of this diverse region-had dreamed about at the dawn of their new freedom ... "

Margueritte points to encouraging signs at the same time, however, and finds that there are things people both in the East and West can do to make a difference. At the end of his paper, he outlines and evaluates several of these actions.

Will they succeed, at a level Margueritte and other dedicated journalists in the region find satisfying? That remains the open, and problematic, challenge. The power of Margueritte's critique-read in an American society itself awash in "OJ"- is the power of the moral claim his inquiry makes. Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, rushing headlong toward capitalism, offer those of us raised, educated, accustomed-and inured-to it a prism through which to see not only the frustrations of a newborn society seeking civility in the highest sense, but a reflection of what has come of our own hopes and dreams for the same.

In that sense alone, beyond its documentation of Eastern Europe's fragile press, it is a challenging and enriching study.