With plenty of cash to spare, financial wizard/philanthropist George Soros has opened offices in former communist countries to help build the institutions of an "open society" (see The End of the Party Line, page 66). The Soros Foundation has focused on the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union - countries still wavering between reform and chaos. In Macedonia, it gave ten new local radio stations news-gathering equipment. In Serbia it's trying to keep the one independent station in Belgrade alive and kicking (B-92). Soro's aid involves setting-up Balkans-based BBSes, helping parliaments write new broadcasting laws, and helping pirate radios when there is no law. Last year it handed out an information-packed dummy's guide to building your own high-powered radio station from the ground up to democracy activists who had no idea of how to make a viable radio station. This year an internship program is bringing TV journalists to the region to teach their craft, and sending new radio managers to spend time at Western European stations. Soros-backed media resource centers have opened in Tallinn, Sofia, Belgrade, and Bucharest; more will open by the end of the year. Soros Foundation: +1 (212) 757 2323, fax +1 (212) 974 0367.
ELECTRIC WORD
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Soros Backs Media Revolution
