"[T]he collapse of Communism showed that running a dictatorship takes, among other things, lots of bandwidth. When any political system implodes, frequencies become available. Across the former Communist countries, people bribed or cajoled or otherwise wrenched frequencies away from the chaotic and corrupt remants of the collapsing systems and won their very own TV channels." –EVELYN MESSINGER, co-founder and former executive director of Internews, in The Nation, November 5, 2002 |
1990
March 1990. In Leipzig, Kanal X, East Germany’s first pirate TV station, begins broadcasting. Makeshift radio and TV stations spring up across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, in many instances defying government attempts to shut them down.
ANDREW STEIN |
1990. Beginning with a research trip to identify independent broadcast stations in Eastern Europe, Internews shifts its focus from producing international television programs to supporting the nascent non-governmental media in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, which are emerging in the new political climate.
May 1990. At Crottorf Castle in Germany, Internews and the Institute for East-West Studies co-sponsor a meeting of 14 policy planning directors from East and West Europe, the US and the USSR to discuss the future architecture of Europe, including the question of allowing a unified Germany into NATO.
1991
August 1991. The first day of the Soviet coup attempt against Gorbachev, Internews provides the independent television program Vzglyad with equipment to cover the event.
October-November 1991. A conference in Novgorod, Russia that draws media professionals from over 50 cities is pivotal in the development of independent broadcasting in Russia.
December 1991. Gorbachev resigns as president of the USSR as the Soviet Union dissolves. The Soviet flag is flown over the Kremlin for the last time on December 31.
"Using compressed video, a state-of-the-art technology, to exchange experiences from one end of the world to another, Patrice Barrat and Kim Spencer have successfully converted a sophisticated technology into a formidable and fragile human adventure." –LE MONDE, June 28, 1996, on Vis à Vis |
1992
INTERNEWS |
1992. Internews launches a program to support independent television in the former Soviet Union as an alternative to state-controlled TV. Internews buys equipment for stations and holds trainings in professional journalism and station management.
KIM SPENCER/INTERNEWS |
September 1992. Internews and French news agency Point du Jour launch
the documentary series Vis à Vis, combining documentary footage
and videoconference links to create intimate dialogues between people
separated by geography or politics. Fifteen programs are broadcast widely
in Europe and North America, culminating in 1998 with a ground-breaking
special on PBS linking a schoolteacher in Iran and a teacher in the US.
October 1992. Internews and the Soros Foundation organize a conference
in Novogorsk, outside Moscow, on independent television and radio. Attended
by journalists from 22 countries from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union, this is for many the first opportunity to exchange experiences
with their counterparts in the region.
"Internews . . . has played such a vital role in helping to establish independent media throughout the former Soviet Union. I agree fully with the importance of free print and broadcast media to the emergence of stable democracies in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union." –BILL CLINTON, former president of the United States |
ISRAELI CONSULATE IN NY |
"Without Internews, we would not exist. They opened our eyes to the possibilities of TV, and they continue to support us . . . Internews not only told us how to make news, how to cover politics and how to be ethical, but it was also Internews that created the first non-governmental TV network." –ALEKSANDER KARPOV, General Manager, Afontovo TV, Krasnoyarsk, Russia |
1993
INTERNEWS |
1993. With a grant from the US Agency for International Development, Internews launches a program to support independent television stations across the former Soviet Union. A half-hour television news magazine, Local Time, based on stories from local stations, begins airing throughout the former Soviet Union, bringing audiences an alternative to Moscow-centric news in a time of political and social upheaval.
VASYL ARTUSHENKO/UNIAN |
May 1993. Internews establishes the International Media Center in Kyiv, Ukraine to foster pluralistic media in Ukraine, and creates the UNIKA-TV network of independent Ukrainian TV stations, the UNIAN wire service, a press center for journalists, and a training center in television journalism.
September 13, 1993. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat sign the historic Oslo Accords in Washington, DC.
September 13, 1993. Internews produces the first trans-border television program that brings together Palestinian and Israeli citizens and newsmakers, in a two-way satellite link between Jerusalem and PLO headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia.
1993. Internews and the Jerusalem Film Institute launch a project to develop Palestinian television, including training in news production and election coverage and a conference on Palestinian broadcasting.
IVAN SIGAL/INTERNEWS |
December 1993. To begin country-specific work in Soviet Central Asia, Internews conducts a research trip through 25 cities in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to assess the state of independent media in the region.
"Feisty, independent, market-driven TV has taken hold across the former Soviet Union, thanks largely to the efforts of . . . Internews." –WIRED MAGAZINE, December 1995 |
1994
1994-96. A brutal war rages in the breakaway republic of Chechnya as Russian forces attempt to stop the region from seceding. The coverage by many private TV stations of local soldiers coming home in body bags or coffins gives Russians information that is completely unavailable on state TV.
1994. Internews launches the three-year Media Development Program to support the institutional and economic development of print and broadcast media in Russia. MDP grants support the first legal resource center for media in Russia and the formation of the National Association of Teleradio Broadcasters (NAT), the first nationwide professional association for the broadcast industry in Russia.
OLEG EGOREV/INTERNEWS |
1994. With Sarajevo under siege by the Yugoslav National Army, Internews and the Soros Foundation run the Balkan Media Network, an early version of an electronic bulletin board and email system that connects 250 independent media organizations as well as ordinary citizens in the former Yugoslavia with the rest of the world.
1994. Internews begins work in the Southern Caucasus, organizing the first conference on independent television and supporting the newly-created private television companies that were developing in regions of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
"The war in Chechnya . . . has been the proving ground of Russia's new independent television news organizations . . . They have broken a number of stories that would formerly have been quashed. The success of the independent stations in Russia has been due, at least in part, to Internews . . ." –COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW, May-June 1996 |
1995
December 1995. The Dayton Agreement formally ends the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with over 100,000 killed and 1.8 million people displaced.
INTERNEWS |
1995. Internews Russia launches its Open Skies service, providing quality documentary television programming to 180 TV stations across the newly independent states. The project is later expanded to stations in the former Yugoslavia.
September 1995. Internews Europe is founded in Paris, France, and collaborates with Internews Network in the Balkans and beyond.
"The work that you have accomplished by broadcasting the proceedings . . . .is especially important to an understanding that war crimes . . . make all humanity victims." –JUSTICE RICHARD GOLDSTONE, former prosecutor, UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia |
1996
BOSNIANS VIEW TRIBUNAL/T. SAMARAH |
1996. At The Hague, in the Netherlands, the United Nations begins the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia.
February 1996. Internews opens an office in Sarajevo and begins work to support independent broadcasting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, providing training, equipment grants and programming for non-governmental TV and radio stations.
May 1996. A satellite program produced by Internews for viewers in the former Yugoslavia and the rest of Europe covers the UN war crimes tribunal. In December, the European Community Humanitarian Office honors Internews with an ECHO Award for Broadcast Commitment for its ongoing coverage of the tribunal.
September 1996. Meeting in Paris, representatives of Internews Network (the US-based organization), Internews Russia, Internews Europe and Internews Middle East form Internews International, an umbrella organization based in Paris, France to reflect Internews’ increasingly global scope.