Iowa's International Center for Community Journalism
Focuses on Ukraine

International Center for Community Journalism (ICCJ)
Robert Anderson, President
Box 226
Grinnell, Iowa 50112
Tel: (515) 236-3072
Fax: (515) 236-0019
E-mail: [email protected]

Since 1993, the International Center for Community Journalism (ICCJ), based in Grinnell, Iowa, has brought over 30 Ukrainian journalists to America under grants from the United States Information Agency. Working with the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, as well as newspapers and broadcast organizations in the Midwest, ICCJ has arranged programs of homestays and internships that provide the Ukrainian visitors with insights into American journalism, particularly as it is practiced in rural areas.

While media organizations in Kyiv, a large city, have some measure of financial independence, in rural Ukraine newspapers or local TV stations depend on the local government for financing and thus they are subject to strong controls. When private firms do exist with resources to invest in the media, it is sometimes not mere advertising that they want, but a private mouthpiece in the guise of an “independent” newspaper or TV story.

For these reasons, ICCJ’s program is especially valuable. As President Bob Anderson points out, visiting journalists learn from their internships how newpapers both operate as profitable business ventures in rural American communities and remain accountable to those communities—rather than to special interests, political or other.

Besides bringing Ukrainian professionals to the U.S., ICCJ seeks to broaden the impact of its programs by organizing workshops in Ukraine led by American journalists together with some of the Ukrainian veterans of exchanges. These workshops have been held in Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv and Cherkassy. In the last two cities, ICCJ also hopes to establish independent journalism centers in order to cement permanent relationships.

In the Cherkassy region, ICCJ works closely with Vlad Bassis, a Ukrainian journalist and exchange program alumnus. Vlad and his wife Irina have had a long struggle with Ukrainian authorities in an effort to obtain a license to operate an independent radio station. Despite these problems, Bassis is optimistic about the future of independent journalism in Ukraine.

Much of ICCJ’s work has focused on Ukraine, but it has not been limited to it. Exchanges have also been carried out with Bulgarians, Georgians, Mongolians, Chinese and Thais. In Bulgaria, ICCJ has helped to found a local newspaper, Sandanskii Vesti, working through a staffer from the Des Moines Register who spent several months in Sandanski, and the locally-based Spartacus Foundation.

For further information, contact the Center using the information above.

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The URL for this page is: http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~ccsi/csew/95-11/cntrjrn.htm
Last updated: March 26 1996

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