It will keep you up to date on important industry developments, policy issues, and other pertinent communications-related news events. As Communism in Eastern Europe was crumbling, Secretary of State James Baker called for international support for independent broadcasting in the emerging states of the collapsing Soviet Union, in a speech delivered in Prague in 1990.
Nothing raises more fear in a repressive regime than challenges to the control of information.
And nothing is more important to the development of a civil, democratic society. Press freedom, especially in broadcasting, remains threatened in many former Soviet and East Bloc countries, and in China the democratizing power of the Internet is stalled. Free elections may be a first step in establishing the rule of law, but there can be no multiparty elections without a multiplicity of news outlets. Given the long history of Republican advocacy of First Amendment rights abroad, President George W. Bush and policymakers should put American support for uncensored news outlets at the top of their foreign policy agenda. When MTV launched an Internet discussion board, Fight for Your Rights, where users could address issues related to hate and violence, it quickly became a forum for the expression of bigotry and hatred.