2004-12-12
This is Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Development
Report.
"Nothing raises more fear in a repressive government than
challenges to the control of information. And nothing is more
important to the development of a civil, democratic society."
These are the words of David Hoffman, the president of Internews.
Mister Hoffman leads a non-profit organization that helps build
media that are open and independent.
Internews was created in California in nineteen eighty-two. By
its count as of July, the group had trained thirty-two thousand
media professions around the world.
In Afghanistan, for example, Internews helped launch a network of
more than twenty independent radio stations. Internews has also
helped form the first independent broadcast media in Pakistan in
sixty years. And it has trained what it says are the first media
lawyers there.
The group has also trained a number of female reporters in
Pakistan. The same is true in the Middle East.
In Africa, Internews is teaching journalists in Kenya and Nigeria
how to report about H.I.V. and AIDS. The organization also supplies
international news coverage of the trials related to the nineteen
ninety-four killings in Rwanda. The International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda is holding the trials in Tanzania.
Major supporters of Internews include the United States Agency
for International Development and the State Department. Others
include the United Nations Development Program and the Open Society
Institute.
Internews has helped form national media organizations to seek
laws for open media and to defend the rights of reporters. Internews
International, a membership group of non-governmental organizations,
is at work in more than forty countries.
Internews had some of its biggest successes yet through its work
in Georgia. The organization had been working with Rustavi-two. This
is a small independent television station in Tbilisi. In November of
two thousand three, its reports on cheating in parliamentary
elections helped fuel huge protests. Eduard Shevardnadze resigned as
president of Georgia.
Today, Internews says Rustavi-two is an example for
non-governmental stations throughout the Southern Caucasus.
You can learn more about Internews at its Web site,
internews.org.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill
Moss. I'm Gwen Outen.