M E D I A

  Held at the REC's head office in Szentendre from September 11-13 and organized by the REC, the USAID-funded conference attracted some 50 journalists from Hungarian press, radio and television, including major national media stationed in the capital city of Budapest as well as representatives from smaller regional and local media throughout the country. Two American environmental journalists, each with some 30 years of experience, also attended the conference to offer insight on practices and problems common in the US.

  "The main objective was to increase environmental awareness in the country by encouraging journalists to write more about environmental stories," said conference organizer and REC Communications Officer Paul Csagoly. "The way to do that is to help them get over some of the obstacles blocking good environmental reporting."

  The conference attacked three main obstacles - uncovering and understanding environmental issues (which tend to be more complex than other issues), knowing where to look for good environmental information, and "selling" non-sensational environmental stories to the public and editors.

  The conference opened with Hungarian and American journalists presenting case studies highlighting the above obstacles. Steven Ross, Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University (founded by Hungary's very own Joseph Pulitzer), and Richard Stapleton, formerly with ABC and CBS News, emphasized the need for journalists to understand, and to be critical of, who their sources are as well as what motivates their giving and retaining certain information, be they government, business, or even NGOs.

  Regional and global environmental issues affecting Hungary were discussed by speakers including REC staff and Tibor Farago from the Hungarian Ministry of Environment, who presented Hungary's relationship with regional and international environmental treaties. Information resources available to Hungarian journalists were also presented by organizations including the REC, the Center for Independent Journalism, the Ministry of Environment, and Hungarian journalistic associations. Participants were particularly interested in Internet services provided by the REC, and the Green Spider network - a key provider of Internet environmental information in Hungary.

  And finally, two sessions were devoted to boosting the appeal of environmental stories to the general public and editors - the first by top Hungarian editors and producers, the second by the American guests. "I was struck by the fact that the problems Hungarians face in reporting environmental issues, from getting air time or newspaper inches to explaining scientific, technical and economic issues in terms the average person can understand, are the same as we have in America," said Stapleton.

  Laszlo Kovacs, the conference's coordinator as well as a director of environmental documentaries in Hungary, was also struck that, until now, Hungarians had thought that American reporting was the best in the world with total freedom of the press. "But at the conference we learned that even in the US, owners of the media influence what is written and what isn't." Stapleton, on the other hand, was disturbed that so much Hungarian journalism was dependent on government funding. "Vigorous environmental reporting must be ready to criticize, often harshly, government action or inaction. I don't see how that is possible when the editor must rely on that same government for the financial support needed to print or broadcast."

  Before the conference, Hungarian journalists had thought that environmental reporting really only interested a handful of journalists within the country. "But more than 50 attended this conference, and even on Saturday afternoon, most of the participants were still there - in Hungary, this had never happened before," said Kovacs. "Environmental reporting has come out of the ghetto in Hungary. Even political, economic and social journalists attended the conference."

  Based on the success, high turnout, and positive evaluations of those attending the conference, Csagoly sees plenty of potential for more such conferences within Hungary and even in the region. "Evaluation forms showed that journalists want to go deeper into some of the issues," said Csagoly. Specific issues for further discussion include improving links between environmental journalists in the region, locating funding sources, making stories more "readable," strengthening relations with NGOs, and discussing solutions and not only problems.