"When the Communist barricades collapsed in 1989, hundreds of Americans rushed to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics to spread the gospel of democracy. Among them were some of America’s most altruistic journalists, who hoped to midwife a newly independent press. Since then, the U.S. government and private agenc ies have spent more than $600 million on media development. The payoff for these millions has been the training and empowerment of thousands of journalists, the establishment of numerous television and radio networks, the resurrection and creation of newspapers and, in some countries, the toppling of corrupt governments due to reporting that was unimaginable before 1989. Balancing these successes, though, is a second wave of repression and censorship in many places, including the core post-Communist societies where most of the money was spent. In much of the former U.S.S.R, for example, millions of dollars in aid have not produced a viable independent media." (Introduction)