Nagorski Cites Positive Media Trends at Annual IAPC Meeting

News | July 10, 2013

On June 4, EWI’s Vice President and Director for Public Policy Andrew Nagorski attended the annual meeting of the International Association of Press Clubs, held in Warsaw at the Polish Press Agency.

Nagorski was one of several panelists to discuss the “Freedom of Media and Security of Journalists,” an event organized by the Overseas Press Club (OPC) in conjunction with the Press Club Polska, with 60 people in attendance. During the panel, Nagorski—who had served as bureau chief for Newsweek in Warsaw, Moscow, Rome, Bonn and Berlin— contrasted the historical differences faced by journalists, from the Cold War to present times.

“It’s worth noting that, despite all the dangers today to freedom of the media and the huge problems we have with security for journalists, there are some positive trends,” Nagorski said.

“There’s no better example than the country we’re now in. I covered Poland in the 1980s, when I had to play cat-and-mouse games with the security services to interview someone like Zbigniew Bujak, the underground leader of Solidarity who was the country’s most wanted political fugitive. I was led by Solidarity contacts through back alleys, jumped in and out of cars, and went through all sorts of other drills to avoid being followed. Today, that’s hard to imagine. Political life is free and the media is free. And the country has taken off economically, banishing the chronic shortages and deprivation of the bygone era. As elsewhere, the media is facing plenty of competitive pressures, but no more so than everywhere else.”

Click here to read the full event write-up.