Preparing Independent Russian Media for the 21'' Century:

Final Report on Cooperative Agreement 1 18-A-00-97-00274-00, December 2000
0 Sergei Grigoryants, chairman of the Glasnost Foundation;
0 Andrei Illarionov, director of the Institute for Economic Analysis;
Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy;
Vladimir Mau, director of the Working Center on Economic Reforms;
Aleksandr Nikitin, ecological researcher;
Boris Pustyntsev, director of Civil Control;
Yury Samodurov, executive director of the Sakharov Foundation;
Nikolai Shrnelev, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences European
Institute;
Aleksei Yablokov, president of the Center for Ecological Policy of Russia;
Yevgeny Yasin, director of the Expert Institute;
NP17s Press
Centers played a unique
role in fostering civic
participation and open
society in Russia. In
June 2000, more than
50 leading Russian
activists - including
Yelena Bonner, the
widow of Andrei
Sakharov - signed a
heart-felt letter of
gratitude (at right) to
NPI/Moscow Press
Center director Natalya
Yakovleva for NPI's
pioneering efforts.
Dear Natalya Aleksandrovna!
Please allow us to express to you our enormous gratztude for your truly
invaluable help ZIT establzshing civzl sociev and dzssemiizatzng
democratic values in Russia. W~thout you and the NPI press center that
you run, many independent NGOs would be completely deprived of the
opportunity to appeal to the public, to convey to the media injormation
about an enormous number of important facts of Russian llfe
3.3.3 Building a Community of Media Professionals
page 28
signed (among others):
Valentin Gefter (Human Rights Institute)
Lyudmila Alekseyeva (Moscow Helsinki Group)
L. Ponomaryov (Human Rights Movement)
L I. Bogorad (activist)
Yu. Samodurov (director, Sakharov Museum and Center)
S. Sorokin (Antl-Violence Movement)
V. Malikova (Moscow Helsinki Group)
Yelena Bonner (Sakharov Foundation)
Sergei Grigoryants (Glasnost Foundation)
NPI "is the center of thefiee exchange of opinzon zn Russza "
Oleg Panfilov, Glasnost Defense Foundation
Finally, NPI provided - in each of the regions in which it worked - a forum for
the discussion of key issues of direct interest to media professionals in that region. This
was, of course, a natural outgrowth of the entire NPI mission. At each of its branches,
NPI became a key focal point for the media community, especially the non-state media.
Media professionals gathered to discuss threats to press freedoms, economic
developments that affect the media, relevant legal issues, and other professional
development issues.
A small sample of such events during the Cooperative Agreement period follows:
Center for War, Peace, and the News Media - New York University
Chapter 3: NPI Press Centers