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<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">Europe & Eurasia Media Sustainability Index 2013</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">IREX’s latest <A href="http://www.irex.org/project/media-sustainability-index-msi-europe-eurasia">Europe & Eurasia Media Sustainability Index (MSI)</A> finds that new media sources are rapidly replacing traditional outlets as the preferred source of news. A decade after online media began sapping the advertising revenue of traditional outlets in the West, these same trends are now washing across the region to the east, undermining business models as they go. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">No matter why the audience migrates online or to satellite television—whether in search of content that is cheaper, fresher, more targeted, sensational, or crowd-sourced—the traditional media are left behind with a smaller audience. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">Business management remained the key constraint for the region, the lowest objective in 12 of 21 countries. Before the financial crisis, for the 2001-2009 studies, professionalism was consistently the panels’ lowest performer. Business management is now the only objective performing below its 2001 level for the region.</SPAN>s circulation and advertising revenues fall, expenditures on newsgathering, journalist salaries, and training have fallen in step. As such, professionalism and business health have now fallen consistently since 2008. In <A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/bulgaria-media-sustainability-index-msi">Bulgaria</A>, one panelist described the competition as “ferocious,” with low-quality, free news websites proliferating and leaving a grim picture for traditional journalists and their employers. Several country studies found reporters working two or three jobs to survive, frantically rewriting an original story several ways for several outlets. </SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">Even the advantages typically associated with the new media revolution were questioned, as in <A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/ukraine-media-sustainability-index-msi">Ukraine</A>, where one panelist noted that an increase in Internet news outlets did not create an increase in objectivity. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">The most telling evidence of new media’s relevance in Eurasia is the attention paid to it by the region’s leaders and elites. A court in <A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/kazakhstan-media-sustainability-index-msi">Kazakhstan</A> shuttered online video news website Stan TV, among others, for covering deadly clashes between striking oil workers and security forces. Other Central Asian governments routinely block new media outlets, the source of nearly all independent news and commentary in that region. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/kosovo-media-sustainability-index-msi">Kosovo</A> and <A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/croatia-media-sustainability-index-msi">Croatia</A> were the best performers; with Croatia’s recent EU accession its performance next year will be telling: Bulgaria and <A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/romania-media-sustainability-index-msi">Romania</A> have regressed steadily since joining.<A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/moldova-media-sustainability-index-msi"> Moldova</A> was another bright spot, continuing to improve since a change of government in 2010. <A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/turkmenistan-media-sustainability-index-msi">Turkmenistan</A>, <A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/uzbekistan-media-sustainability-index-msi">Uzbekistan</A>, and <A href="http://www.irex.org/resource/belarus-media-sustainability-index-msi">Belarus</A> remain among the worst performers. </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">The <A href="http://www.usaid.gov/" target=_blank>U.S. Agency for International Development</A> funds the Europe and Eurasia MSI in 21 countries. The full version and single country reports are available for download under <A href="http://www.irex.org/project/media-sustainability-index-msi-europe-eurasia">http://www.irex.org/project/media-sustainability-index-msi-europe-eurasia</A> (source: IREX mailings)</SPAN></P></BODY></HTML>