May 1st, 2008 • Quill Archives
Once-bright future of Central Asia now fading

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Three weeks of reporting from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in summer 2007 left me with the unhappy realization that journalism is getting worse, not better, in both countries. That wasn’t always the case. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there was genuine optimism that a fact-based journalism, untainted by fear of government reprisal, might flourish in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.