Kyrgyzstan

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Because the economy has not improved since the Tulip Revolution, Kyrgyz society has divided into two parts: people, mostly from the south, who have intentions to leave the country to earn money abroad, and those who try to survive living in Kyrgyzstan. At this moment the number of those who have left the country is more than half a million people. But others living in this wild economic condition are more interested in their economic problems and are less concerned with getting any kind of information from the media. A lot of people in big cities don’t like to be involved in any social events, and they don’t wish to be involved in political battles.

Perhaps this is why the most popular, and most critical of the authorities, semiweekly Kyrgyz language newspaper Agym prints just 100,000 copies of each issue. The majority of its readers live in non-urban areas, although politicians in big cities are among the top readers of this newspaper. Its content is close to “yellow journalism,” but ordinary people trust it and want to read what the newspaper says. Now, many publications similar to Agym appear in Kyrgyzstan, but with less success, and some of them have even lost public interest because they turned to supporting the authorities. There are even a few so-called independent newspapers, whose founders are individuals in the government. Ordinary people easily recognize this type of media by the content of their publications.

Another problem troubling rural journalism in Kyrgyzstan is the challenge of printing the papers. The modern-equipped print houses in Kyrgyzstan are located in big cities, and the cost of their services is unacceptable for local newspapers. Older era print houses have gradually been removed and decommissioned. Only a few of them continue to work for the reasonable prices affordable to small, rural newspapers. But the quality and design of newspapers printed in these older print houses is unattractive and readers do not read or subscribe to them.

Additionally, the editorial staffs of those newspapers usually include journalists educated in old fashioned ways. The younger generation of journalists is not interested in working for rural media, and always looks to stay in the capital and the large cities. For this reason, the media in rural areas is not developing, but declining, and the quality of journalism education in the universities is less than in other specialties.

The expectations of ordinary people in Kyrgyzstan after the 2005 revolution have not been met. The situation in rural media in Kyrgyzstan can only be changed with economic improvement in the country, together with improving the level of democracy.