How did Index on Censorship change after the fall of communism?
Judith Vidal-Hall: The magazine went off the market for a brief period after the wall came down and communism collapsed. And people said you’ve done a fantastic job, we don’t need you any more. Money was withdrawn and the magazine went off the market for a time. What we really did was re-think the word “censorship.” There was a perception that censorship was something that happened “out there” and that it was something done by the communist state. But while the generals had gone in South America, the dictators had not in South Africa. So there was still the old-fashioned censorship. Ideologically, communism was no longer the great enemy. There was a huge sort of freedom of access, but suddenly economics became a problem. JM: Like the ownership of the papers? JVH: Precisely- those who were there to buy the papers. So you basically get the old apparatus are the only ones who’ve got the money. Or you get the mafia, or you get foreign owners. Like Bertelsmann in Germany who is now the bigg
