Maryia Sadouskaya was quick to seize the opportunity to explain the operation of European Radio for Belarus (ERB).

The manager of the radio station was near the end of a three-week tour of the United States when she stopped by the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the University of Georgia on December 20.

After being welcomed to the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication by Cox Center Director Dr. Lee B. Becker and Administrative Specialist Melanie Zuñiga, Sadouskaya launched in fast-paced and well-rehearsed presentation of the basics ERB.
The station, with a staff of approximately 40 people and operating out of Warsaw, is trying to reach young people in her native Belarus, she said, by programming music and entertainment as well as independent news.

Maryia Sadouskaya in the Grady TV Studio

The programming is distributed 24-hours-per day via both the FM and AM bands, via the Internet, and by satellite.
Ms. Sadouskaya visited Washington, D.C., Buffalo, New York, Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, before arriving in Georgia on December 19. She had spent the morning in Atlanta at Q100 Radio and a luncheon sponsored by the Georgia Council for International Visitors before traveling to Athens and the University of Georgia to visit the Grady College.

ERB has difficulty reaching all of Belarus, because its transmission towers are outside the country, Sadouskaya said. The journalists who work in Minsk, the capital, must work “undercover,” she said, out of fear of being harassed by authorities. The Belarusian media do not operate freely.

With the support of its many sponsors, including the governments of Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States as well as the European Union, ERB is trying to develop a new generation of journalists who can work in Belarus in the future during a transition to democracy.

Dr. Becker told Sadouskaya of the work of the Cox Center and expressed support for and admiration of her work for ERB. He also expressed disappointment that it was not possible for her to meet with students and faculty of the Grady College. The University was on semester break at the time.

The Cox Center is the international outreach arm of the Grady College.
Sadouskaya was scheduled to visit CNN and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta before her return to Europe on December 22.