The Start of a Beautiful Friendship

Student journalists meet on
beautiful Island of Hvar, Croatia

By Dr. Chad Stebbins, Director
Institute of International Studies

"You know, Chad, as Humphrey Bogart said, ‘I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.’"

"Casablanca!" I said.

"Casablanca," he replied.

We shook hands and parted company. As in the movie the exchange took place in an airport. This one in Zagreb, Croatia. The date was October 9, 1999, and it ended my participation and that of two of my students in the third annual — but the first we attended — Student Voice conference on the Island of Hvar, in the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Split, Croatia.

Richard Massa (left), Chad Stebbins (center), and Stjepan Malovic of the University of Zagreb converse during a break in the conference.

It was a conference organized three years ago by my new Humphrey Bogart-quoting friend Stjepan Malovic of the University of Zagreb and of the International Center for the Education of Journalists. Actually the conference was the idea of some of his own students who insisted that the future professional journalists of Croatia, the student journalists of today, needed to have much more contact with their contemporaries in the rest of the world. The first year some 80 student journalists from nine countries attended. Last year there were about 100 from 15 countries. This year there were 120 from 20 countries. Theme for this year’s conference was propaganda and journalism.

The conference began on Thursday, October 7, with most participants arriving the previous day. My students and I, however, because of previous commitments at home were unable to leave Joplin until Wednesday, and it was 24 hours after leaving the Joplin airport for Memphis, then Detroit, then Frankfurt, Germany, then Split, Croatia, we arrived at our hotel in the city of Hvar on the Island of Hvar.

Dr. Malovic’s students completely organize and run the conference with advice, encouragement, and "an occasional idea" (his words) from him. With support from the local tourist bureau, a Zagreb bank, Microsoft, Reuters news service, the Croatian Ministry of Science and Technology, and others, the organizers are able to keep the cost to participants quite low.

The registration fee is $20 per person. That includes transportation from Split to Hvar and return at the end of the conference by a chartered hydrofoil launch, lodging at the Hotel Amfora, one evening meal, a Saturday afternoon island cruise with lunch included, and an airline ticket from Split to Zagreb at the end of the conference so one can catch international flights to home. That’s an amazing bargain for just these services alone. Add in the guest lecturers (I was one) who receive no additional compensation (although each lecturer’s private hotel room had a commanding view of the sea and neighboring islands) and the value of meeting colleagues at every level from leading Eastern European nations, a few Western European ones, and even fewer American institutions, one can easily see the benefits for all.

Missouri Southern joined Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis, the University of Tennessee, and James Madison University in participating. Missouri Southern sent two students; two others from the United States attended. The four American students mingled with the European students in workshops, in lectures, and in formal receptions, including one given by the mayor of Hvar in the city’s impressive Ancient City Hall Loggia. In social activities, the students shared information on their backgrounds, their schools, their newspapers, and their interests. Many of the European students became interested in Missouri Southern’s use of certain computer software in newspaper publishing, of pagination by computer, of hand-on opportunities, and about the freedom students exercise over the content of their newspapers.

My students aroused interest in our magazine, International Crossroads, which publishes articles by students from around the world. They also publicized our own forthcoming international conference on multicultural journalism scheduled for June 5-9, 2000, in Joplin. That conference is being held in conjunction with the University of Vienna, Austria.

Ginny Andrews (left) and Kelly Dengel represented Missouri Southern's student newspaper, The Chart, at the Student Voice conference.

My two students — Ginny Andrews and Kelly Dengel — did a superb job of mixing with the student delegates. They represented their college proudly and with distinction, as well as representing and explaining our international mission and our international projects. I was very proud of the work they did. Workshop directors, including Tom Rolnicki of the Associated Collegiate Press and Albert "Flip" DeLuca of James Madison University praised the two young women for their participation and even suggested that either one could have taught the workshops they themselves were conducting.

Conference hours were filled with morning lectures and case studies, afternoon workshops and critiques, and evening social activities. The morning lectures covered propaganda from a variety of angles and viewpoints. My topic for a Saturday morning presentation was the use of propaganda in American political campaigns.

Lecturers spoke English primarily, although a few Croatians chose to use their native language for their presentations. These were simultaneously translated into English with participants listening on headsets.

In non-meeting hours I had the opportunity to explore the city of Hvar on foot with colleagues, and Hvar was revealed to me as perhaps a much-overlooked destination for Americans who are seaside vacationers. Not dissimilar, I understand, from some of the more frequently visited sites along the French and Italian Rivieras, Hvar offers a simplicity, a centuries-old city square on the bay, a monastery of some beauty, an old town and a new town, and restaurants of some quality.

On Friday evening, the lecturers were all treated to dinner at Macondo, in the old town, perhaps Hvar’s most famous restaurant since the New York Times wrote about it as one not to be missed. It was in the same article that the Times referred to the Island of Hvar as "one of the 10 nicest spots on Earth." Dinner was a 3½-hour meal that began at 8:30. I can only report that this particular meal was a four-course, seafood-centered extravaganza. It began with immense platters being set in front of diners in groups of four. The platters contained slices, rings, bits and pieces, and tentacles of baby octopi in a sauce of garlic butter. About 45 minutes later appeared similar-sized platters of mussels and clams, in their shells, on beds of rice. An hour and a half later these platters were replaced with others containing grilled fish. There were four or five kinds of fish, none familiar to me, ranging from mild to sharp in taste. Some were presented as filleted halves, others as fish steaks, others as mere pieces of fish, and yet others as whole fish. These platters were accompanied by bowls of boiled new potatoes, and by bowls of lettuce, tomato, and cucumber salad. And an hour later came platters of crepes — strawberry, peach, and chocolate, one of each for each diner — and platters of cookies. With the meal, of course, were bottles of a dry, white Croatian wine, bottled on the island from grapes grown on the island.

Across from me during the meal sat Gordana Vilovic of the Freedom Forum News Library in Zagreb. On my left was a free-lance correspondent for Time Magazine and for Reuters News Agency, who had covered Kosovo and was leaving the next day for Albania. Across from him was Dr. Sherry Ricchiardi of American Journalism Review and winner of "the courage award" from the Society of Professional Journalists. Dr. Malovic was next to her, and on down the table were fascinating journalists of every ilk, including the spokesperson for Croatian Radio-Television, Kresimir Macan.

One observation I am forced to make is that it seems almost everyone in Croatia smokes, and for me, a non-smoker, dinner was often seen only in a haze of bluish-white and often very thick smoke. I was later told that one Croatian student had said that Croatians excelled at smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and drinking beer. Certainly many of my Croatian colleagues demonstrated during dinner their adeptness at smoking.

Conversation during the convention covered many topics. Only once, I believe, was the NATO action in Kosovo mentioned, but I participated in or listened in on conversations concerning the covering of war, Croatia’s dream as a nation, its dreams for the media and a free press, what had been accomplished in education, and occasionally some discussion of American Indians and of high school exchange programs.

All over Hvar, hotels and restaurants were closing for the season, and souvenir stands were shutting down. The tourist season which, I was told, brought 9,000 tourists a day was over for another year.

The weather was still lovely, though, with daytime temperatures in the low 80s and nighttime temperatures in the low 60s. It will remain that way for most of the fall and the winter, I was told, and there might be snowfall that will last no more than two hours on the ground. Everyone described the weather on this island as Edenic. In fact, it is said that Hvar bathes in more sunshine than any other place in the region. The weather is so reliable that one brochure says hotels give a discount on cloudy days and a free stay if a tourist ever sees snow.

I don’t believe I would want to live there, but I do look forward to the possibility of returning for future conferences of the Student Voice. It is, I believe, a valuable way of taking our experiences with college newspapers and sharing our techniques, our goals, and our freedoms with students elsewhere who seek to gain their voice through a free press. Because the conference is Croatian-based, it likely will continue to draw largely participants from nations where press freedoms were long repressed.

Dr. Chad Stebbins spoke on propaganda and journalism at the Student Voice conference.

Some of these students, I hope, will eventually find their way to Missouri Southern for a semester or for a conference or for a workshop, to learn about our student press, to work on The Chart and to share with our readers their dreams and aspirations.

In this way, the concepts of a free and responsible press will begin to permeate more nations.

I was proud to be able to give the closing speech of this year’s conference. I was pleased to be able to speak about the role our media play in a free and open society.

I also was greatly impressed by Professor Malovic. He is a man of some size and strength with immense hands and a face he described as being at an age where make-up would help. (The comment came when a lecturer handed him a supply of makeup as a gift for his young daughter.) He is pepper-haired but not what I consider old — most likely in his early 50s. He is remarkable for his energy, for his enthusiasm, for his gregariousness and for his ability to express complex ideas clearly and simply. He speaks with a voice of authority and a remarkable fluency in English. He quotes from movies and from much of the world’s literature. He told a colleague in my presence that he had studied in separate university courses Croatian literature, Serbian literature, Macedonian literature, and many other literatures. He writes books and is working urgently to complete in Croatian textbooks in journalism. His voice of authority, incidentally, is clearly compassionate but non-condescending and achieves its authority not through stridency but through careful and precise use of language and through examples.

Richard Massa, former director of Missouri Southern's Institute of International Studies, explores the narrow streets and pathways of Hvar.

After Dr. Malovic and I said our goodbyes at the Zagreb Airport and, in essence, recreated the lines from the movie Casablanca with its famous song "As Time Goes By," my two students, Richard Massa, and I were then driven to our downtown hotel in a van owned by Croatian Radio-Television. Our gracious host was Kresimir Macan, who explained to us why there was so much police activity at the airport and on the route we would be taking. It seems there had been a triple homicide earlier that evening in Zagreb and routes out of the city were being guarded to prevent escape by the murderer, and, too, that evening in Zagreb in a World Cup preliminary round had been a soccer match between two arch rivals — the Croatian team and the Serbian team. A route from the stadium to the airport had been cleared so the Serbs could leave town without incident. There would, however, be demonstrations downtown that night.

So while fans gathered in the main city square two blocks from our hotel, we four, tired from travels and from a long day — it was now 9:30 p.m. — and with a 5 a.m. call in the morning to prepare for departure home, looked forward to a late supper and a good night’s rest.

We entered the hotel, and from the lounge to our right, we could hear the piano-playing vocalist giving his rendition of "As Time Goes By."

"Countries don't make people; people make countries." Article by Ginny Andrews in the Friday, October 15, 1999 issue of The Chart .

"Gathering of international students brings insight to Central, Eastern European journalism issues." Article by Ginny Andrews & Kelly Dengel in the Friday, October 15, 1999 issue of The Chart.