Journalism in Ukraine? Isn't that like snow in Mexico?

Not anymore. Just ask staffers at WDBJ (Channel 7) - who have been working with a television station in the former Soviet bloc country for close to a year.

"They were very serious about the public affairs and news programs," said WDBJ senior reporter Joe Dashiell, who visited a Ukrainian television station with local sales manager Lolly Quigley and production manager Mark Layman last spring. "They were trying to tell stories from a variety of angles ... We were just trying to give them the benefit of our experience."

WDBJ and Vezha, a television and radio station in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, are working together through a U.S.-funded program facilitated by the nonprofit International Research and Exchanges Board, also known as IREX. IREX fosters independent media around the globe.

Staffers at the two stations have traded visits; WDBJ will send another crew to Ukraine sometime in the next few months.

WDBJ was recommended for the program by another CBS affiliate that had participated, said station president Bob Lee. Two other American media outlets, the Herald-Times of Bloomington, Ind., and New Hampshire Public Radio, are currently linked with Ukrainian media partners as well.

The program attempts to pair journalists from compatible cities, said program coordinator Halina Izdebska in Washington, D.C. WDBJ was linked with television station Vezha in Ivano-Frankivsk because that city, its onion-domed churches and Soviet-era architecture notwithstanding, is a lot like us. Ivano-Frankivsk is bordered by mountains and farmland, and is several hundred miles away from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

The partnership has worked well so far, Izdebska said. WDBJ and Vezha "liked each other and complement each other. I know that Vezha has changed their perspectives on advertising and business" since the partnership began.

Truth be told, the start-up was a little rough. When the Roanokers were ushered into a Vezha morning meeting at the start oftheir visit last April, all the Ukrainian staffers turned and stared.

The Ukrainians, it turned out, had expected the Americans to march in and start giving orders. (Asked later for their opinion of Americans in general, the Ukrainians responded with a sobering list: "Arrogant, stuck-up, know-it-all-ish, selfish, materialistic.")

"While they may have thought we were going to come in and tell them how to run the television station," said Dashiell, "we weren't there to tell them they were doing it all wrong."

Once they realized the Americans were as nervous as they were, the Ukrainians warmed up to them.

"They were incredibly friendly," Dashiell said. They also kept the Roanokers running from morning till night all week - explaining their work methods, asking advice and occasionally plying them with vodka.

"They toast," said WDBJ's production manager, Mark Layman, "and it's disrespectful not to toast with them." The toasting made it hard to get up in the morning at least once.

Some former Soviet bloc countries still wrestle with the concept of a free press - journalists in the Soviet Union reported largely what they were told. Dashiell, however, quickly discovered that the Ukrainians were doing fine without his help.

(The Ukrainian media during the recent presidential election and subsequent demonstrations were downright feisty. During one TV broadcast, an interpreter at a state-run station ignored the anchor's report and burst out instead in sign language that the election results "are rigged. Do not believe them. I am very disappointed by the fact that I had to interpret lies.")

There were a few dubious stories broadcast at Vezha while he was there, Dashiell noted - including several features on a car dealership that was advertising with the station (a big no-no by American media standards). There was also hard-hitting government reporting, and an effort to show all sides of an issue.

The difference in resources between the American and Ukrainian stations is stark. WDBJ is much better-equipped; when the Ukrainians came to Roanoke in September and saw the WDBJ production facilities, they were amazed, Layman said. WDBJ also has a larger news staff - not to mention transportation. Vezha only has one car, and they use it sparingly, Layman said. "Their news crews walk, or run, wherever they go."

The business side may be where WDBJ was able to help the Ukrainians the most. Vezha has been funded by local government since its founding, but that support is expected to disappear.

Quigley was surprised to learn that Vezha sold advertising by the second, and then plugged in the gaps with ads of its own. The station has since begun selling ads in chunks of time, American style, she said.

At one point, Quigley showed the Vezha advertising staff her "media kit" - a binder containing her business cards and marketing materials - and then asked to look at theirs. "They looked at me like, 'What in the world is that?'" she said.

When the Ukrainians visited Roanoke last fall, however, they had their own "media kits" to show off - which looked remarkably like the WDBJ version, with Ukrainian writing.

Ad revenues at Vezha are up this year, Quigley noted, with more than a touch of pride.

Ukraine has not yet achieved anything like a Western standard of living. The average wages there are $100 a month, housing is inadequate, and the Soviet-era infrastructure needs repair, Dashiell has said.

But there was also evidence of a building boom in Ivano-Frankivsk, with cranes prominent in the downtown skyline. Many people at the TV station dressed stylishly. "The young men, if they were fashionable, would wear Italian leather shoes," Quigley said. They had cellphones, too.

A new WDBJ team is scheduled to go to Ukraine in the next few months. The group was slated to go in December, but that trip was postponed due to the election crisis.

This time, with a better understanding of the other station's needs, WDBJ is dispatching only employees from the marketing and sales departments - promotion and public affairs director Kelly Zuber, account executive Gregory Brock and research director Marissa Hankins. No news staffer will make the trip.

Hankins plans to talk to the Ukrainians about market research - a concept that fascinated them when they were here. "They were extremely interested in doing some type of research themselves," she said.

Is she worried about going to Ukraine now, after seeing the recent demonstrations on TV?

Hankins said she was - until it became clear the demonstrations were peaceful. "I am very excited about going on the trip."