Tag Archives: VOA

BBG Watch: Ashe seeks comments on U.S. international broadcasting

This is a great opportunity to communicate directly with a BBG member who wants your input regarding upcoming changes to US international broadcasting:

(Source: BBG Watch)

Often referred to as a senior Republican member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Ambassador Victor Ashe has invited the public, including BBG employees and contractors, to send comments to his personal email address, Send an e-mail to BBG member Victor Ashe, on the controversial plan to merge BBG-managed Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) into a single administrative unit.

Ashe has become a champion of transparency and raising employee morale at the federal agency which oversees U.S. international broadcasting. He is one of nine members serving on the bipartisan Board. In the absence of Michael Lynton, the BBG’s interim presiding governor, the meeting in Miami was presided over by Governor Dennis Mulhaupt. Governor Dana Perino was also absent. Both Lynton and Perino have a poor attendance record at BBG meetings. Lynton is a Democrat. Mulhaupt and Perino are Republicans.

While the open meeting of the Board on Friday at the headquarters of Radio and TV Marti in Miami, Florida, was chaired by Governor Mulhaupt, Governors Victor Ashe and Michael Meehan clearly dominated the discussion. On-demand video and audio from the meeting is available on the BBG official website.

Ashe called attention to a number of unresolved issues in the proposal to merge the publicly funded surrogate broadcasters who get their grants from Congress through the BBG. He expressed concerns about the lack of information on the selection and the authority of the CEO for the new merged entity. Ashe warned that rushing to implement the plan in its current form may damage U.S. international broadcasting and said that he would oppose the idea of selecting a CEO for the proposed entity as early as next month.

[…]Ashe also announced that Edward R. Murrow’s only son, Charles Casey Murrow, will participate in the the rededication ceremony at the BBG Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina, in honor of the renowned broadcaster and director of the USIA (1961-1964) and in recognition of World Press Freedom Day. Ashe and Congressman Walter Jones (R – NC) also plan to attend the event. The BBG and IBB executive staff wanted to close down the facility, but Ashe insisted that the only remaining shortwave transmitting station on U.S. territory remain open.

During the meeting in Miami, BBG governors also stressed the importance of U.S. broadcasting to Latin America, but it is not clear what they plan to do about their FY 2013 budget proposal to eliminate several positions in the Voice of America Spanish Service. There was no mention at the open meeting about the FY 2013 budget proposal to eliminate dozens of VOA newsroom and English broadcasting positions and cuts and reductions in other VOA programs, including VOA Georgian, Turkish, and Greek broadcasts.

Read the full article at the BBG Watch website.

VOA self-censors in Russian elections

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This interesting Op Ed piece points out that VOA could be in violation of US Public Law 94-350 by adhering to Russian media law with VOA FM broadcasts in Moscow. Of course, shortwave broadcasts continue to report VOA un-censored news:

(Source: Digital Journal)

Voice of America and Radio Liberty, funded by US taxpayers to promote media freedom abroad, self-censor news on two stations in Moscow to comply with Russian media law prior to Russia’s presidential elections on March 4.

US government-funded media freedom broadcasters, Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, RFE RL), have resorted to self-censorship of their news to keep broadcasting on two leased radio stations in Moscow in the days leading up to Russian presidential elections. Self-censorship affects only their radio newscasts on two AM Moscow transmitters, which are leased and paid for by the US government to rebroadcast VOA and RL programs. It does not extend to their other program delivery options, such as their websites. The newscasts on these stations were changed in response to a request from Russian operators of the transmitters who had warned that broadcasting political programming or poll results several days before the elections would violate Russian media law.

Because uncensored VOA and RL newscasts are still available online and, in the case of Radio Liberty, also through shortwave radio transmissions, a spokeswoman for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages and funds these two broadcasters, said that the restrictions “do not interfere with the ability of the Voice of America or Radio Liberty to cover the elections or to carry on with their other duties.” In the case of the Voice of America, however, removing news even from some broadcasts may violate Public Law 94-350[…]

Continue reading at the Digital Journal online.

“VOA Looks to Future on 70th Anniversary”

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(Source: Voice of America Press Release)

Washington, D.C. — February 1, 2012 — Voice of America turned 70 on Wednesday, and VOA Director David Ensor says the international broadcast agency is aggressively moving forward with new programs that ensure it remains an “information lifeline to people in closed societies like Iran.”

Addressing VOA journalists at the agency’s Washington headquarters, Ensor pointed to a television news show for Burma that began airing in January, a popular video blog that has been viewed more than 7 million times in China, expanded TV broadcasts to Iran, and new health programs on radio in Africa. He also described plans for a Russian language TV program that will harness popular social media programs to make citizen journalists and the audience a key part of the show.

Ensor said the one-time cold war broadcaster is “as relevant today as it was February 1st, 1942,” the date of the first shortwave radio broadcast to Germany.”

Created by the U.S. government in the opening days of World War Two, the Voice of America has evolved into a global multi-media organization, broadcasting balanced and comprehensive news in 43 languages to an estimated weekly audience of 141 million.

The first shortwave radio transmission, spoken in German just weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, began with the words “Here speaks a voice from America.” The broadcast went on to promise, “The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth.” Ensor, the 28th Voice of America director, says the agency continues to be guided by those words.

VOA radio remains highly popular in many markets, including Somalia, parts of Pakistan and Haiti. Ensor says the agency is moving forward with new television and Internet programs that target countries like Iran, where the government restricts the free flow of information.

VOA programs are delivered on satellite, cable TV, mobile, shortwave, FM, medium wave, the Internet, and on a network of about 1,200 affiliate stations around the world. In addition to more than 1,100 employees in Washington, VOA works with contract journalists in trouble spots around the world. Last month the Taliban claimed responsibility for the murder of a reporter working for VOA in Pakistan.

Chucho Valdés: Inspiration from VOA Jazz Hours

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(Source: Kim Elliott via the Hartford Courant)

24 Jan 2012, Owen McNally: “Still very much an irrepressible life-force at 70, Chucho Valdés, the renowned Cuban pianist, composer and bandleader, is on a winter tour of the United States that sets down for high-energy maneuvers … at the cabaret series at the University of Connecticut’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. … The title track [of his new CD], ‘Chucho’s Steps,’ … is a 50-bar adventure in challenging harmony in which he pays tribute to John Coltrane’s intimidating masterpiece, ‘Giant Steps.’ Valdés notes that as a young man in Cuba he would listen on short-wave radio to a program called ‘The Jazz Hour’ on The Voice of America, an experience that opened his ears to Coltrane’s innovations and the creative fervor of the new, iconoclastic music that was fermenting in the States.”

The Voice of America turns 70

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(Source: Diplomatic Courier)

“The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth.” – William Harlan Hale; February 1, 1942

Such began the first broadcast of a small team of dedicated men transmitting live from a claustrophobic New York City studio into Nazi Germany. Their group had no name, although their first broadcast was titled Stimmen aus Amerika—Voices from America. The equipment they used was borrowed. They had no direction as to what they would broadcast, except the truth. At that moment, the United States stepped into a role as guardian of the power of ideas and honest messenger of information to all corners of the world.

From the very beginning, the Voice of America has held at its core the mission to present to the world the policies and culture of the United States, while reporting on global news events accurately, clearly, and objectively. It has been one of the U.S.’s most effective public relations initiatives. All around the world, the Voice of America is highly respected as an honest and fair messenger, and in many places, as the only comprehensive source of news free from propaganda. From Nazi Germany to Communist Eastern Europe to Kim Jong Il’s North Korea, VOA has often been the only connection to the outside world that people of repressive regimes have. […]

Today, VOA broadcasts through the Internet, television, and a network of AM, FM, and shortwave radio signals. The approximately 1500 hours of programs per week include features on American culture, learning English, international news, discussion programs, and regionally focused programs to address the needs of the local populations. VOA broadcasts in 43 languages, televising programs in 26 of those, and reaches 141 million people weekly. All this makes VOA one of the largest multimedia news organizations in the world.

Read the full story at the Diplomatic Courier website.

CS Monitor: Don’t let Voice of America broadcasts go static

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(Source: Christian Science Monitor)

Voice of America (VOA), the jewel in America’s public diplomacy effort abroad, is set to be streamlined. Some programs can be downsized. But VOA is in the national interest, especially as Russia, China, and Iran expand state-supported media. Cuts should be handled with care.

[…]An earlier BBG decision to shut down VOA’s Mandarin and Cantonese services to China, in favor of TV and social media, produced a firestorm not only among VOA staffers but also with members of Congress who support VOA and preside over its budget (and who temporarily blocked the move). Though shortwave radio may be in eclipse, there are still remote areas of the world dependent on it.

This article is authoritative in that it’s author, John Hughes was once director of VOA during the Reagan administration.

We’ve echoed so many times on this website what Mr. Hughes puts forth in his argument, that any downsizing should be handled with care. There are still many communities on this planet where shortwave radio is literally a lifeline of information.

BBG: Radio audience far exceeds that of TV, internet

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(Source: BBG)

(WASHINGTON, D.C.—November 15, 2011) U.S. government funded international broadcasters reached an estimated 187 million people every week in 2011, an increase of 22 million from last year’s figure, according to new audience data being made public by the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

[…]The record numbers, released in the BBG Performance and Accountability Report (PAR), measure the combined audience of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio and TV Martí, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa). The report details impact on audiences around the globe including people in the world’s most repressive media and political environments.

[R]adio remains the BBG’s number one media platform, reaching 106 million people per week, [while] television’s growth puts it at 97 million people. The Internet audience was approximately 10 million, with the largest online audiences measured in Iraq, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran.

In summary, BBG’s stats show that radio has fully 10 times the audience of the internet/SMS, and radio listeners surpass television viewers by 9 million. Clearly, radio leads the way because it is a basic technology that has been in place for decades, building a lasting infrastructure and audience. We’ve posted numerous articles proving that radio–specifically, shortwave radio–is still a viable and dynamic information medium, with no regard for borders, for the party in power, or for the economic status of the listener.

Indeed, radio is perhaps the only information medium–other than word-of-mouth–that informs both some of the most wealthiest and some of the most impoverished people on our planet.

Let’s keep it alive: remind your broadcasters that radio is a lifeline for many listeners across the planet.

Read the full BBG report here (PDF).