(Source: NPR)
Host Scott Simon speaks with David Ensor, who took over directorship of Voice of America last month. A longtime journalist for NPR, CNN and ABC News, his most recent post was in Afghanistan, where he was director for communications and public diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
This is an excellent video about the VOA Greenville transmitter site produced by North Carolina Public Television. What I love most is the time they took to explain the importance of shortwave radio across our globe, how it is an existing technology that governments and regimes cannot easily block or track. We certainly repeat this theme often, here on the SWLing Post.
Please enjoy and share.
(Source: Fox News)
Congressional lawmakers are scrambling to prevent America’s international media arm from going off-air in China, arguing that a plan to shift much of its reporting to the Internet won’t do much good in a country notorious for its web censors.
[…]The Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, argues that it only makes sense to go digital in a country with the largest Internet-using population in the world. Board officials claim the existing shortwave radio broadcasts don’t have the audience they used to and that the Chinese government is jamming them anyway. In changing platforms, the board projects it will save $8 million and eliminate about 45 positions.
But critics of the move, including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., say the United States is setting itself up to cede vital territory in the battle of information abroad.
The article goes on to mention that the BBG would like to fuel internet services, citing, “one-tenth of 1 percent of Chinese listen to VOA in Mandarin, with radio ownership on the decline…[a]nother survey showed computer and Internet usage on a steep upswing.”
Internet usage is up everywhere, but even if VOA succeeds in creating proxy servers that would allow Chinese guests to punch through internet censorship in China, there will still be a risk that Chinese authorities could monitor this circumvention and take action against the listener/web guest. With shortwave radio, this is a non-issue. Shortwave radio listeners cannot be traced. In fact, ironically, this strength makes it difficult for the BBG and other international broadcasters to justify shortwave service. They can’t identify who is listening!
VOA China services could receive up to 14 million dollars if lawmakers are successful in their push. The hope would be that the BBG would then allow continued services into China.
One can hope.
It is a rare occurrence when so much attention is given to the topic of international broadcasting. Financial hardship combined with a rapidly changing media landscape set a stage where broadcasters are being forced to a precipice of change. How well they quickly evaluate restructuring their message and the medium they use to deliver it could very well determine the future of broadcasting on the shortwaves.
This issue of Public Diplomacy Magazine covers the scope.
(From: RNW Media Network)
PD Magazine, Summer 2011 of the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy, is devoted to international broadcasting. Its contents include:
Also available is the pdf version.
Thanks to RNW Media Network, Kim Andrew Elliot and Richard Cuff for the tip.
I found this BBC profile on Somalia quite indicative of many countries in Africa. In light of cuts that the BBC World Service has been facing, this short article, about Somalia’s fragmented media landscape, admits that shortwave plays a vital roll in domestic news.
The TV and press sectors are weak and radio is the dominant medium. There are around 20 radio stations, but no national, domestic broadcaster. Many listeners tune to Somali-language media based abroad, in particular the BBC Somali service. The latter is available on shortwave, and via FM relays in Mogadishu (91.1), the Somaliland capital Hargeisa (89.0), and elsewhere.
They go on to say:
The Somali diaspora – in the West, the Gulf states and elsewhere – sustains a rich internet presence. But domestic web access is hampered by practicalities such as limited access to mains electricity. There were 102,000 internet users by September 2009 (Internetworldstats). In secessionist Somaliland and Puntland the authorities maintain a tight hold on broadcasting.
Shortwave listeners in Somalia, one should note, also listen to the likes of the Voice of America, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Radio France International and many others. Most of whom are facing cuts right now as national budgets are being tightened in the economic recession. To those living in Somalia, where the media is fragmented and untrustworthy, shortwave radio represents a lifeline of information.
As we mentioned in this previous post, please consider speaking up on behalf of those without a voice. Let international broadcasters and their governing bodies know how crucial shortwave services are into impoverished regions of the world.
(Source: boingboing)
A strategic technology plan prepared by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency responsible for Voice of America, Alhurra, Radio Free Asia and other international stations, concludes that it should end many shortwave broadcasts in favor of “more effective” media such as internet radio.
I found the quote above, and most of the beginning of this article, very disturbing. The same themes keep coming up in this type of announcement: that shortwave broadcasts are expensive while internet services are cheap, that no one listens to shortwave because most people are connected to the internet.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, these statements simply aren’t true. Rather, they’re short-sighted and “western” centric.
I did find one telling paragraph in the above article:
The “sun-setting strategy” proposed will reduce the number of stations owned by the BBG in favor of lease or sharing arrangements with—or outsourcing to—independent broadcasters. A “long-term analysis” of each country and language, and in-house research on shortwave’s effectiveness in each, would determine which areas retain service.
Though I’d love to see the engineers and workers of the VOA broadcasts sites keep their jobs, I do believe outsourcing the actual shortwave transmissions to independent broadcasters makes a lot of financial sense, and could be the way forward to retain vital shortwave in areas which rely almost solely upon it. If you talk to WRMI or WBCQ, you’ll find that they can operate a SW broadcast operation at a fraction of the cost of the VOA; in fact, broadcasts with these independent stations can cost as little as $120 per hour of air time–a small price to pay to retain listeners and keep information flowing.
I don’t necessarily have faith in the ability of the BBG to effectively do “in-house” research to determine which countries/regions get chopped. After all, have any of these decision makers ever lived in a third world country ruled by a dictator? Have any of them ever lived without reliable access to the internet, or even without electric power, as many of these listeners do? Highly doubtful.
I urge readers of the SWLing Post to speak up! Contact the Broadcast Board of Governers and let them know how important shortwave broadcasts are to those living in poverty and in countries with unstable regimes–people who, informationally-speaking, live in the dark.
Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)
330 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20237
Tel: (202) 203-4400
Fax: (202) 203-4585
E-mail: [email protected]
I just noticed this article from the VOA website regarding criticism it recently received from the Heritage Foundation for shutting down VOA’s Mandarin language shortwave radio service to China.
It’s may be once in a blue moon when I agree with a Washington think tank, but in this case, the argument is certainly valid.
VOA, following the lead of the BBC, Deutsche Welle and possibly other broadcasters, decided that it’s much more cost-effective to cut shortwave service and increase its web-based presence in China. Unfortunately, there are still many in China who rely on shortwave radio service for their uncensored view of the rest of the world. Indeed, China’s ruling party is concerned enough about this that they routinely jam VOA transmissions as a form of censorship. Of course, when it comes to shortwave radio, jamming is not often effective. But if broadcasters in the western world (meaning VOA, BBC, DW) decide not to bother broadcasting into China, limitation of service is 100% effective. Indeed, we’re “jamming” the service before it ever has a chance to leave our respective countries.
Access to the internet, on the other hand, is completely controlled by the Chinese ruling party. Should they decide to, they can simply pull the plug and leave their citizens in the dark, informationally speaking. If you question this, simply ask people in Fiji, Egypt and Burma–and, oh, yes– Iran is now tinkering with the idea.
China is an amazing country, not to mention a technological leader in communications; its government simply has a track record of filtering information in a manner which many view as a violation of a basic human right. And censorship is a thriving business: just ask Google. Or try to view VOA’s Manadarin website while traveling in China: you, too, may find yourself a victim of Chinese censorship.
Let us leave some information access available to those in China by keeping shortwave service alive there. There must be other cost-effective means of information sharing that doesn’t require throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Read the original VOA article here.