Tag Archives: VOA

Michael Pack nominated as CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors

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Many thanks to @experimradio who notes that Michael Pack has been nominated as CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and shares the following information links.

Michael Pack’s nomination announcement via WhiteHouse.gov:

NOMINATIONS SENT TO THE SENATE:

Veronica Daigle, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense, vice Frederick Vollrath, resigned.

Peter A. Feldman, of the District of Columbia, to be a Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission for the remainder of the term expiring October 26, 2019, vice Joseph P. Mohorovic.

Karen Dunn Kelley, of Pennsylvania, to be Deputy Secretary of Commerce, vice Bruce H. Andrews, resigned

Brian A. Nichols, of Rhode Island, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Michael Pack, of Maryland, to be Chief Executive Officer of the Broadcasting Board of Governors for the term of three years. (New Position)

Elad L. Roisman, of Maine, to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission for a term expiring June 5, 2023, vice Michael Sean Piwowar, resigned.

Geoffrey Adam Starks, of Kansas, to be a Member of the Federal Communications Commission for a term of five years from July 1, 2017, vice Mignon L. Clyburn, term expired.

Casey Wardynski, of Alabama, to be an Assistant Secretary of the Army, vice Debra S. Wada.

Michael Pack’s biography via The Claremont Institute:

Michael Pack,
Manifold Productions (Photo: The Claremont Institute)

Michael Pack is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute, formerly serving as president from 2015 to 2017. Pack founded Manifold Productions, an independent film and television production company, in 1977.

Mr. Pack has written, directed, and produced numerous award-winning, nationally broadcast documentaries, principally for PBS, as well as corporate and educational films. His major credits include: Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power, narrated by Joan Allen (2014); Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton hosted by Richard Brookhiser (2011); God and the Inner City, narrated by Phylicia Rashad (2003); Rediscovering George Washington, hosted by Richard Brookhiser (2002); The Fall of Newt Gingrich, narrated by Blair Brown (2000);The Rodney King Incident: Race and Justice in America, narrated by Robert Prosky (1998); Inside the Republican Revolution: The First Hundred Days, hosted by Don Lambro (1995); Hollywood vs. Religion, hosted by Michael Medved (1995); Campus Culture Wars: Five Stories about Political Correctness, narrated by Lindsay Crouse (1993); and Hollywood’s Favorite Heavy: Businessmen on Prime Time TV, hosted by Eli Wallach (1987).

From 2003-2006, Mr. Pack served as senior vice president for television programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where he restructured the programming department and launched several new initiatives. These included: America at a Crossroads (a series of 20 documentary films addressing issues facing America in the wake of the attacks of 9/11) and the American History and Civics Initiative (innovative, new media designed to address the crisis of historical amnesia in middle and high school students).

In 2002, President Bush nominated and the Senate confirmed Mr. Pack to serve on the National Council on the Humanities, which oversees the National Endowment for the Humanities. He served from July 2002 to February 2005.

In 1993, Mr. Pack served as co-chair of the International TV Council at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In this capacity, he oversaw the Council’s efforts to determine the feasibility of launching a cooperative program between American public television producers and stations and their counterparts in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Previously, Mr. Pack received a political appointment as director of WORLDNET, the U.S. Information Agency’s global satellite network. WORLDNET produced, acquired, and distributed programs to over 127 countries and over 200 cities on all continents twenty-four hours a day. WORLDNET, now called VOA-TV, has merged with the Voice of America.

Mr. Pack attended Yale College, the University of California at Berkeley, and studied film at New York University.

Clyde Haehnle: Loss of a broadcasting icon

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(Source: The VOA Museum via David Snyde)

Museum Icon Passes Away

The National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting mourns the loss of one of its major leaders and benefactors. Clyde Haehnle passed away peacefully on Sunday, April 8th.   Over the years, this icon in the development of broadcasting technology, not only locally but nationally, was the driving force behind the museum.

A veteran broadcasting engineer and executive, Mr. Haehnle was instrumental in the early meteoric development of Powel Crosley’s WLW. While working at WLW, fresh out of electrical engineering school at the University of Cincinnati, he was assigned in 1942 to work on design and construction of VOA-Bethany Station, the transmission facility of the newly- minted Voice of America. The facility operated from 1944 thru 1994 and beamed programs worldwide from the highest power shortwave transmitters built in the world at that time.

The rhombic antenna design requiring extensive mathematical calculations fell to Mr. Haehnle. His work accomplished with pencil, paper and a slide rule resulted in some of the most efficient antenna arrays ever built and enabled the VOA programs transmitted from the hilltop north of Cincinnati to be heard by eager listeners worldwide. P of Engineering at AVCO Broadcasting. He held many patents in electronic technology and continued to be a curious and thoughtful proponent of technology well into his ninth decade.

Mr. Haehnle’s untiring leadership and support has enabled the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting to develop into a rich educational institution celebrating the role broadcasting has made in the dissemination of programs globally encouraging democratic principles to truth-starved audiences.

The Museum plans a celebration of Mr. Haehnle’s extraordinary life later this spring.

Read more about Clyde.

Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalists meeting at National VOA Museum of Broadcasting

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(Source: Southgate ARC via Kris Partridge)

‘Who can I trust to give me the real news?’

Where and how should American citizens access trustworthy news, how do journalists determine real from fake news, and how can the average citizen identify fake news and avoid accidentally promoting it through social media?

These questions and more are of great importance to citizens across greater Cincinnati and the nation.

They’ll be addressed by the Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalists and other area media on Thursday, April 26 at a panel discussion in conjunction with the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting in West Chester on the topic of “Who can I trust to give me the real news?”
The event is being underwritten by Kehoe Financial Advisors.

Panelist moderator will be Tom McKee of WCPO, with panelists Hagit Limor of the University of Cincinnati journalism program; Jim Bebbington of Cox Media Group; Ann Thompson of WVXU; and Kevin Aldridge of the Enquirer.

Admission will  be the same as last year– $10 for adults and $5 for students. Since this was a standing-room only event last year, we’re encouraging people to order tickets in advance of the event.

Melinda Zemper
Board Member
National VOA Museum of Broadcasting
(513) 706-3737

Purchase an original Sony ICF-SW7600 that traveled with a VOA correspondent in the 1990s

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who notes that one of his friends is selling a radio with a little history:

[For] anyone interested in an older SONY portable with a bit of history attached (he was VOA East Europe and Jerusalem correspondent).

Thanks for the tip Dan.  Now, please, someone purchase this before I do! The BuyItNow price is $59.95 plus a few dollars for shipping. [Either it’s a glitch on eBay or the BuyItNow price might have been removed as I published this–sorry.] I’ve never owned the original SW7600 (though I have a couple SW7600GRs).

Click here to view on eBay.

New Crosley Exhibit at VOA Museum

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dave, who shares this article by John Kieswetter at WVXU:

Maybe you have one of those refrigerators with a TV screen built into the door… Or you like reading news stories from TV/radio stations on your tablet or phone…

Well, WLW-AM founder and Cincinnati industrialist Powel Crosley Jr. was way ahead of you. W-A-Y ahead of you.

Just look around at the new Powel Crosley Jr. exhibit some weekend at the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting on Tylersville Road in West Chester Township. (For the first time, the museum is open 1-4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday, instead of just once a month.)

In the late 1930s – 80 years ago, before the advent of television – Crosley manufactured Shelvador refrigerators with an AM radio in the door. His Shelvador was unique too – he bought the patent to have the only refrigerator with shelves on the door for years. The VOA has a Model No. 1 Shelvador which needs to be restored before put in the display.

In 1939, Crosley marketed the “Reado,” essentially a home facsimile machine that printed out news, weather and sports on a scroll about the width of toilet paper.[…]

Continue reading the full article at WVXU.

“Go after North Korea with sanctions and short-wave radio”

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(Source: Yahoo News)

Key GOP Lawmaker: Go after North Korea with sanctions and short-wave radio

WASHINGTON — House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R.-Calif., called Wednesday for tough new sanctions on Chinese banks that do business with North Korea. Royce also said the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang has been losing its totalitarian grip on a population increasingly getting information from short-wave radio and contraband South Korean movies.

Royce said in an interview with Yahoo News on Sirius XM POTUS Channel 124 that he had met with a top North Korean defector who played up the impact of communications from the outside world as a way to pressure the government of Kim Jong Un.

“He told me that the one thing really shaking the resolve of people across North Korea is the information that’s coming in on two short-wave [radio stations] run by defectors,” Royce said. “They’re telling people what’s really going on in North Korea and in the outside world.”

The defector, Royce recalled, said, “You should help amp that up and get that all across the country.”

Voice of America and Radio Free Asia — descendants of Cold War-era information warfare — currently broadcast 10 hours per day of short- and medium-wave radio into North Korea, according to a congressional aide. And Congress doubled their Korean-language programming for the year ending Oct. 1 to $6 million, where it will stay for the next fiscal year, the aide said.[…]

Continue reading at Yahoo News…