“U.S. International Broadcasting — Is Anybody Listening?

U.S. INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING: —IS ANYBODY LISTENING?— KEEPING THE U.S. CONNECTED

One of [...] issues is the growing concern over the ability of
U.S. broadcasters to reach their desired audiences. Sometimes this
is due to crowded media markets, such as in the Middle East,
where our voice is one among many. Other times, our voice is silenced or suppressed, including in China, Iran, and Russia, which
use intimidation to prevent local affiliates from carrying U.S. programming or use sophisticated technologies to shut down satellites, jam radio transmissions or block Internet sites. Each of these issues requires its own response, but without a new Board in place providing appropriate direction and guidance, these difficulties will only grow more pronounced. This report seeks to expand upon
these issues for consideration by Congress and by the Board.

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

• The Broadcasting Board of Governors sets the policies and provides
necessary oversight of U.S. broadcasting operations. The
average vacancy rate for a seat on Board is more than 460
days (one seat has been vacant for more than 4 years). The
Senate needs to confirm the current slate of nominees for the
Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide needed leadership
and guidance. Going forward, Presidents should move with dispatch
to fill vacancies and should prioritize nominees with substantial
international broadcasting experience. In the medium
term, Congress must decide whether it is time to consider another
management structure if Board staffing difficulties persist.
• Alhurra—the U.S. 24-hour Arabic television news channel—is
expensive, and with the exception of Iraq, little watched elsewhere
in this vital region. Alhurra’s budget of some $90 million
surpasses the combined budgets of Radio Free Asia ($37 million),
Radio/TV Marti ($30 million) and VOA’s Persian News
Network Television ($17 million). Given the crowded media environment of the Middle East, either greater resources must be devoted to marketing and promotion or additional programming changes must be enacted in pursuit of increasing the channel’s market share. Should these efforts fail to improve the overall viewership levels, policy makers will have to decide
if continuing Alhurra’s operations is worth the costs.
• The Chinese Government has issued only two work visas for
Voice of America Beijing-based correspondents since 2009 and,
for over a year, has blocked VOA from opening a bureau in
Shanghai. By contrast, China’s state-run media organization—
Xinhua News—has some 75 correspondents based in the
United States. Since 2007, the U.S. Government has issued
some 2,900 press visas to Chinese journalists and media personnel.
• Journalists in Russia are routinely abducted, tortured, and
murdered with virtual impunity. The number of Russian radio
stations carrying Radio Free Europe’s Russian service broadcasting
has declined precipitously from over 30 stations in
2001 to currently 5; VOA’s dropped from 85 in 2003 to just one
by 2009 as the Russian Government successfully silenced most
BBG broadcasts by simply refusing to renew Russian radio station
licenses unless U.S. programming was dropped. The State
Department should raise this issue at the highest levels in its
meetings and should monitor closely rising attempts to block
BBG Internet sites.
• In Asia, according to the human rights NGO Freedom House,
the six countries served by Radio Free Asia are experiencing
steadily dwindling levels of press freedom, with none currently
ranked higher than 132 out of 195 countries. RFA, set up in
1994 with the hope that the post-cold-war tide of democracy
and liberalization would soon sweep Asia, was authorized only
on a temporary basis. Congress should permanently authorize
Radio Free Asia to recognize the unfortunate reality of press
freedom in Asia, and put RFA on a legislative par with Radio
Free Europe, Cuba Broadcasting, and Middle East Broadcasting.
• The BBG’s Arabic-language Radio Sawa has an hourly format
of 45 minutes of music with 15 minutes of news. As a result,
Sawa was deemed heretical by many ‘‘news-only’’ advocates
within the BBG when it appeared in 2002, yet Sawa quickly
became popular with the ‘‘under 30’’ youth-bulge deemed critical
in that region, virtually none of whom had listened to
VOA’s Arabic radio programming. Over time though, as its format
has been copied by local stations, Sawa’s listenership has
declined by 25 percent. Greater funding for marketing or a
change in formats may be needed.
• While Radio Free Asia is tasked with reaching a population of
over 1 billion people, its marketing budget for fiscal year 2009
was less than $2,000. The Middle East Broadcasting Network,
which oversees Al Hurra TV and Radio Sawa, has seen its
marketing budget fluctuate wildly from a few thousand dollars
in 2005 and 2006 to $100,000 in 2007, back to $5,000 in 2008
to over $1 million in 2009. Such inconsistencies wreak havoc
with any long-term attempts to capture market share and
must be addressed.
• The Government of Iran continues to attempt to jam both
VOA’s Persian News Network TV (which uses multiple satellite
systems to prevent a total shutdown) and Radio Free Europe’s Persian-language ‘‘Radio Farda.’’ In February 2010, the Iranian Government arrested seven journalists who had merely
held job interviews with Farda. Efforts to ensure that our
programming gets through should remain a high priority.
• Critics note that some BBG entities have allowed individuals
opposed to U.S. policy to air their views without any rebuttal
or balanced context. While allowing such vitriol to go
uncontested is clearly poor journalism, such occurrences have
been the rare exception, not the norm. Nonetheless, in order
for the BBG to be credible to its audience and draw in not just
those who already agree with U.S. policy, its networks must be
permitted to present both sides of an argument.
• Congress should revisit the Smith-Mundt legislation, which
was passed originally in 1948 and later amended, which bans
U.S. Government broadcasting within the U.S. for fear the government would unduly influence its own citizens. Today, however,
Russia and China and other entities currently broadcast
in English in the United States. Additionally, recent Arabic speaking
immigrants to the United States are able to watch Al
Jazeera but prevented by Smith-Mundt from viewing Al Hurra.
These realities, coupled with the rise of the Internet, which enables
computer users in the U.S. to receive video and audio
streams of BBG broadcasts and readily access BBG Web sites,
demonstrate that aspects of the legislation are both anachronistic
and potentially harmful.
• As part of its FY 2011 budget submission, the BBG has proposed
closing its last U.S.-based short wave broadcasting facility,
located in Greenville, North Carolina. The Board estimates
a $3.2 million dollar savings as a result of this closure. While
there is no question that audience for short-wave is decreasing
in some countries, policymakers need to decide if shuttering
the only remaining SW facility on American soil makes strategic
sense. Additionally, while the U.S. has been jettisoning
its shortwave frequencies, cutting some 60 stations in the last
10 years, China has been doing the exact opposite, almost doubling
its number to 284 in the same period.

Don’t Silence Voice of America | The Heritage Foundation

Although diplomats and pundits have crowned Web 2.0 as the new communications king, radio remains the globe’s most trusted source for information. Consequently, America should ensure its public diplomacy strategy continues to commit resources, as well as congressional oversight, to developing its radio capabilities.

The author of this article, Helle C. Dale, is Senior Fellow for Public Diplomacy in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.

Don’t Silence Voice of America | The Heritage Foundation

State Dept dissenter critical of democracy policy

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): President Barack Obama prefers “building ideas” to promoting democracy, a State Department insider claims.

See more here:
State Dept dissenter critical of democracy policy

BBG Blamed for Armenian Genocide Denials on Congressionally-Funded Radio Liberty

FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, May 02, 2010, San Francisco — Armenian genocide and Holocaust denials in radio and TV reports generated by private contractors working for the Broadcasting Board of Governors are linked to mismanagement and flawed programming policy at this US taxpayer-funded Federal agency, says FreeMediaOnline, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization which works to promote independent journalism and media freedom worldwide.

“Ahmadinejad denies Holocaust, madam from Istanbul denies Armenian Genocide. Congratulations to Radio Liberty – you are in a good company!”

AZG Daily report in English

AZG Daily report in Russian

Also read Foreign Policy Blog post about mismanagement at the BBG.

Radio Liberty Radio Free Europe listeners have been reacting with dismay to RFE/RL Russian Service radio report from Turkey which repeatedly questioned the Armenian genocide as a historical fact. RFE/RL is funded by U.S. taxpayers and managed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, an independent agency consistently rated by the US Office of Personnel Management, OPM, as the worst-managed in the Federal government.

In an effort to transfer the bulk of US government international broadcasting operations to private contractors, political appointees and their executive staff running the BBG have eliminated or severely reduced the Voice of America (VOA) programs in Arabic, Russian and other languages. VOA operates under a Congressional Charter which guarantees its journalistic independence and imposes strict standards of programming accuracy and balance.

BBG’s private broadcasting entities such as Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, Alhurra Television and Radio Sawa lack the same degree of editorial and fiscal controls as VOA. This lack of oversight, however, has made them vastly preferable to VOA among most BBG members who are appointed by the President and confirmed by the US Senate. It allows them and their staff to more easily impose their personal programming ideas and to find jobs and contracting assignments for their former and current associates in the private and public sectors.

During the Bush Administration, Republicans and Democrats appointed to the BBG joined forces to support privately-run US broadcasting to the Muslim world and completely shut down Voice of America Arabic broadcasts.

The strongest supporters of outsourcing US international broadcasting to private contractors were Norman Pattiz and Edward “Ted” E. Kaufman, both Democrats. They no longer serve on the BBG. Kaufman, a close friend of Vice President Biden, now holds Biden’s former US Senate seat in Delaware. Pattiz, the founder and chairman of Westwood One, America’s largest radio network company, has been a major contributor to the Democratic Party, but both he and Kaufman had worked closely with the Bush White House in creating Alhurra and Radio Sawa.

The same BBG political appointees and executives have put in place a commercial, ratings-driven programming policy which resulted in pandering to popular but often extremist, anti-American and anti-democratic audience viewpoints in semi-authoritarian countries like Russia and in the Middle East. A Russian human rights organization has accused Radio Liberty of spreading racist views in Russia.

The BBG-managed and contractor-run Alhurra Arabic language television network aired a report denying the Jewish Holocaust. The airing of the Armenian genocide denials by the Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Russian Service can also be explained by the desire to include the views of extremist nationalists in Russia who deny that Stalin was also guilty of genocide.

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Russian Service veteran editors who had defended the human rights programming focus at RFE/RL and tried to counter extremist views were accused by BBG-appointed managers and their consultants as being out of step with the nationalistically-minded radio listeners in Mr. Putin’s Russia.

The same executives who fired these journalists were responsible for terminating Voice of America Russian radio programs in July 2008, just 12 days before Russia’s military attack on Georgia. Only one BBG member, Blanquita Walsh Cullum, a Republican and the only working journalist among the Bush-era BBG political appointees, was said to have voted against terminating VOA radio programs to Russia and opposed plans of other BBG members to hire high-profile media personalities to help improve the agency’s public image. They are also responsible for personnel policies at RFE/RL which deny most foreign journalists the full protection of American and Czech labor laws. RFE/RL has its headquarters in the Czech Republic. A legal anti-discrimination case against RFE/RL and the BBG filed by former RFE/RL non-American employees is now pending before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Free Media Online president Ted Lipien, who had previously worked at the BBG and VOA, said that the airing of Holocaust and Armenian Genocide denials is an expected result of misguided policies governing US international broadcasting in recent years. These include the selection of most BBG members from among political party operatives and loyalists who lack experience in journalism, foreign affairs, and media freedom and human rights activism. One of the current candidates to the BBG nominated by President Obama is Michael P. Meehan, a Democratic Party operative who has been accused of physically attacking a journalist who tried to ask questions of the former Democratic candidate for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts.

According to Ted Lipien, the surrogate broadcasting model worked well during the Cold War when the goal was to undermine the local regimes by providing news not available from communist media sources. At that time, surrogate broadcasters such as RFE/RL were well managed, first by CIA personnel, and later by professional journalists dedicated to defending freedom of expression and other human rights and democratic values.

Lipien said that most of the recent BBG members could not grasp that their surrogate broadcasters, such as Alhurra, are still perceived by the audience as speaking on behalf of the United States when they air Holocaust and Armenian Genocide denials.

In the past, officials in charge of US international broadcasting were able to provide both leadership and effective management at these surrogate stations, but the BBG has failed to do that for more than a decade, Lipien said.

Members of the BBG have also not grasped that the surrogate broadcasting model is largely inappropriate for the Internet age and for audiences, which — unlike the Cold War audiences in Eastern Europe — are not supportive of American values and foreign policy objectives. According to the Free Media Online president, the Congress would do better by providing support for truly independent free media outlets abroad and the United States and by allowing the Voice of America to represent the full spectrum of responsible U.S. opinions. A station like Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty could still play a useful journalistic role in promoting free and democratic media in some countries if the BBG stops interfering with its programming policy and allows RFE/RL to put in place effective editorial controls, Lipien said, but he added that this seems unlikely unless the BBG itself undergoes major reforms.

Obama nominee to promote free flow of information abroad shoved a reporter

FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, January 13, 2010, San Francisco — Link to Video

The Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack believes that the man who had pushed him on the street in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night to prevent him from asking questions of Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley may have been Michael P. Meehan who works for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Michael Meehan is also one of President Obama’s nominees to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG. The bipartisan Board is responsible for promoting free flow of news and information abroad through U.S. government-funded broadcasts such as the Voice of America, VOA, Alhurra Television, and Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, RFE/RL.

“If Michael P. Meehan is positively identified as the person who had attacked The Weekly Standard reporter while the journalist tried to ask questions of a candidate for a political office, President Obama should immediately withdraw Mr. Meehan’s nomination to the Broadcasting Board of Governors,” said Ted Lipien, president of FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based NGO which promotes media freedom worldwide. Michael Meehan’s nomination has not yet been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

“The BBG needs leaders who are fully committed to the concept of journalistic freedom,” Lipien said.

According to the White House press release, “Michael P. Meehan currently serves as President of Blue Line Strategic Communications, Inc. and as Senior Vice President at Virilion, a digital media company. For over two decades, Meehan served in senior roles for U.S. Senators John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Maria Cantwell and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, two presidential campaigns, two U.S. House offices and congressional campaigns in 25 states. Mr. Meehan earned a B.A. in political science from Bates College.”

Former U.S. presidents have also nominated political operatives to serve on the BBG, a practice which Free Media Online blames for making the Broadcasting Board of Governors one of the worst managed U.S. federal agencies.

In November 2009, President Obama had announced his intention to nominate former CNN chairman and CEO Walter Isaacson, a Democrat, to chair the BBG. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency in charge of all U.S. civilian international news broadcasting. President Obama had also nominated seven other new members of the bipartisan board, including Dana Perino, the former White House Press Secretary to President George W. Bush, and former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Victor H. Ashe. They would be among four new Republican members of the BBG.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, the eight new appointees would replace the current BBG leadership with the exception of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who serves as an ex officio member.

The BBG manages the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Martí, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. All are funded exclusively by U.S. taxpayers.

The agency with the estimated $717.4 million budget in FY 2009 and nearly 3,800 employees has been consistently rated by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, OPM, in employee surveys as one of the worst managed within the federal government. Some of the current BBG members and their executive staff have tried to withhold from the U.S. Congress and journalists independent taxpayer-funded studies revealing cases of serious mismanagement at the BBG and its privatized broadcasting entities, especially Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. One of the studies described substandard journalistic practices at Alhurra, including broadcasting stattements from Holocaust deniers, and its failure to attract a meaningful audience in the Middle East.

To pay private media contractors favored by the Bush Administration, the BBG eliminated all Voice of America Arabic news programs and cut broadcasts to many other countries without free media. VOA Russian-language radio broadcasts were terminiated in July 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia.

Both Republicans and Democrats appointed to the BBG by President Bush approved these controversial decisions. The effort to create contractor-managed broadcasting to the Muslim world, as opposed to broadcasting by the Voice of America, which operates under a Congressional charter as a U.S. government entity with guarantees of journalistic independence, was led by former Democratic BBG members: Norman Pattiz and Edward E. Kaufman. Mr. Kaufman, a close friend of Vice President Joe Biden, is now a U.S. senator from Delaware.

The alliance of Democratic BBG members with neoconservatives in the Bush administration was essential for carrying out plans to privatize much of U.S. international broadcasting. Only one current Board member, conservative radio host Blanquita Walsh Cullum who is also the only working journalist on the BBG, was reported to have opposed some of the questionable management practices at the BBG, particularly the push to eliminate Voice of America broadcasts to countries without independent media.

According to Ted Lipien, the BBG needs leaders who are willing to end mismanagement and politicization of U.S. international broadcasting. FreeMediaOnline.org has been advocating for selecting future members of the BBG who have journalistic experience and have demonstrated their commitment to press freedom and human rights.

Update from The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack:

A remorseful Michael P. Meehan called today to apologize (see here for background).

He said: “I just want to say to you that I’m sorry. And I’d just like to apologize. I appreciate your calling me back. I don’t want to make a big federal case out of it.”

He continued: “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were a reporter because you didn’t have any credentials, so I apologize for not knowing you were a reporter.”

I asked Meehan if he disputed anything that I wrote. “No,” he said.

I thanked Meehan for his apology. 

Cleaning house at the BBG; former CNN CEO to manage U.S. international news programs

FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, November 18, 2009, San Francisco — One of the worst managed U.S. federal agencies will have a new leadership. President Obama has announced his intention to nominate former CNN chairman and CEO Walter Isaacson, a Democrat, to chair the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, READ MORE

Russia attacks Sikorski on comments about U.S. troops in Poland

Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — A member of the Russian parliament has criticized Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski for his comments during his visit this week to Washington, but the Polish foreign ministry has disputed the accuracy of Russian news reports quoting Sikorski’s statement. READ MORE

U.S. Embassy blames diplomatic gaffe on a Polish translator

TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — Bill Clinton might have asked what the “enhanced” definition of  ”to enhance” IS?  The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw is busy blaming a Polish translator for mistranslating U.S. Ambassador Lee Feinstein’s TV interview answer about Polish troops in Afghanistan,  which caused a diplomatic READ MORE

More diplomatic confusion between U.S. and Poland

Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. media has not yet picked up on the latest diplomatic controversy between Poland and the U.S. But the public disagreement between president Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw Lee A. Feinstein and the Polish defense minister over plans to send additional Polish troops to Afghanistan is drawing media attention in Poland. READ MORE

Opinia.US: Little on the White House Blog about Biden in Poland

Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — The White House Blog had nothing specific about Vice President Biden’s visit to Poland. Biden’s national security advisor Tony Blinken wrote a general post in the White House Blog Thursday about Mr. Biden’s visit to Central Europe. He focused, however, on his boss’s visit to Romania and posted two photos from Bucharest. READ MORE

Freedom House: Postponing Dalai Lama Meeting Sends Wrong Message

U.S. President Barack Obama’s apparent decision to postpone a meeting with the Dalai Lama sends the wrong signal to the Chinese government at a time when the authorities in Beijing are intensifying efforts to silence peaceful critics at home and abroad, a US human rights organization, Freedom House, said in a statement released October 5. Obama reportedly delayed meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader this week to win favor from China’s leaders ahead of his first visit to Beijing as president next month. It will be the first time since 1991 that the Dalai Lama has not met with the U.S. president while visiting Washington.

“The doors of the White House should always be open to a globally-revered advocate for peaceful efforts to secure fundamental human rights,” said Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House executive director. READ MORE