Why China won’t rule the world

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): The blend of political authoritarianism and market capitalism that is now lauded as the China model—or Beijing consensus – has lately secured a surprising amount of favorable comment and analysis. Interestingly, much of the hype comes from abroad, possibly because “Chinese leaders’ fear of chaos suggests they themselves are not convinced that they have found the

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Why China won’t rule the world

US will promote Internet freedom, digital democracy

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): The US Government will fund and facilitate innovative approaches to expanding internet freedom and access, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this morning. Activists like those in Iran’s Green movement were “redefining how technology is used to spread truth and expose injustice”

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US will promote Internet freedom, digital democracy

2009 a year of living dangerously as autocrats target activists

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): Authoritarian regimes have deliberately targeted and intensified attacks against human rights and democracy advocates over the past year, according to the annual review of Human Rights Watch. [read full story]

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2009 a year of living dangerously as autocrats target activists

Advancing democracy abroad? This is how to do it……

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED):   The practice of promoting democracy in other countries has received heightened scrutiny since the period following the attacks of 9/11, when it was made a key component of the foreign policy of President George W. Bush

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Advancing democracy abroad? This is how to do it……

Havel petitions for Liu Xiaobao: Beijing fears precedent?

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): A delegation led by former Czech President Václav Havel today tried to submit a petition demanding the fair trial and release of dissident Chinese writer and activist Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to 11 years in jail on December 25, 2009 for “inciting subversion of state power”.

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Havel petitions for Liu Xiaobao: Beijing fears precedent?

Downplaying democracy hasn’t generated foreign policy dividend

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED):   A year on from his inauguration, the foreign policy commentariat is assessing President Barack Obama’s record, not least his administration’s approach to promoting democracy and human rights. Robert Kagan detects a strategic shift from the grand strategy adopted after World War II based on military and economic “preponderance of power” to one reconciled to managing America’s

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Downplaying democracy hasn’t generated foreign policy dividend

Public Diplomacy 2.0 or Propaganda Museum Exhibits

 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog Commentary by Ted Lipien, January 13, 2009, San Francisco – 

State Department videos embarrass the U.S. among audiences abroad while the Department’s top promoter of Public Diplomacy 2.0 pushes to eliminate Voice of America radio journalism in favor of TV and Internet propaganda advertising and broadcasting based on Cold War models.

While I was an elementary school student in Poland in the 1960s, we had to write compositions why communism was the world’s best political system and what made Lenin the greatest man who has ever lived. Communist media in Poland was full of similar propaganda, although admittedly it was not nearly as naive as what the Soviet media was offering at the time. Most people in Poland were both offended by and laughed at such crude efforts to promote communism. They listened instead to radio broadcasts by Radio Free Europe (RFE) and the Voice of America (VOA). Everybody knew that these two station, financed by the U.S. government, represented a particular political point of view against communism, but we appreciated the fact that they offered generally accurate news and sophisticated journalistic analysis rather than crude propaganda.

Since then, communism had collapsed and international consumers of media news have become even more skeptical and discerning. And yet a number of recent U.S. State Department political appointees responsible for public diplomacy and officials in charge of U.S. international broadcasting have enthusiastically embraced propaganda advertising  as the primary solution to the problems of how the Bush Administration and the United States are perceived abroad.

These efforts have been in line with the general desire of neoconservative Bush Administration officials to subcontract much of public diplomacy and international broadcasting to private corporations and institutions, thus limiting fiscal controls, transparency and input from professional State Department diplomats and Voice of America journalists who could question and possibly block outlandish and counterproductive ideas. Instead of responsible and balanced journalism by Voice of America, foreign audiences are now being offered short propaganda videos and entertainment-rich programs produced by private contractors.

A similar effort to replace journalism with questionable marketing and advertising concepts has been underway for a number of years at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which is responsible for U.S. international broadcasts. Even though this is a bipartisan board, its Democratic members joined forces with neoconservative Republicans in slashing Voice of America journalistic programs and creating private broadcasting entities, such as Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television for the Middle East, with the stated goal of “marrying the mission to the market,” (BBG’s own slogan.)

BBG members and their private consultants had told these privatized entities to play music, offer programs that audiences agree with, and to make every other effort to attract more listeners and viewers. Not surprisingly, Muslim viewers dismissed Alhurra as an American propaganda station, even though in its misplaced desire to please the audience the station aired reports expressing sympathy with those who deny that six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis during the World War II Holocaust.

Use this link to the ProPublica.org web site to view the Alhurra Holocaust report (with English subtitles) as an example of what the BBG’s marketing strategy has produced at these privatized U.S.-funded stations:  http://www.propublica.org/feature/alhurra-video 

Voice of America is the only U.S. Congress-funded international broadcaster that has tried to resist BBG’s marketing strategy, but “Marrying the Mission to the Market” and  Public Diplomacy 2.0, which in their current form can only be described as Propaganda 2.0, have largely replaced objective journalism in U.S. efforts to communicate with foreign audiences. One of the first Voice of America broadcasting units eliminated by the BBG was the VOA Arabic Service, which was highly-respected in the Middle East for independence and the quality of its radio programs.

More recently, the current public diplomacy chief at the State Department, James K. Glassman, the neoconservative co-author of the book DOW 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market, (Yes, in 1999 Glassman was just as enthusiastic in predicting that the U.S. stock market would soon reach this level as he is now about his vision of Public Diplomacy 2.0.) ordered the termination of VOA radio broadcasts to Russia just 12 days before the Russian military attacked Georgia in August 2008. Glassman had also wanted to eliminate all VOA radio programs to Georgia and Ukraine. He personally rejected pleas from VOA Russian Service journalists to allow them to resume radio broadcasts to the war zone in the Caucasus during the height of the Russian-Georgian conflict.

Glassman apparently became convinced that even war refugees and war combatants can get their news from the Internet, and if they can’t, they probably do not matter as an audience since more often than not these groups are not statistically significant. His other assumption was that the Internet requires vast sums of money (for private consultants and contractors), and therefore VOA cannot possibly do both radio and Internet to Russia at the same time, even though many other private and public broadcasters are combining the Internet with radio and TV without much difficulty.  It’s hard to tell what Mr. Glassman thinks about the people in Russia and elsewhere who cannot afford the Internet, but he definitely ignores the power of direct communication between American journalists and their  international audience that has always been crucial, especially in times of serious political crises, and he dismisses concerns about the documented ability of Russia’s secret services to block and sabotage the Internet.

At first, the BBG would not even consider restoring VOA radio to Russia, but after protests by FreeMediaOnline.org and others, it allowed the Russian Service to produce a much reduced 30 minute radio program Monday through Friday, which has no current newscasts but does offer more in-depth coverage of critical current issues than what is available from other formats.  Despite BBG’s decision to spend large sums of money on outside Internet consultants and contractors, the Russian radio program is difficult to find on the VOA web site and its audio is often not updated regularly, thus leaving site visitors to hear the same outdated program over a number of days.

Voice of America Russian radio program is made available for easier access and listening on the GovoritAmerika.us web site managed by FreeMediaOnline.org

ProPublica.org, a nonprofit investigative journalism web site, has uncovered major financial and editorial irregularities related to private contractors hired under the rules set up by the BBG. Some of them were confirmed by an independent study prepared by the Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, University of Southern California. Commissioned by the U.S. government,  the study’s authors concluded that Alhurra, Arab-language television to the Middle East managed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors fails to meet basic journalistic standards and is seen by few.

It was beyond the scope of the USC study to point out that the money to operate Alhurra has been taken from VOA broadcasting to such strategic countries as Russia, China (including Tibet), and India.  As millions of dollars were being spent and wasted on Internet propaganda videos at the Department of State and on programs at scandal-ridden private broadcasting entities, such as Alhurra, the Broadcasting Board of Governors also made a decision to stop VOA Ukrainian radio broadcasts. This happened just hours before Russia shut off the flow of natural gas supplies to Ukraine and the rest of Europe.

Only five members serve currently on the Board: Joaquin F. Blaya, Blanquita Walsh Cullum, D. Jeffrey Hirschberg, Steven J. Simmons, and Condoleezza Rice (ex officio). One prominent former BBG member Edward E. Kaufman, recently appointed as a U.S. Senator from Delaware, (He had been Senator Biden’s chief of staff and replaces him in the Senate.) joined other Democrats and Republicans in voting to end VOA radio programs to Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, and India — each time shortly before a major news emergency affecting these countries, which included the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

In making these cuts, the majority of BBG members completely disregarded warnings and requests from the U.S. Congress, human rights NGOs, and the union of journalists and broadcasting technicians working for the Agency. BBG members have also ignored advice from professional diplomats and media experts familiar with foreign cultures. Neither Kaufman nor Biden seemed concerned that silencing VOA radio while RFE/RL operations in Russia are vulnerable to intimidation by the Russian secret police presents a serious risk. RFE/RL is incorporated in Delaware.

Most BBG officials treat their jobs as giving them carte blanche to support their pet projects.  Democrats on the Board became enthusiastic supporters of the Bush Administration’s plans for privatized broadcasting to the Middle East. The chief architect and implementer of these plans at the BBG was a Democratic appointee, Norman Pattiz, founder of the U.S. radio syndicate Westwood One. According to FreeMediaOnline.org sources, only one BBG member, a Republican appointee, was reported to have opposed VOA programming cuts to media-at-risk countries, angering both former BBG Republican Chairman Glassman, and Ted Kaufman, former top Democratic member. Leaders of the union representing BBG employees have called for the Board to be eliminated as did the highly respected Public Diplomacy Council, whose members come from diplomacy, the armed forces, nonprofits and academia. Most BBG members are successful businessmen (often in domestic broadcasting industry) with strong political connections, but they lack substantive experience in foreign policy, public diplomacy, international broadcasting, or international human right advocacy.

This is a link to “I Am America” video in Russian on the State Department’s web site that truly qualifies as a historical exhibit in a propaganda museum. It is described on YouTube as a video “presented to the U.S. State Department by Business for Diplomatic Action” that “will be played in U.S. embassies and consulates.” The images of America  are spectacular, but the message is crudely propagandistic and naive. Anybody with even basic political education, which describes much of today’s world, knows that the people in the video do not run U.S. foreign policy and had elected George W. Bush twice as their president before changing their minds about the direction the country should take in dealing with the world. A one-sided view of America will be dismissed as propaganda regardless of how many dollars are spent on a clever advertising packaging.  

In fact, millions of taxpayers’ dollars have been spent on these highly embarrassing videos, which are prominently featured on the State Department web site. A single VOA radio or television report about President Elect Barack Obama’s family background and foreign policy plans could not only help repair some of the damage done by these propaganda videos but would also have a long-term positive impact on how America will now be perceived abroad. Unfortunately, for ideological and bureaucratic reasons, the BBG has put VOA on its chopping block, and the  Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy is still determined to replace a substantive dialogue with foreign audiences with short and clever video messages and apparently wants to hold on to his job after the Obama Administration takes over.

Another propaganda video commissioned from private contractors by the State Department public diplomacy 2.0 team announces a worldwide contest for submitting privatelly-produced videos about the meaning of the word ‘democracy.’ View it here. The prize is “an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, New York and Hollywood to attend special screenings of the winning videos, gain exposure to the U.S. film and television industry and meet with creative talent, democracy advocates and government leaders.” The contest has been prominently featured on the State Department’s official web site, but the YouTube page, where contest videos must be submitted, has received less than 160,000 views despite being available for several months. A popular Voice of America radio program can attract many more listeners in single day and offer a journalistic view of American democracy that is far more substantive and credible.

The Internet does offer enormous opportunities for U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting but not in the hands of propagandists, or  private contractors who have no journalistic and foreign policy experience and care primarily about their own profits. Most of the members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (James K. Glassman was its most recent chairman) have done great harm to journalism and to the U.S. image abroad. The current Bush Administration’s public diplomacy chief at the Department of State does not seem to realize that many types of Internet activities are not appropriate or credible when done by government officials and are better left to truly independent NGOs and individual bloggers.

For people placed in charge of U.S.-funded journalistic entities, most BBG members have shown remarkable indifference to the concept of journalistic independence. In their misplaced desire to chase after higher audience ratings, they have allowed Russian-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reporters to be intimidated by the Kremlin’s secret police and tolerate giving extensive airtime to Russian politicians known for their racist views. This is the same marketing-first/journalism-second approach advocated by the BBG that had encouraged Alhurra, another privatized broadcaster, to air comments by Holocaust denies.

Radio Liberty, which during the Cold War had played a highly effective role as a surrogate broadcaster, providing in-depth domestic news coverage for listeners in the Soviet Union, has become a virtual hostage of the BBG strategy of favoring privatized surrogate broadcasting. Mr. Putin’s repressive but sophisticated media policies call for an entirely different approach, and yet the BBG insists that RFE/RL should have a large presence in Russia and rejects VOA radio broadcasts from the United States as unnecessary. But the idea of keeping many private broadcasting entities fits well with the desire of individual BBG members, both Democrats and Republicans, to keep as much control over U.S. international broadcasting for themselves and to reward their friends with well-paid positions and lucrative contracts.  James K. Glassman was reported to have tried to hire Paula Zahn, formerly of CNN, as the BBG’s high profile spokesperson at about the same time when the BBG executive director Jeffrey Trimble, formerly acting president of RFE/RL, was implementing the plan to stop VOA radio broadcasts to Russia. Paula Zahn had wisely declined the offer perhaps after realizing that her job might be to explain why a group of Tibetan monks staged a silent protest on Capital Hill against the BBG’s plans to reduce U.S. radio broadcasts to Tibet. Thankfully, at least in this case the BBG backed down.

Contrary to what BBG members believe, including its most recent chairman, traditional independent radio and television journalism can be successfully merged with Web 2.0 concepts and can achieve high audience ratings without resorting to questionable management techniques, marketing practices and crude propaganda.

They could have learned much about the use of “soft power” from reading a recently published book by Ambassador Patricia Gates Lynch, Thanks for Listening: High Adventures in Journalism and Diplomacy, with the foreword by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. For many years Ms. Gates had been a host of the highly popular VOA Breakfast Show. She made millions of friends for America around the world without resorting to propaganda simply by telling her audiences about America and broadcasting interviews with exceptional and ordinary Americans. Later named  by President Reagan as U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar and the Comoros Islands, Pat Gates also worked briefly as a public relations representative for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty at the time when that organization practiced truly independent surrogate journalism while Voice of America offered a mix of American news, American commentaries, as well as reports on political and human rights situation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. There was no BBG at that time, and both VOA and RFE/RL were managed by journalistic professionals and distinguished Americans, people like NBC anchor John Chancellor and Malcolm Forbes, Jr. Political appointees serving now on the BBG do not want people with ideas and much greater accomplishments to tell them how to practice broadcast journalism.

Ironically, even as the Cold War ended, neoconservative Republicans and  internationally naive but politically ambitious Democrats serving on the BBG chose the very earliest surrogate broadcasting model developed when Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberation (later Radio Liberty) were still financed and run by the CIA. This model, which was completely outdated and inappropriate for skeptical and hostile audiences in the Middle East (audiences in Easter Europe during the Cold War were highly sympathetic to the message in American-funded radio broadcasts) nevertheless gave BBG members and the White House maximum control over truly uncooperative and potentially uncooperative journalists.

While surrogate broadcasting was effective during the Cold War, even then it faced some serious problems, which BBG members chose to ignore when they developed their grandiose broadcasting plans for the Middle East. They could have learned about these problems and how to avoid them from an exceptionally honest account by former RFE/RL manager James Critchlow. In his book, Radio Hole-in-the-Head: Radio Liberty: An Insider’s Story of Cold War Broadcasting, Critchlow describes some very serious policy and editorial errors committed by naive political operatives, incompetent bureaucrats, and uninformed journalists who had worked at RFE/RL between 1953 and the end of 1980s. 

At least during the Cold War, RFE/RL journalists were based in Munich, West Germany, and were relatively safe from intimidation by the KGB. Serious editorial problems were usually uncovered and corrected until the BBG took over. The BBG placed most of RFE/RL Russian Service reporters in Russia and kept them there even after former President Putin and the KGB’s successor agency, the FSB, nearly completely took control over the local broadcast media using force and intimidation.

Unwilling to give up or significantly scale down RFE/RL’s large bureau in Moscow, BBG members and their staff, some of whom had business and personal links to Russia, began negotiating with members of the Putin regime while BBG-hired consultants told RFE/RL journalists to make their programs less critical of the political and social realities in Russia.

Independent Russian Journalist Anna Politkovskaya Who Was Murdered in Moscow in 2006

Shortly after independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in Moscow in an execution-style hit in 2006, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty managers made public statements strongly suggesting an attempt on their part to appease Mr. Putin. In an apparent effort to protect their presence in the country, the head of RFE/RL Moscow bureau, Elena Glushkova, said in an on-air discussion in October 2006 that the work of Radio Liberty journalists cannot cause Russia any harm. She insisted that RFE/RL reporters respect and love Russia. She also pointed out that all Radio Liberty reporters who work in Russia are Russian citizens and said that her optimism despite the murder of Ms. Politkovskaya is based in her belief in “the common sense of the current Russian leadership.” Maria Klain, Russian Service director at the RFE/RL home office in Prague, also expressed confidence that the radio’s future in Russia looks good. These comments surprised and offended pro-democracy activists in Russia who were still in mourning after Anna Politovskaya’s murder.

More recently, a Russian human rights organization, the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, has criticized Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) for giving an entire hour of airtime to a Russian politician known for his racist views and verbal attacks on Blacks and other ethnic and racial minorities.  For the new U.S. administration headed by the first African-American president, this is not a very encouraging sign that the BBG’s marketing and programming strategies have been successful. View FreeMediaOnline.org report: “U.S. Taxpayers Pay for Spreading Racist Views on Radio Liberty in Russia: What Would Barack Obama Say If He Knew…”   

One would think that in light of such developments and statements by RFE/RL managers in Russia, the BBG would want Washington-based Voice of America journalists to expand their Russian broadcasts. The BBG’s policy, however, has been not only to dismantle the Voice of America radio services but to make sure that  even the names of the privatized entities designed to replace them did not have any references to the U.S. in an naive belief that this would make them more credible with skeptical and hostile audiences.

By placing much of the work and operations of these privatized entities in countries like Russia and in the Middle East and relying on locally-hired staff, the BBG created no safeguards to make sure that local reporters would not be blackmailed by foreign security and intelligence services. At the same time, the BBG denied locally-hired employees the protection of U.S. labor laws, damaging U.S. reputation in countries like the Czech Republic and drawing attention and criticism from local politicians, including the highly respected former Czech President Vaclav Havel. Link to FreeMediaOnline.org report Radio Free Europe or Radio Free Putin? Did BBG End U.S. Surrogate Broadcasting in Russia on Radio Liberty in an Attempt to Appease Mr. Putin and Pursue Its Marketing Strategy?

The new Obama Administration has a chance to completely reform U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting. Millions of U.S. taxpayers’ money are still being wasted by the BBG in financing multiple privatized broadcasting entities — a veritable GM-like corporate model – with multiple executive positions and duplicate administrative structures. None of these entities is set up to present America’s story to the world.

The Voice of America, the only journalistic organization that knows how to do this job without propaganda and with some measure of credibility, desperately needs protection from the incompetent political appointees at the BBG and from the Bush Administration’s public diplomacy chief. If nothing is done, propaganda will triumph over journalism and America’s reputation abroad will be further diminished. Public Diplomacy 2.0 designed by ideologues, propagandists, and profit-seeking private contractors is an embarrassment. The Obama Administration would do well by sending these State Department videos to a museum as a warning to future government officials in charge of public diplomacy and U.S. international broadcasting who might again be tempted by the allure of propaganda.

Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director. He was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. In the 1980’s he was in charge of VOA radio broadcasts to Poland during the communist regime’s crackdown on the Solidarity labor union and oversaw the development of VOA television news broadcasts to Russia and Ukraine.

In 2006, Ted Lipien founded FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based nonprofit which supports media freedom worldwide.  He is also author of “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church” (O-Books – June 2008). In his book he describes the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by Western journalists.

In December 2008, FreeMediaOnline.org has launched a Russian-language web site — GovoritAmerika.us ГоворитАмерика.us  – which includes summaries of more serious  news and commentaries from multiple U.S. government and nongovernment sources. According to Ted Lipien, the web site is designed to compensate for the loss of information from the United States for Russian-speaking audiences due to program and budget cuts implemented by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The web site, which includes links to VOA Russian Service news reports, is also designed to counter the BBG marketing strategy that has forced broadcasting entities to focus on entertainment programming and to avoid hard-hitting political reporting that might prevent local rebroadcasting or offend local officials. GovoritAmerika.us web site was developed without any public funding and is managed by volunteers. It is also hosted on LiveJournal.com.

BBC Expands Both Internet and Radio Coverage in Russia As Voice of America Retreats

 FreeMediaOnline.org and Free Media Online Blog October 9, 2008, San Francisco – A little over two months after the Voice of America (VOA), the official U.S. international broadcaster,  had eliminated its radio programs to Russia to focus resources on its Russian-language website, the BBC Russian Service has announced an ambitious plan aimed at enhancing its Internet presence and expanding radio programming, taking both actions at the same time. In July, the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan body which manages the Voice of America, had forced VOA Russian Service journalists to abandon all radio broadcasts, both on-air and even online. It also mandated cuts in regularly scheduled VOA television programs and told VOA broadcasters to pursue a no-radio, Internet-only strategy for reaching audiences in Russia.

Facing a similar set of challenges in the Russian media market brought on by the Kremlin’s crackdown on independent journalists, the BBC World Service took a different approach and has now announced a new multiplatform and multimedia strategy for Russia, which includes the expansion of both Internet and radio programming, as well as increasing the production of video for use on the Web. According to a BBC press release,  resources will be redirected to enhance a 24/7 news coverage on its Russian-language website. At the same time, the BBC World Service announced that the flagship morning weekday news and current affairs Russian-language radio program, Utro na BBC, will be increased by half an hour, to three-and-a-half hours each day. The afternoon weekday drive time news and current affairs radio program, Vecher na BBC, will be increased, by one hour, to four hours each day. 

As the political appointees at the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors contemplated ending VOA radio broadcasts  to Russia, independent experts warned them that expanding Internet programming not only does not require the elimination of radio and TV production but heavily depends on both to provide content needed to attract more Web users.  Ignoring such advice, the BBG took VOA Russian-language radio programs off the air just 12 days before Russian troops invaded Georgia and so far has rejected pleas from Congressmen, journalists and NGOs to resume them. The VOA Russian Service broadcasters in Washington, who until recently were producing several hours of radio and television programming daily, are now underemployed but still prevented by the BBG from producing regularly scheduled radio programs even for those who would like to listen to them online.

FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit,  reported that bureaucratic politics are playing a major role in the U.S. broadcasting board’s decisions on Russia and may explain why VOA is forced to pursue a no-radio, Internet-only strategy when most experts agree that the multiplatform and multimedia approach adopted by the BBC is far more prudent and more effective. According to FreeMediaOnline.org sources, several BBG members as well as the BBG executive director Jeff Trimble prefer to steer money to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a semi-private radio station, which is also managed and funded by the BBG and broadcasts from Prague and Moscow.

These Washington officials are believed to want to secure RFE/RL’s position as the only radio voice in Russia funded by the American taxpayers. Their actions appear designed to achieve this goal even though, unlike VOA, RFE/RL does not specialize in explaining U.S. foreign policy and American culture, and its ability to operate independently within close reach of Mr. Putin’s secret police has come under question. FreeMediaOnline.org president Ted Lipien has called on the BBG to offer RFE/RL journalists in Russia greater protection from the Russian security services and to allow Voice of America to resume its role as the Washington-based broadcaster offering authoritative U.S. news and analysis to on-air and online radio listeners in Russia.

FreeMediaOnline.org sources report that a BBG member, Ted Kaufman, a former chief of staff to Senator Joe Biden, has a special interest in RFE/RL since the station is incorporated in Delaware, Senator Biden’s home state. Biden’s Senate staff was said to have advised the BBG officials on how to take VOA Russian radio off the air despite strong opposition to this move among many members of Congress. The BBG also wanted to eliminate VOA radio broadcasts to Georgia and Ukraine. It was forced to suspend its decision only after strong pressure from Congress, Georgian-American and Ukrainian-American groups. To avoid such protests, the BBG staff took steps to terminate VOA Russian radio broadcasts without making any public announcements. They did not know at the time that Russian troops would soon enter Georgia, but even afterwards they continued to resist resuming programs to Russia.

Conservative radio talk show host Blanquita Cullum, a Republican BBG member, has consistently opposed these radio cuts, but she has been outvoted each time by her Democratic and Republican colleagues. BBG’s most recent chairman, James K. Glassman, a Republican appointed by President Bush, had allied himself with Ted Kaufman and another Democratic BBG member, Jeff Hirschberg, who was a director of the U.S.-Russia Business Council.  Kaufman, Hirschberg, and Glassman, who is now the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, have been the strongest opponents of resuming VOA radio broadcasts to Russia. 

Press Releases

BBC reinforces its Russian online output

 

BBC World Service has announced changes which will further reinforce its Russian-language output. 

The main thrust of the reprioritised investment is placed on strengthening the website, bbcrussian.com, which has become the key method for delivery of all BBC content in Russian. 

The website is having a significant impact in Russia where it is easier to access than the BBC radio services, and where demand for online news is growing and becoming increasingly sophisticated.

In August 2008, at the height of the conflict between Russia and Georgia, the number of unique users of the website increased dramatically to nearly three million, and many of these new users have remained with the site in September.

The audience is also accessing other platforms online: in August 2008, traffic to online audio content doubled while demand for video jumped six-fold to nearly 2,300,000 views.

Use of news from BBC Russian via wireless handheld devices also more than doubled.

Use of forums and interactive traffic has also grown and during the recent conflict was at record levels.

Head of BBC Russian, Sarah Gibson, explains that the BBC wanted to improve its Russian-language offer to serve audiences whose media consumption habits are changing rapidly.

She says: “Our aim is to deliver a fresher, more relevant service for our audiences in Russia and the wider post-Soviet market – a trusted, high quality website with the kinds of features the audience expects, and news and current affairs programmes at key times of day, available online as well as through more traditional radio platforms.

“It’s clear that audiences like our multiplatform offer more and more, and our challenge now is to improve this offer and to give audiences more formats that they enjoy and engage with.

“That is why we are focusing resources where they will have most impact.”

Resources are being focused to enable the BBC to improve its rolling 24/7 news offer on bbcrussian.com.

The BBC will also increase the number of high-quality video reports, underpinned with original journalism from Russia. These, too, will be updated 24/7.

The BBC is also strengthening resources for bbcrussian.com during the morning peak periods and is increasing the resources for interactivity round the clock.

Reprioritisation also means boosting the Learn English section of bbcrussian.com – a tool which helps millions of Russian-speakers to master English in a simple and engaging manner.

The BBC Russian radio also changes, with re-focusing of resources on peak listening times and with more investment in flagship news and current affairs programmes.

Key daily radio programmes on short and medium wave will be expanded to make up a simpler schedule tailored for peak morning and evening drive-time audiences.

The flagship morning weekday news and current affairs programme, Utro na BBC, will be increased by half an hour, to three-and-a-half hours each day.

The afternoon weekday drive time news and current affairs sequence, Vecher na BBC – which includes the hour-long BBSeva hosted by Seva Novgorodsev – will be increased, by one hour, to four hours each day.

New weekend editions of Vecher na BBC will be launched, on both Saturday and Sunday, to take the place of current short updates.

There will be changes elsewhere in the radio schedule to fund these improvements.

The production of some short news bulletins, which were designed for Russian FM partners, will cease as the BBC no longer has these agreements.

Longer format feature programming will cease; their themes and issues will be incorporated into mainstream news and current affairs content. 

The reprioritisation also enables the BBC to develop extra newsgathering resources in Russia, resulting in increased reporting and analysis of Russian affairs.

The BBC will also increase the current affairs reporting of British cultural and social affairs, as well as reporting on the former Soviet Union, for all programmes and platforms.

Sarah Gibson sums up: “We believe that a fuller multimedia news offer will strengthen the impact of BBC Russian and that, as a result of these changes, BBC Russian will become the most trusted and influential international news provider in Russia, serving audiences in the global Russian-speaking community, across borders and platforms.”

BBC World Service Publicity

 

Broadcasting Board of Governors Shows Bipartisan Unity in Jamming Voice of America Radio in Russia

 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog September 19, 2006, San Francisco — Both Republicans and Democrats on the Broadcasting Board of Governors showed remarkable bipartisanship in destroying Voice of America  Russian-language radio in late July, shortly before Russia attacked Georgia. BBG executive director Jeffrey Trimble then advised VOA to pursue Internet-only strategy in Russia. But this former Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty manager did not have the same advice for the semi-private broadcaster based in Moscow and Prague. RFE/RL has been so afraid to lose its Moscow bureau that its managers practice self-censorship and express confidence in Mr. Putin’s leadership. Trimble made sure, however, that while VOA would do nothing but the Internet, RFE/RL would continue radio broadcasts, their Internet presence, and even video production in Russian.

The attack on Georgia did not change the BBG’s plans for VOA in Russia. Granted, in the aftermath of the Russian military attack, the BBG sponsored a workshop designed to show that the Internet is subject to censorship and sabotage from authoritarian regimes. But apparently, the threat is not so great as to prevent their desire to limit the Voice of America to nothing but an Internet-only option in Russia.

Having destroyed VOA radio in Russia, they still somehow managed to get Under Secretary of State Paula J. Dobriansky to address their Internet censorship workshop. (I wonder if she knows that Governor Steven J. Simmons, who introduced her at the workshop, had voted earlier with most of his BBG coleagues to terminate VOA radio broadcasts to Ukraine.)

When the BBG members met the next day, September 11, they rejected an appeal from Governor Blanquita Cullum to resume VOA radio to Russia and to rescind permanently their decision to end VOA radio broadcasts to Ukraine and Georgia. (VOA Georgian radio will continue “for the foreseeable future,” according to a BBG press release, but their intention of eventually terminating VOA radio in Georgia apparently has not changed.)

You can view here our online presentationon the BBG’s actions in Russia.

Wrong Time to Give Up Voice of America Broadcasts to India

THIS POST CAN BE REPUBLISHED with attribution to FreeMediaOnline.org.

 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog September 16, 2006, San Francisco — In a show of bipartisanship, two powerful members of Congress sent a letter to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) demanding that the BBG reverse its decision to terminate Voice of America (VOA) radio programs in Hindi to India. The BBG is a bipartisan body which manages VOA and several other taxpayer-funded U.S. international broadcasters.

The two Co-Chairmen of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), stressed in their letter to the BBG that over 70% of the Indian population lives in rural villages, many with no access to TV or the Internet. They expressed surprise that the BBG wants to terminate VOA  Hindi radio at the time when the United States is expanding its strategic partnership with India. They asked the BBG to allow VOA Hindi radio broadcasts to continue.

Chances are slim, however, that the Broadcasting Board of Governors will reverse its decision on India or other countries, to which VOA programs have been terminated or will soon cease, unless the whole Congress acts to force the Board to give up these programming cuts.

Unfortunately for radio listeners in India and concerned Indian Americans, the BBG enjoys strong support on this issue from Senator Joe Biden, Jr. (D-DE), Senator Barak Obama’s vice presidential running mate and a powerful member of the U.S. Senate.

Edward “Ted” E. Kaufman, Senator Biden’s former chief of staff who now works on his vice presidential campaign, blocked attempts last week to resume Voice of America (VOA) radio programs to Russia and other countries, including India. As a Democratic member of the BBG, Ted Kaufman was responsible earlier with other Democrats and some Republican members for terminating VOA Russian-language broadcasts just 12 days before Russia attacked Georgia on August 8. He had also voted for ending VOA broadcasts to India and a number of other countries, including Georgia.

Last week, a Republican BBG member, radio journalist Blanquita Cullum, had requested a vote on resuming VOA broadcasts in Russian and suspending plans to stop broadcasts to other countries. India was one of the countries named in Cullum’s proposal. Ted Kaufman was one of the key BBG members who refused to put the proposal to a vote, rejecting arguments that the earlier decision to terminate the broadcasts was wrong and that their resumption would send a strong message to Mr. Putin.

Ted Kaufman and others on Senator Biden’s staff  seem to be hoping that the mainstream media will not pay attention to this issue during the presidential election campaign, thus allowing them to play politics with U.S. international broadcasting to the benefit of the senator’s constituents and longtime friends.

Taking away radio broadcasting to Russia from VOA benefits another BBG-managed broadcaster,  semi-private Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which is incorporated in Delaware, Senator Biden’s home state.

Senator Biden has been a strong supporter of his billionaire backer Norman Pattiz. Founder and chairman of media empire Westwood One, Pattiz had served on the BBG from May 2006 until March 2006. He pushed for the elimination of many Voice of America services to fund his news and entertainment broadcasting projects for the Middle East: Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television, which have attracted much controversy.

Even after Norman Pattiz resigned from the Board in March 2006, Senator Biden’s former chief of staff continued to vote for eliminating or reducing VOA radio broadcasts to India, Russia, Tibet and other countries while supporting expanding broadcasts to the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Indian Americans and other supporters of U.S. international broadcasting and media freedom can contact Ted Kaufman through the BBG executive director Jeff Trimble: jtrimble@ibb.gov. 330 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20237, Tel: (202) 203-4400, Fax: (202) 203-4585.

Send a copy of your email to the BBG Public Affairs officer Tish King, publicaffairs@bbg.gov, and request specifically that it be forwarded to Mr. Kaufman.

You may also wish to contact the Obama-Biden campaign staff, Tel. (866) 675-2008, and the Senate offices of  Senator Biden, Tel: (202) 224-5042 Fax: (202) 224-0139, and Senator Obama, Tel: (202) 224-2854 Fax: (202) 228-4260.

THIS POST CAN BE REPUBLISHED with attribution to FreeMediaOnline.org.

FreeMediaOnline.org is a 501 (c) 3 media freedom nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, CA. Contributions to FreeMediaOnline.org are tax-deductible. Please support our work in defense of media freedom worldwide.

Reduce U.S. Radio To Tibet But Show A Picture of Buddhist Monks — A Tale of One Incredible Government Agency and Its New Website

A New Website Hides a Tale of Fewer Radio Programs to Tibet, China, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine

FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog Commentary by Ted Lipien, September 10, 2008, San Francisco — Websites tell their tales, and the newly redesigned, flashy website of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) tells a tale of hubris, waste, and reduced access to uncensored radio news for those who are the poorest and the most repressed by authoritarian regimes.

Why Buddhist Monks?

The BBG, which manages U.S. taxpayer-funded broadcasts to countries without free media, has just launched its new website, which shows on its “Home” page a picture of Buddhist monks, a flashy promotional video, and the slogan: “Bringing News and Information to People Around the World in 60 Languages.”

For those who are familiar with the BBG’s record of foreign policy blunders and are concerned about media freedom, the Buddhist monks picture tells a tale that is greatly at odds with the advertising look of the new government website. The same bipartisan body of two women and four men — three Democrats and three Republicans, including the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – had tried earlier to reduce the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) news radio programs to Tibet and China. These two stations are funded by the U.S. Congress and managed by the BBG.

These prominent, politically well-connected and business-oriented Americans — who, however, have no experience of living under a totalitarian regime, are not practicing journalists (with one exception), and have no record of significant activism in support of human rights –  had decided to reduce radio programs to Tibet about a year before the pro-autonomy demonstrations, which erupted there and were violently suppressed by the Chinese government in Beijing. They then refused to rescind their decision until a group of Tibetan monks went to the Capitol Hill and staged a peaceful protest. The U.S. Congress finally forced the BBG to back down on the program reductions to Tibet and China.

A Government Agency That Places A High Priority on Itself Tries to Hire Paula Zahn

The BBG claims that shortwave radio program cuts and reductions allow it to invest more in the development of their Internet program delivery strategy. They did use a picture of Buddhist monks, but to what purpose? The new expensive website does not offer any help to the impoverished Tibetans in cities and in rural areas, or to other groups around the world caught up in wars and conflicts and without access to the Internet. The same BBG also wanted to hire American television newscaster Paul Zahn, formerly of CNN and ABC, to be their public relations guru. She had turned them down.

Just 12 days before the Russian military attacked Georgia on August 8, the Broadcasting Board of Governors completely shut down all on-air Voice of America radio programs to Russia and to all other area were Russian is spoken. This included parts of the war zone in Georgia.

Senator Biden’s Staff Reportedly Helped to Kill VOA Radio to Russia

The Senate staff of the new Vice Presidential Democratic Party nominee, Senator Joe Biden, was said to have helped the BBG members implement this decision. It was carried out in great secrecy because of the widespread opposition to these program cuts among the rest of the members of Congress.

Extremists Invited by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Alhurra Television

Senator Biden was said to have favored program cuts at the Voice of America because they would benefit Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a semi-private entity, which is incorporated in his state. RFE/RL, which is also managed by the BBG and broadcasts in Russia, was recently criticized by the Moscow Human Rights Bureau for giving extensive airtime to an extremist Russian politician who is known for “chauvinist and racist views,” including comments about dark-skinned immigrants. Another BBG-managed private broadcaster, Alhurra Television to the Middle East, gave air time to a militant who called for the death of American soldiers in Iraq. The BBG claims that  radio program cuts to Tibet, and countries like Georgia and Russia, help to pay for Alhurra television and the expansion of its new technology infrastructure, including the Internet.

When the Russian troops entered deeply into the Georgian territory on August 8, the BBG was also about to shut down all Voice of America radio programs to Georgia and to Ukraine — the two countries under pressure from Russia, which Vice President Dick Cheney visited last week. Also last week, President Bush announced a $1 billion aid package to Georgia. But even these developments have had little if any effect on the BBG. The Board announced that the Voice of America Georgian radio programs will continue, but only for “the foreseeable future,” and described demands from its own journalists for reversing the other program cuts, including those to Russia and Ukraine, as “a non-starter.”

A Great New Promotional Website at Taxpayers’ Expense With Not Too Much Emphasis on Human Rights

The new BBG website looks very much like a  combination of a news and promotional site, even though the BBG itself was not created by Congress as a news organization or told to promote its own work to the American public. As a body called to guide and oversee the work of real broadcasters, it has no reason to glorify itself at U.S. taxpayers’ expense, much less hire Paula Zahn to do its public relations. The U.S. government-funded news organizations, managed by the BBG, already have their own news sites and public affairs departments. 

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is required, however, to promote respect for human rights through U.S. international broadcasting.  Interestingly, there are no permanent references to human rights on the new website’s “Home” and “About the Agency” pages. One has to search deeper through the site to find any permanent direct mention of human rights and media freedom.

In a twist of irony, however, on September 10, barely a month after the Voice of America radio programs to Russia were cut, the BBG sponsored a workshop — “New Media vs New Censorship: The Authoritarian Assault on Information.” By announcing the workshop on its Home page, the BBG made  at least an indirect and temporary reference to its human rights mission.

For more information about FreeMediaOnline.org and articles dealing with the BBG and U.S. international broadcasting, go to: http://www.freemediaonline.org.

 Listen To The Last Voice of America Russian Radio Broadcast

Listen here to the last Voice of America on-air Russian radio broadcast delivered on July 26, 2008, just twelve days before Russia attacked Georgia.

 

The BBG members who have supported cutting VOA programs to Tibet, China, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine are: Joaquin Balaya, chairman of Balaya Media Inc.; Jeff Hirschberg, a partner of in Kalorama Partners, a consulting firm that deals with corporate governance and risk assessment and a director of the U.S-Russia Business Council; Edward E. Kaufman, Senator Biden’s former chief of staff who is now president of Public Strategies, a political and management consulting firm based in Wilmington, Delaware; and Steven J. Simmons, chairman and CEO of Patriot Media and Communications, LLC.

 

Three seats on the Board currently are empty, after the recent departure of former BBG Chairman James K. Glassman, who also favored program cuts at VOA. Glassman is now the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. According to FreeMediaOnline.org sources, Glassman was responsible for proposing to hire Paula Zahn. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice does not attend the BBG meetings and is usually represented by  James Glassman.

 

FreeMediaOnline.org learned that only one BBG member, radio broadcaster Blanquita Cullum, questioned the decision to hire a media celebrity while radio programs to countries without free press were being cut. She was reported to have said that if the rest of the Board proceeded with hiring a new high profile spokesperson, “it would be over my dead body.” Cullum, who is a Republican, is also said to be the only member of the bipartisan Board who has consistently opposed  U.S. radio programming cuts to countries without free media.

View FreeMediaOnline.org Online Presentation SAVE VOICE OF AMERICA BROADCASTS

View FreeMediaOnline.org Online Presentation in support of saving Voice of America broadcasts to Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Tibet and other media-at-risk countries.

 

 

Call or email the Broadcasting Board of Governors to register your protest: Tel: (202) 203-4400; Fax: (202) 203-4585; E-mail: publicaffairs@bbg.gov. CONTACT YOUR MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE U.S. SENATE and tell them about the BBG’s actions affecting U.S. support for freedom of the press and human rights and the use of your tax dollars. 

 

 

A statement issued recently by the leadership of the Voice of America employees’ unions, AFGE Local 1812 and AFSCME Local 1418, said that the Broadcasting Board of Governors “has been responsible for one blunder after another — to the point that its actions have compromised U.S. strategic interests.” Saying that “the elimination of Russian and Georgian radio broadcasts should be the last straw,” the VOA employees’ union leaders called on Congress to act immediately to dissolve the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

 

 

 

FreeMediaOnline.org is a 501(c)3 nonprofit media freedom organization based in San Francisco, CA.