A Thanksgiving Message to President Elect Barack Obama About the Voice of America

 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog  QuoVadis Commentary, November 19, 2008, San Francisco – Free Media Online Blog is publishing an open letter to President Elect Barack Obama drafted  on behalf of current and former Voice of America employees who are concerned about the mismanagement of U.S. international broadcasting by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).  The BBG, which had been responsible for eliminating VOA radio broadcasts to Russia shortly before the Russian military attack on Georgia, was also severely criticized in a recent report by the Public Diplomacy Council.  See FreeMediaOnline.org article.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.
                     Barack Obama Acceptance Speech, November 4, 2008
 

A THANKSGIVING MESSAGE TO PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA

The above quote from your acceptance speech is absolutely correct:  for years people from beyond our shores have huddled around their radios in distant forgotten corners of the world to hear America’s message. Many did so at their peril.  They still try to do so. 
 
Perhaps with that in mind, you issued a plea, on the eve of the Iowa caucus, to the people of Kenya to stop the violence that erupted in the wake of the country’s disputed presidential election. To reach the maximum number of people in your father’s homeland, you issued that plea for stability through America’s global voice to the world, the Voice of America.  And you did so on the most reliable medium to reach the greatest number of people in that area of the world: radio.
 
Unfortunately, over the past decade, that proud and inspiring global voice has become but a whisper and, in its wake, the prestige of the United States of America has plummeted.
 
How did VOA’s disintegration happen?  Dissolved during the last two administrations, there are no longer any substantive Voice of America broadcasts to much of Eastern Europe even though those countries in transition to democracy were and are in dire need of information about America and the world. 
 
Despite an outcry from thousands of listeners who depend on VOA for news and information,  there is no longer any Voice of America radio to India because the Broadcasting Board of Governors recently terminated broadcasting in Hindi. 
 
Most egregious, the people in Russia now have no radio broadcasting communication with America through VOA because the Broadcasting Board of Governors ceased all VOA Russian broadcasts on the eve of the Russian attack on Georgia in August, leaving only the Internet for the relatively small number of people who have access to computers.  Do the people of Russia still need objective and credible information from America? The answer is yes and especially now with a more emboldened and aggressive Russian leadership on the scene.
Your story, as outlined in your acceptance speech,  is America’s story.  How sad that Russians could not hear and be inspired by that story on VOA Russian radio which had carried presidential speeches live in Russian translation over many years.
 
Fortunately, through the concerted efforts of those who still care in this country, VOA radio broadcasts to Ukraine, Georgia, Tibet, and many other languages marked for elimination in September ‘08 were spared the guillotine, at least for the time being.
 
Why and how was the VOA muted?  The answer:  unfortunate mistakes by successive administrations, one Democrat, one Republican.  Since 1999, all decision-making power has been vested in the Broadcasting Board of Governors whose compounded errors have diminished the U.S. broadcasting voice to the world.
 
As your new administration embarks on possibly turbulent seas, we encourage your transition team to go beyond the rehashed, perhaps rosy facts and statistics inevitably served up by the outgoing team, just as the Bush transition team was presented with some arguable facts and figures regarding international broadcasting by the outgoing Clinton team. 
 
We hope this time around that your team will uncover the real truth. For instance,  your transition team could ask: 
 
1) Why does the Broadcasting Board of Governors resist attempts for a strategic multimedia platform combining radio, TV, and the Internet to reach the world?
 

 2) Why have 24/7 radio and TV broadcasts into the Middle East produced little or no results in a region of the world of vital strategic importance to the United States? And why does the BBG squash all negative reports about the inadequacies in U.S. broadcasting to the Middle East?
 
 3) Why does the Broadcasting Board of Governors persist in trying to curtail worldwide English-language broadcasts when research shows the emerging dominance of English in the world?
 
The members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors have made many mistakes over the past decade.  As President, you will have the unique opportunity to reverse those mistakes.  And if you do, America’s Voice can once again be heard loudly and clearly throughout the world and regain its place as the beacon of liberty to the world.
If, by some remote chance, you do say “yes, we can,” it would surely be a Happy Thanksgiving for many Voice of America employees.

QuoVadis

The Great Pumpkin — A Halloween Look At U.S. Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting

 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog  QuoVadis Commentary, October 31, 2008, San Francisco – Free Media Online Blog welcomes a new guest contributor who provides a unique perspective on U.S. international broadcasting and public diplomacy. We invite your comments.

The Great Pumpkin — A Halloween Look At U.S. Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting

QuoVadis

It’s Halloween time when shadowy figures and grotesque ghosts and goblins roam the land.  Fast on the heels of All Hallow’s Eve come the U.S. presidential elections.

If, as the polls indicate, Senator Biden becomes our next vice-president, election eve, particularly for international broadcasters yet employed by the U.S. government, could conjure up some mighty frightening figures and events from the past.

Although known more for his verbal gaffes, Senator Biden has a foreign policy gaffe or two in his portfolio, most prominently, responsibility for the dissolution of the U.S. Information Agency in the late ’90’s and the “reorganization” of international broadcasting after the Cold War with the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act. Thanks to the Senator’s efforts, USIA, the driving force of U.S. global communications was thrust into the mother of all bureaucracies: the U.S. State Department which experts agree has stymied our public diplomacy efforts for the past decade.  With the dissolution of USIA came the unfortunate “reorganization” of international broadcasting where a comfy collection of bipartisan political appointees known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) was given the awesome responsibility of directing our country’s international broadcasting.  

This was not a one-man band endeavor. Senator Biden had the necessary support in this “reform and restructuring”  from then-Secretary of State Albright, the Clinton administration and unfortunately, Republican Senator Jesse Helms.

With a few exceptions, most of the Board appointees over the past decade have only had a scant, superficial knowledge of international affairs or global broadcasting and yet, were given the reins of directing a most important function of  U.S. public diplomacy.  Their record is dismal. Under the direction of this botch-prone Board, international broadcasting has suffered dramatic reversals and cuts, leaving in its wake a plummeting of U.S. prestige throughout the world, even in those countries historically supportive of America throughout the years. 

For participation on the Board, Senator Biden championed a leading contributor to his past presidential campaigns, a millionaire media mogul, Norman Pattiz from California, the owner of Westwood One. After his appointment by President Clinton, this self-styled “visionary” extraordinaire took Washington and the BBG by storm. 

First, Pattiz took over programming to the Middle East cauldron.  Corey Pein of the Columbia Journalism Review writes that “the real tragedy is that the VOA Arabic Service was destroyed by Norman Pattiz of Westwood One.  It is bizarre that the response of the US government to 9/11 was to fire the VOA broadcasters and dismantle the Service.” Substituting credible and professional programming by a seasoned staff with a 24/7 mindless and fruitless pop music format, Pattiz erased a loyal audience of movers and shakers in the Arab world instead trying to attract teeny-bopper fans with vacuous pop artists. News and commentary took a back seat and millions of information-starved listeners in the Arab world were left high and dry.

Armed with questionable polls and statistics, Pattiz paraded to Capitol Hill, convincing the Congress and surprisingly, the Bush administration to fund his broadcasting experiments which included expanding into a fruitless Arabic TV effort with Alhurra and then 24/7 pop format programming to Iran. To his credit, in 2002, Senator Jesse Helms expressed regrets over the changes in U.S. international broadcasting when he commented on Persian programming in a Wall Street Journal column:  “It’s difficult to believe that the Bush administration has agreed to support this shift from a proven program of serious policy discussion to a teeny-bopper music-based format.  It will likely insult the cultural sensitivities of Iranians as well as their intelligence.  Meanwhile, a brave professor sits in a jail cell awaiting execution, students plot protests and the regime struggles to hold the line against the will of the people.  And the U.S. will be spinning Britney Spears discs?”

Those who writhed under the Pattiz regime at VOA, managers and rank-and-file alike,  bid him no fond farewells in 2005 when he finally walked out the door, considering him the person who almost singlehandedly destroyed U.S. international broadcasting. Yet his legacy continues as the BBG has retained Pattiz’s flawed Middle East broadcasting concoctions, dissolving other critical VOA language services to do so even when Congress explicitly forbade the elimination of essential VOA language services in its funding legislation. The latest BBG gaffe is mind-boggling: in July 2008, the Board closed the VOA Russian Service on the eve of Russia’s invasion of the Republic of Georgia.

Will Norman Pattiz be returning to Washington and to his political colleagues on the BBG after the inauguration perhaps as Chairman of the woebegone Board?  Or will Pattiz be given an even higher position in the new administration where he can wreak even more damage? 

Only the Great Pumpkin knows.

Happy Halloween.

QuoVadis