See the article here:
BBG Plans Hit Major Rocks and Realities in VOA Central News – The Federalist

Once again, senior agency officials stirred up a hornets nest with revelations of cash awards handed out in FY2010, especially to themselves.

Cash awards are not uncommon in the Federal Government. Information provided by sources shows that the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) handed out numerous cash awards ranging from $100 to the largest of $10,000.

Cash awards are always highly charged matters. At the heart of it is whether or not the process is seen as fair and the recipients as deserving. As long as the agency puts money in the mix, these issues won’t go away. What makes these particularly worrisome is the following:

This is one of the worst agencies in the Federal Government. The agency has virtually institutionalized itself as a bottom dweller in the government-wide employee surveys of Federal workplaces. To all outward appearances, the BBG has had no significant impact on reversing the agency’s miserable showing in these surveys. Consistently, the agency is dead last in the category of Leadership and reinforces that position daily.

For example, agency officials, including those at the higher end of the awards pyramid, hold regular meetings with employee representatives. These meetings have only one useful purpose: they serve as a sterling demonstration of the chasm that separates these officials from the professional staff that does the real work of US international broadcasting. As we have noted before, these meetings are “motion without movement.” In terms of substance, they accomplish nothing of significance, certainly on threshold issues. They are an exercise in futility.

The employee representatives would be better served to exercise their rights under their contracts and the Federal Labor Relations Statute to hold the agency’s feet to the fire for the hostile work environment these officials have willfully constructed over the years. These employee representatives are also better served by their efforts to bring the issue of agency mismanagement out in front with the Congress and with the public. That is where the real productive work needs to be done. There is nothing to be accomplished inside the Cohen Building. These agency officials have consistently stonewalled any meaningful or legitimate process of getting to the substance of problems. The message to employee representatives: take matters elsewhere.

In addition, the Federal workforce is under a pay freeze for an indeterminate period of time. Some Members of Congress want the Federal workforce to take a 10 percent salary cut. When the BBG approves and hands out big cash awards to its senior officials – on top of everything else we’ve mentioned – it has the appearance and essentially the fact of getting around that pay freeze for a small and select group of already highly-paid individuals, particularly those who hold Senior Executive Service (SES) positions.

In one of its more recent press releases trumpeting its proposed reorganization of US international broadcasting, one of the features highlighted would be that the BBG’s new identity would be “more corporate in nature.”

“Corporate” is a bad word in today’s America. Corporate as in Enron, Lehman Brothers and others. Corporate as in Bank of America trying to rip off its depositors with new fees for using their own money. Corporate as in the astronomical bonuses corporate executives receive.

The corporate mentality is already well-entrenched among senior agency officials who were the beneficiaries of some hefty bonuses/cash awards in FY2010 and perhaps with more to come for FY2011. In many ways, the latest blow-up on management bonuses parallels that of the corporate world where executives receive lucrative bonuses while running various companies into the ground and putting employees out of work. The excesses we’ve come to know and expect from Wall Street appear to have taken root within the Cohen Building.

This isn’t the first time that senior agency officials find themselves riding in First Class on the gravy train. And you can best be assured that it won’t be the last if they have any say in the matter. And they most certainly do.

This is the kind of thing that enrages people, and not just inside the Cohen Building. Any congressional staffer can put together a spread sheet of agency employees and see how the awards were parsed out. On the one hand, they can see an employee at the lower end of the pay spread (around $40,000) getting no award while someone at the high end of the pay pyramid (over $170,000) pulls in an astounding award of $10,000. By nature – and the Cohen Building reaction proves this out – cash awards are divisive. They delineate haves and have-nots. They can be capricious, arbitrary and – at their worst – mercenary. Some employees are more adept at self-promotion while others show up day after day and get the job done without fanfare. Some managers and supervisors are more attentive to getting recognition for their employees. Others are not. Last but not least, senior officials hold an unfair advantage over everyone.

The Federalist is old school. The Federalist believes that government service is its own reward. Generally, BBG employees and officials are paid rather handsomely. As US Government employees, they have excellent retirement and health benefits that are the exception rather than the rule throughout the US. It is all fine and good to recognize employee contributions with plaques and the like. It is all fine and good to recognize superior performance with an in-grade step increase. Cash awards: not a good idea.

And what we see from the BBG is the potential for the worst of amoral corporate behavior being replicated inside the Federal Government with the manner in which these cash awards are handled.

Once again, keep in mind that at the end of the day, the BBG corporatists are planning to downsize US international broadcasting and bring on a reduction-in-force (RIF), the “blood on the floor” that VOA director David Ensor has referred to.

The BBG and its senior staff are presiding over a systematic attempt to cripple US international broadcasting. This effort is embodied in its alleged “strategic plan,” which we prefer to see in the context of the BBG/IBB “flim, flam plan.” This plan represents a serious danger to US national interests and national security. It is wholly reckless and irresponsible, making it something to be loathed, opposed and rejected.

The component parts of how the BBG intends to process this plan make it worse. At its core, the true result of this plan is to downsize US international broadcasting, wiping out virtually all effective direct broadcasting and relying upon the Internet as its sole source platform for audio, video and text. This includes strategic countries and regions where the Internet is not generally available or affordable or is being effectively blocked and will continue to be blocked for the foreseeable future. The BBG’s own “audience research” shows that its Internet following is a mere pittance of 10 million in world demographics. As we pointed out previously, in a world of 7 billion people that amounts to dust in the wind, something barely heard in the diverse and diffuse cacophony of what passes for global media in today’s world.

As part of the BBG’s “strategic destruction plan,” it has been noted that there will be demoralizing “staff disruptions.” That’s another way of saying that people are going to lose their jobs. The Deloitte consultant report acknowledges this (even if they haven’t figured out or know how this will be executed) and urges the Board to conduct its decimation of the workforce as quickly as possibly (of course, leaving surviving workforce more demoralized and traumatized). VOA director David Ensor has also graphically made the point by saying that there will be, “Blood on the floor.”

This is the hostile and corrosive work environment of US international broadcasting. These parallel tracks of senior officials getting large cash awards and pursuing what we see as a damaging reorganization intending to reduce the effectiveness of US Government international broadcasting that leave people to question the propriety of the corporate-like behavior of senior agency officials.

If the process of cash awards continues, the BBG needs to be asking itself some serious questions and put in place some mandatory controls in order to be open, transparent and accountable. It should be asking the following kinds of questions being asked by agency employees – and others – and getting real answers, not IBB mumbo-jumbo:

• Who approved these awards?

• Who nominated the individual awardees?

• On what basis were individuals judged to be deserving?

• Are the criteria for these awards available publicly?

• How was a conflict of interest avoided, particularly for the group of awardees who hold senior official positions? How will conflict of interest issues be avoided in the future?

• How are the dollar amounts of awards calculated?

• What are the guidelines for making these awards public and transparent?

• How does the BBG intend to limit the size of awards to senior officials particularly when juxtaposed to lesser salaries of lower paid agency employees?

• Were these awards given as “Superior Achievement Awards?” What is the narrative given to justify this kind of award to the specific individual?

• If these awards/bonuses were approved by members of the BBG, what was the written explanation submitted to justify these awards and by whom?

• Have awards been approved for FY2011? How are these awards funded?

If the BBG can’t – or won’t – be responsive to these questions, it speaks volumes to a practice that has been corrupted.

There is quite a lot not to like about the conduct of US international broadcasting by the BBG/IBB. This awards issue doesn’t improve the picture at all. It is not a personal play toy for a handful of individuals who, to appearances, use it as an opportunistic tool for self-aggrandizement. US strategic interests are hard-pressed on many fronts. The collapse of US international broadcasting – which has already been set in motion and which the BBG/IBB plans for the future – makes the national interests and US national security all the more vulnerable.

On that leadership issue: the BBG should learn from what the Social Security Administration did for FY2010. Cash awards for its SES officials: $0.
US international broadcasting needs leadership which raises the bar on professional standards, not lowers it to a vehicle for facilitating personal greed and avarice.

The Federalist
December 8, 2011

Read original here:
The Broadcasting Board of Governors – Cold Hard Cash

Our regular contributor, The Federalist, also makes other points on the BBG’s audience size announcement.

US International Broadcasting and the BBG: The Numbers Game
by The Federalist

In its press release of November 15, 2011 the BBG claims an audience increase of 22 million to a projected total of 187 million people, based on its “audience data.”

Here is a short primer on “the numbers game.”

Everything starts with the questions asked in the survey. The BBG does not provide a breakdown of the questions asked in the press release or in its “research methodology.” This is important because no one can examine how the BBG collates the responses.

Typically, survey questions will provide a range of questions. Within that range will be responses that would collectively be categorized as positive and perhaps one or two responses that would be categorized as negative. Depending on the intended outcome that the BBG wants to demonstrate, one method used could be to lump all the positives together, particularly if collectively they represent a positive aggregate response.

Everyone inside the Cohen Building knows that surveys are an inexact process. This is especially the case when conducting surveys in authoritarian or controlled societies. A lot also has to do with how the survey is conducted, often over the telephone. If people live in a controlled society, the prudent thing to do is to be judicious in how one responds to anonymous surveys. Thus, depending on how things are going in the target area, the responses could be more or less of an accurate representation of respondent habits.

One would also need to know where surveys were conducted: were they concentrated in major urban population centers or did they include respondents in the interior regions of the countries surveyed?

All this being said, let us work with the numbers the BBG provides.

If the BBG numbers are accurate, an audience of 187 million people is not to be taken lightly (for reasons we will get to below).

At the same time, one needs to look at the big picture in the world of numbers. For example:

The total global population is put at about 7 billion.

Of that number, an estimated 2 billion are at the subsistence level.

In China, latest estimates place the population at over 1.3 billion.

In short, 187 million can get lost in the cacophony of the 7 billion.

Next, one should examine the statements made in the press release in support of its survey findings.

“…in Egypt, where Alhurra TV doubled its weekly audience to 15% in tandem with the Arab Spring…”

The question here is how does this compare to other broadcasters, including the regional leader, al-Jazeera TV? The BBG press release doesn’t say. This is a key point. If the BBG audience is fractionally less than that of al-Jazeera, public opinion has moved away from that projected by the United States. Further, in our view, the so-called “Arab Spring” is over. This number could be artificially inflated by momentary events.

Also, the BBG doesn’t say how Alhurra TV fares in the region as a whole. That would be important to see if Alhurra TV is making inroads elsewhere. Since the BBG press release is silent on the point, we can presume that it is not.

“Audience declines took place notably in Iran, where the government continues aggressive jamming of every BBG transmission platform, including satellite uplink jamming;”

Those pesky Iranians. They continue to prove themselves adept at interdiction technology.

But beyond that, another question is how much of the audience loss may be due more to lack of interest than as much to government counter-measures? Keep in mind that the BBG claims that its Farsi-language “Parazit” is widely popular in Iran. One would think that if this were indeed true, it would be reflected in its survey results. Coupled with other agency research on Iran, what may be more the case is that the programs no longer have resonance with an Iranian audience. Further, one must also consider the internal conflict with the Persian News Network (PNN) which some writers allege has become a toady for the regime in Tehran.

Also keep in mind that PNN, largely television based, represents a substantial budgetary “gas guzzler” for the BBG.

We’re saving the best for last.

“While radio remains the BBG’s number one media platform, reaching 106 million people per week, television’s growth puts it 97 million people. The Internet audience was approximately 10 million, with the largest online audiences measured in Iraq, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran.”

Bingo!

There’s no “while” about it. Radio is still king.

But most important of all is this:

Even if you take the BBG numbers at face value, when you examine them in the context of the BBG “strategic plan,” you can clearly see its disaster in the making.

If you eliminate radio broadcasting, as it is the clear intent of the BBG strategic plan, you lose over half of your audience. That 187 million becomes 81 million.

The television component is no bargain. It is the most expensive production and delivery broadcast medium, requiring more people, more production time, satellite time and fees, etc. In terms of cost, it is the least sustainable of the media choices available to the BBG. Plus, one should keep in mind, as the BBG press release points out, it is vulnerable to interdiction, both in terms of blocking satellite channels and in terms of downlink requirements at the receiving end. While people use satellite dishes around the world, the fact remains that certain regimes periodically confiscate private satellite dishes, in part just because they can. Also, in those places where the BBG relies upon placement on television stations (they are not really affiliates in the same use of the word here in the US), these stations often walk a fine line with the sitting governments. Put something on the air that someone doesn’t like and good-bye BBG programs or risk the loss of one’s license and even invite some jail time if the regime is offended enough.

Last but definitely not least, its global Internet audience is tagged at 10 million. If the BBG carries through with its plans to use the Internet as its sole platform for audio, video and text, it will have the equivalent of no audience.

About 70 years into US international broadcasting, how long will it take the BBG to move its Internet audience to a size approximating its current radio audience, particularly when one notes the ability of third parties to engage effectively in cyber warfare and/or, as in the case with China, to have well-established controls to block websites the government deems as undesirable. It is complete fiction to believe that the BBG will have at its command an impenetrable cyber defense against these attacks.

And there is another thing. The BBG has to pay to be posted to search engines. Lose the search engines and there goes the recognition and access.

“Audience declines took place notably in Iran, where the government continues aggressive jamming of every BBG transmission platform, including satellite uplink jamming; and Pakistan, where the media market is increasingly fragmented and use of radio is declining.”

This statement may not be truly representative of the situational reality. The truth of the matter is that all global media markets are increasingly fragmented. This is a significant issue when one considers the BBG claim that its intended outcome is to be “the leading global news network.”

With specific regard to Pakistan, audience loss may have more to do with over-heated anti-American sentiment and a whole lot less to do with the assertion that “use of radio is declining.” It is well known that the Taliban make considerable use of radio in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is well known that the Pakistanis have become increasingly uneasy with unilateral US military actions within this territory. All of these things may have a whole lot more to do with the decline in the BBG’s audience in Pakistan.

Saying that “use of radio is declining” in Pakistan also seemingly contradicts the BBG effort with its “Radio Deewa” and “Radio Aap ki Dunyaa” projects in the region.

Let’s go back to the numbers:

The BBG is laying claim that the intended goal of its “new” strategic plan is to become the world’s leading global news network. What does that mean? How much of that 7 billion in total world population puts the BBG in the hunt to validate that claim? Hovering around 200 million according to its claimed global audience numbers, it’s a long haul to reach anything approximating a reasonable suggestion that the BBG is a “leading global news network.”

And keep in mind that if the BBG carries out its intended destruction of US Government international radio broadcasting, its audience gets cut by more than half. All of those people aren’t going to run to the Internet. That lesson was learned in Russia, contrary to the outrageous claims by the BBG of Russian audience increases. The BBG’s own research showed that its audience in Russia fell off a cliff when it ended its direct VOA Russian radio broadcasts in 2008.

The BBG has set a deadline of 2016 (its Soviet-style five-year plan) to reach its intended goals. Those goals, based on the BBG’s own numbers, would actually represent a substantially diminished audience with the loss of radio broadcasting. VOA director David Ensor essentially reiterated those goals in a recent C-SPAN television interview.

How does this intended outcome benefit the United States? How does this intended outcome represent a judicious use of US taxpayer money? Unfortunately, to all appearances the answer is” it doesn’t.

In the end, audience size aside, it all comes down to effectiveness. The BBG already a sizable “global news network” through its many and varied entities. And still, with all these assets, its penetration of global publics remains challenged.

One last thing: check the numbers of the press release:

106 million radio audience.
97 million television audience.
10 million Internet audience.

Total: 213 million.

That’s more than 187 million at the opening of the press release.

Well, we’ll give the BBG the difference. It’s still not enough to be “the leading global news network.”

Far from it.

The Federalist
November 16, 2011

###

From the BBG official website:

BBG Broadcasts Reach Record Audiences
(WASHINGTON, D.C.—November 15, 2011) U.S. government funded international broadcasters reached an estimated 187 million people every week in 2011, an increase of 22 million from last year’s figure, according to new audience data being made public by the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

“We are pleased that people the world over are responding in unprecedented numbers to our high-quality journalism and active audience engagement,” said BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson. “The ability of our broadcasters to inform, engage and connect audiences through traditional and social media alike lie behind these impressive results and will be essential to driving future audience reach and impact.”

The record numbers, released in the BBG Performance and Accountability Report (PAR), measure the combined audience of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio and TV Martí, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa). The report details impact on audiences around the globe including people in the world’s most repressive media and political environments.

The BBG’s PAR follows on the heels of BBG’s latest strategic plan, Impact through Innovation and Integration, which sets an over-arching objective of making BBG the world’s leading international news agency working to foster freedom and democracy with the goal of reaching 216 million people weekly by 2016.

This year there were significant audience increases in Afghanistan, where RFE/RL and VOA together reach 75% of adults weekly; in Egypt, where Alhurra TV doubled its weekly audience to 15% in tandem with the Arab Spring; and in Indonesia, where VOA’s aggressive affiliate strategy has boosted weekly audiences to some 38 million adults.

Audiences in many other strategically relevant countries held strong. In Nigeria, VOA retains its position as a news source of record with 23 million weekly listeners. In Burma, VOA and RFA reach 26% and 24% of adults, respectively, amounting to a weekly audience of 10 million.

Audience declines took place notably in Iran, where the government continues aggressive jamming of every BBG transmission platform, including satellite uplink jamming; and Pakistan, where the media market is increasingly fragmented and use of radio is declining.

While radio remains the BBG’s number one media platform, reaching 106 million people per week, television’s growth puts it at 97 million people. The Internet audience was approximately 10 million, with the largest online audiences measured in Iraq, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran.

Download 2011 Performance and Accountability Report (PDF)

BBG 2011 Audience Overview (PDF)

BBG Research Methodology (PDF)

Read original article:
US International Broadcasting and the BBG: The Numbers Game

Let’s take a moment to review the VOA Charter:

“The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio. To be effective, the Voice of America must win the attention and respect of listeners. These principles will therefore govern Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts:

1. VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.

2. VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.

3. VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussion and opinion on these policies.”

Gerald R Ford
President of the United States
Signed: July 12, 1976
Public Law 94-350

There you have it: the keys to mission success for US international broadcasting, which — in addition to radio — is now also using satellite television, Internet, and digital phone technology to deliver programs to its intended audiences abroad.

On the other hand, the BBG has its own mission statement:

“To inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

They are not the same. Thus, there are questions:

What does the BBG statement mean? How is the BBG going to go about its mission statement?

And more pointedly, what is the intended outcome? What constitutes “support?”

If you asked individual members of the BBG to write down what its mission statement means, it wouldn’t be surprising if you came up with as many different explanations as there are BBG members.

In controlled societies where the American interpretation of “freedom and democracy” doesn’t exist, what is to be accomplished?

There’s a word missing from the BBG’s “new” mission statement:

Explain.

For example, how does the BBG explain US actions juxtaposed to the concepts of “freedom and democracy?” How does the BBG intend to explain how the world’s greatest democracy reaches agreements with non-democratic regimes, such as the agreement to base drone aircraft in Ethiopia? How does the BBG explain its agreement with the Ethiopian government to censor Ethiopian dissidents from Amharic or other VOA Horn of Africa Service programs?

How does the BBG explain that after years of US and Allied intervention and sacrifice to free Afghanistan from the stranglehold of the Taliban, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, says that Afghanistan would join Pakistan in a war with the United States?

Since it isn’t expressly stated, would we trust the BBG to explain any issue of consequence, in detail?

No.

The intended trajectory of the BBG’s “new” mission statement appears to be to dummy down detailed news content. Indeed, we hear that a term of art making its way around the VOA Newsroom is that the agency is going to take a “holistic” approach to news. What is that? It makes it sound as if the BBG is a repository for some kind of New Age mumbo-jumbo.

As part of this trajectory, the agency seems to intend that US international broadcasting is going to be reduced to nothing more than a social media, chit-chat website. Is that what the BBG is talking about when it says it is going to “connect” people?

This is why, as Secretary of State Clinton says, “We are losing the information war.” At the end of the day, the BBG isn’t doing the things required to maintain US credibility around the world. To all appearances, it is going down the pathway of sound-bite superficiality.

The VOA Charter is a clear articulation of what constitutes the purpose and intent of US international broadcasting, what we need to communicate to world audiences.

Here is a truism about “freedom and democracy:” these are high maintenance concepts and processes. They require constant attention. Otherwise, there can be grave consequences. The consequences can be social, economic and political. One need only pick up an American newspaper and read the variety of issues confronting American society or the democratic societies in Western Europe. You get the picture quickly of what can happen when the vigilance that freedom and democracy requires goes lax.

“Freedom and democracy” aren’t out-of-the-box, ready to work constructs. They require a plan. In the American Experience, the plan would include the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. How transferable are these foundation principles to societies with no history of these principles in their own historical record and experiences?

And at every step, even in the most ideal circumstances, there are obstacles and unforeseen events that test the strength of these processes.

What the BBG’s “new” mission statement does is to trivialize the complexities and come up with a superficial approach to those complexities.

When the rubber meets the road, another ultimate truism is that freedom is not free. It can come at great cost. Add up the number of American wars over three centuries and the beginning of a fourth (from the 18th through the present 21st centuries). We are presently in the beginning observances of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. This war was and remains a defining moment in the American Experience. How is this signal event explained in the context of the BBG’s mission statement?

Consider also the various economic cycles experienced in this country, including the Great Depression and various recession cycles. How does the BBG intend to explain that free market societies, this comes as part of the package of “freedom and democracy.”

Also consider the civil rights movement and other protest movements, including the present “Occupy Wall Street.”

What the VOA Charter does is present a comprehensive definition and plan as to what US international broadcasting is supposed to do. The BBG’s “new” mission statement does neither. It is elusive and ambiguous. By deviating from the charter and attempting to substitute its own mission statement, the BBG undermines mission effectiveness of US international broadcasting. It substantially narrows the mission to one expected outcome: freedom and democracy. If this outcome is unachievable, in its effect, the BBG will have failed and thus have no mission. It is already far along in this catastrophe in Russia, the Arab and Muslim world and as it intends, in China.

“Freedom and democracy” are often used as buzz words to elicit a response or manipulate public opinion. Of late, it is often thrown around by individuals or organizations caught up in political unrest as a way of attempting to legitimize or garner support for events that have no certain outcome.

The BBG is playing the same game. In its case, the intended audience is the US Congress. Who isn’t “in support of freedom and democracy?” It is an optimum use of a phrase intended to optimize the BBG ability to get increased funding.

For this reason, members of the Congress should be wary. The record of the BBG leaves a lot to be desired, in Russia, the Middle East and if carried out, in China. Instead of giving the BBG a free pass, members of Congress need to be asking tough questions and getting factual responses. If those responses aren’t forthcoming from the BBG (and its penchant for oxymoronic phrases and other mumbo-jumbo), it should seek out answers from third parties independent of the BBG who are subject matter proficient on US international broadcasting.

Things have changed. American taxpayers do not like to be used as ATM machines involving programs they don’t understand, don’t see as important in their daily lives and are symbolic of government waste. That is today’s environment and it is an environment that needs to be communicated clearly and unequivocally to the BBG and its IBB handlers.

Not long into the unrest in Egypt that toppled the Mubarak government, Senator John Kerry opined that, “It is too early to do a victory lap for freedom and democracy in the Middle East.” The senator is correct. The BBG needs to heed these words, get itself out of its self-inflicted fog and get down to the real business of US international broadcasting as embodied in the VOA Charter.

The Federalist
November 1, 2011

In the October 2011 meeting of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the open session was made notable by remarks from Ambassador Victor Ashe, a member of the board.

Ambassador Ashe commented at some length about the recent employee survey. He noted some slight improvements in the survey results and other observations on employee-related subjects (both career staff and contractors).

Ambassador Ashe distinguished himself by his candor and his concerns. Keep in mind that among the current BBG members, he is the only one to make pointed remarks that put employees in the category of an important agency resource. This contrasts sharply with the impression one gets that the prevailing view among senior agency officials is that employees are expendable collateral, an inconvenient and annoying means to an end.

If this read of the situation is correct, it is quite likely that these other officials would be none too pleased to hear someone on the board speaking on behalf of the employees, both career and contractors, particularly on subjects related to employee morale.

As Ambassador Ashe indicated in his remarks, the contractor part of the staff (also known as “POVs,” purchase order vendors) are (a) a disaffected and unhappy group, (b) make up 45 percent of the total agency workforce and (c) are excluded from participation in the survey. Indeed, the situation being otherwise, if the POVs were able to participate in the survey, the results would likely increase negative responses, wiping out the meager improvements noted in the last survey.

For the career employees, please note: that same unhappiness experienced by the POVs may be visited upon your future, since it is a stated goal of the BBG strategic plan to de-Federalize the workforce completely. Well, almost completely. No doubt the senior staff will exclude themselves from that conversion. You can be certain that they will protect their interests and benefits before that of the workforce. One can imagine the joy, the rapture, on the Third Floor of the Cohen Building: no Federal employees – no survey, and perhaps more fertile ground for senior management bonuses.

Lest one think this is being too harsh, keep in mind that the track record of the agency is clear: meager improvements to survey results taking years to accomplish. This record demonstrates that employee morale and a process to substantively address employee concerns is as low a priority as the agency’s ranking in the survey itself

The Federalist
October 17, 2011.

Read this article:
Employees are expendable collateral — The Federalist

On Friday, October 14, the Broadcasting Board of Governors put out a press release heralding its “new” alleged “strategic plan.”

Well, really, this isn’t something “new.” It’s more a case of something being recycled and repackaged. The goals are the same: the destruction of effective US international broadcasting. Someone inside the Cohen Building must think they are being clever. It’s the same stuff, different day.

Granted, this is a press release. However, it is revealing in how the BBG sees some of the things it is doing. For example, you see words like “evaluate,” “develop” and “explore.” None of these things are synonymous with planning. They are synonymous with conceptualizing, testing ideas. So what you see is more of a concept, an idea and less of a meticulous, detailed process of moving ideas into actual actions.

If it hasn’t done so already, the BBG is going to hire a consultant to translate the idea into a plan. There are two things of importance here: (1) the requisite brain power does not reside in the Cohen Building to formulate the plan and (2) down the road, the same requisite brain power does not reside in the Cohen Building to execute the plan. They’re both bad omens, the latter perhaps being the worst of the two. Can or will the BBG follow the “instructions in the box” provided by the consultant? Past experience says they can’t or they won’t, especially if the “instructions” do not comport with the dreamscape of their concept/idea. The “new” strategic plan is much the same as the “old” strategic plan: it’s too big for the careerists in the Cohen Building to get their arms around.

In the private sector, when something this ambitious is attempted, press releases announcing what is coming often put price tags as to the cost. Nowhere in the BBG press release is there any mention of the cost of this concept/idea. That tells the reader of the press release that either the Board doesn’t know how much this is going to cost or that it is afraid to spell it out. The Board doesn’t even offer an estimated price tag for its pie-in-the-sky concept. This is lack of transparency. American taxpayers are entitled to know and to decide, through their elected representatives, whether this particular BBG boondoggle is worth the cost.

Let’s consider at least one item that appears to be at least in the “thinking about it” aspect of the concept:

Right off the bat, we know that the BBG wants to relocate from the Cohen Building. Most often mentioned is acquiring space in the Dulles Town Center in Virginia, west of DC – as in way west of DC, without access to mass transit in the near to foreseeable future. This aspect of the “strategic idea” has enormous costs attached to it, both in terms of exiting the Cohen Building and developing the infrastructure and space requirements in the new location. There may be other similar issues with regard to sites elsewhere in the United States and/or abroad that would be affected by the BBG “strategic idea.”

Someone has to pay for this. That “someone” happens to be the US taxpayer.
Once again: how much is this going to cost? It may have escaped the attention of the BBG or its IBB staff that the US Government isn’t exactly awash in surplus cash these days.

There are other considerations:

A plan has timelines. It has cost estimates for each incremental aspect of the plan along these timelines. None of this is spelled out in the press release.

By contrast, consider the expansion of the METRO system in the greater DC area. Aspects of that plan are constantly being addressed in public statements, estimating the cost and the delivery date of new extensions and new equipment to the existing system. None of that is visible in the BBG’s press release.

Some experience with agency projects has been that projects don’t get completed on time. That’s more cost.

The BBG has already demonstrated another aspect of its “plan:” it will terminate certain services before the plan is fully developed.

For example, in 2008 the BBG ended its direct broadcasts to Russia via the Voice of America (VOA). The agency’s own research shows that its audience fell off a cliff when that happened. In addition, it wants to terminate VOA Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts, supposedly relying on Radio Free Asia (RFA) to maintain a token radio presence until the Board kills that off, too.

The true “genius” of this approach is what is called “the consequence of unexpected events.” In other words, setting something in motion with either no or limited ability to respond to events unforeseen. Remember, not long after the BBG ended its VOA Russian broadcasts, the Russian Republic invaded the Republic of Georgia. Not having effective reporting via radio broadcasts of the VOA Russian service was a huge victory for the Russians all by itself.

The press release also talks about “developing” cyber countermeasures. This means the radio broadcasts will be dead before the cyber countermeasures are in place.

There should be no doubt whatsoever that the BBG is behind the curve in this critical area. The situation in cyber warfare is not static. It is evolving constantly. We already know that the Chinese and the Iranians are well ahead of the curve in this regard and are no doubt continuing to advance and refine the programs they use to block Internet content and/or to attack websites they view as hostile to their national interests.

Another cost issue regards running parallel operations while transitioning to new physical plants (the Cohen Building to the Dulles Town Center scenario). It is not going to be a situation in which operations end on a Friday at the old location and resume at the new location on Monday. It doesn’t work that way. Anyone with broadcasting experience knows that.

One of the things the BBG likes to hawk is that it will save money by ending duplication of language services. This is a bogus argument. There is no language duplication. There are entities with the same language services. But as the Board fully knows, different entities have different missions. The language services facilitate the mission of the specific entity.

There is a very legitimate question of what the intended mission of a reorganized entity is going to be. The press release makes clear that the BBG intends to attempt to comingle the three grantees, which have separate audiences, missions, etc. That can’t be something that will go smoothly. As already noted, the BBG intends to usurp VOA Mandarin and Cantonese and plant it under the flag of RFA which has an entirely different mission. That can’t be good, in part because the institutional identity of VOA will be destroyed. It would be analogous to the BBC taking a broadcast language service of longstanding BBC identity and handing it over to a lesser known enterprise as an “XYZ” entity, for example.

Particularly troubling is the idea of taking listener/viewer content and using it on-the-air. How does one verify that the content is legitimate and is not doctored or planted by individuals with ulterior motives or other “masters?” It happens all the time on the Internet and one should expect the BBG to be just as vulnerable under this strategic “idea.” In order to validate itself in its “global news network” posture, and to demonstrate that it has superior timely news reporting, one can expect things to get on the air with less than complete scrutiny in the attempt to be a step ahead of more experienced networks.

Once again the American taxpayer is being called upon to write a blank check and turn it over to the BBG. That is a big mistake. The agency’s track record is suspect up to this point (in places like Russia and the Middle East). One should not throw good money after bad.

Last but not least, Secretary of State Clinton has made it clear, “We are losing the information war.” The agency responsible for losing it is the BBG. Nothing in the BBG’s “new strategic plan” is demonstrative of a turnaround in this misfortune.

Memo to Secretary Clinton: the BBG “strategy of defeat” continues.

The Federalist
October 15, 2011

Link:
The “New” BBG Strategic Plan

Read more here:
The Long Slow Crawl Up The Mountain

The Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Destruction of US International Broadcasting

by The Federalist

Let’s get right down to the nitty-gritty:

Every member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) should submit his/her resignation to the White House. That should be followed by the resignation of the head of the Voice of America (VOA). If they don’t voluntarily submit their resignations, they should be demanded by the White House. The reason: they have destroyed US credibility abroad. They have unilaterally abandoned major radio audiences (the Russians) and are prepared to abandon the granddaddy of all audiences, the Chinese. Eventually, the BBG intends to abandon all of its international radio broadcasts. When that happens, the US Government will no longer be in the business of international broadcasting. There will no longer be a need for a BBG because it will have destroyed its most important strategic infrastructure and resource in reaching public audiences worldwide: direct global radio broadcasting.

The VOA Charter states, in relevant part:

“The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio…

1. VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news…”

Clearly, the BBG is not in compliance with key provisions of the VOA Charter. The BBG is intentionally abandoning radio as the primary foundation base of communicating with world populations. The BBG has abandoned its Russian radio audience. The BBG has abandoned shortwave radio audiences in Indonesia and Vietnam. The BBG is prepared to abandon its enormous Chinese audiences. Other services have also been targeted. The intentions of the BBG are clear: it intends to thoroughly and completely shut down its radio operations.

Further, the BBG cannot claim to be in compliance with the provision that the VOA be “a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news…” VOA operations are now consistently unreliable. It is abandoning its radio audiences as quickly as possible. It has adopted a destructive “strategic plan” which relies upon the Internet as a sole source platform for audio, video and text…knowing (or worse, ignoring) that the Internet can be controlled and access to VOA websites blocked or hacked.

No doubt, the BBG would protest vehemently and try to point out otherwise, through semantic trickery and disingenuous, if not flatly erroneous statements bordering on deceit. But the facts speak otherwise.

The exit out the door of the Cohen Building doesn’t stop with the BBG members and the VOA director. Right behind them should follow the head of broadcasting to the Middle East and the staff of the International Broadcasting Bureau responsible for concocting the witch’s brew known as the “strategic plan.”

By its intended outcomes and the actions, past, current and future, this plan and those who vigorously advocate it are not operating in the National and Public Interest, have been destructive of those interests and have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on failure…failure that is abject and complete.

The key components of the strategic failure are as follows:

Russia:

In 2008, the BBG unilaterally ended direct radio broadcasts to the Russian Federation by the VOA Russian Service. The service was reduced to an Internet-only capacity. At the time, as senior agency official stated that all of VOA would be like the Russian Service in five years.

Within weeks of this unilateral capitulation by the BBG, Russian forces invaded the Georgian Republic. As part of the campaign, the Russians engaged in cyber countermeasures to block or hack into Georgian and international websites.

The agency’s own research shows that the VOA Russian Service lost virtually all of its audience…upwards of 80%. Hits on the website are most often one-time-only, some on redirects and then the user leaves the site.

In the words of VOA Director Danforth Austin, the VOA Russian Service is an Internet “success.” Indeed, Austin is correct…it is a successful demolition of a service to a country without a free press. It is a “success” in enhancing the ability of the Russian government to control or block access to websites that do not comport with the interests of the Russian government.

The Arab and Muslim World:

For almost a decade, the BBG has taken millions of taxpayer dollars in a failed attempt to establish a meaningful presence in the Arab and Muslim world. It has failed miserably, as recent events in the Middle East have demonstrated.

Far and away the leader in reflecting and giving resonance to Arab and Muslim public sentiment is al-Jazeera television which broadcasts in both Arabic and English. One thing is clear from the unrest in the Arab and Muslim world: populations are fed up with regimes many of which have been supported by the United States. These populations are engaged in self-determination. The pro-democracy mantra is misplaced. Indeed, Senator John Kerry has remarked that it is too early to do a pro-democracy victory lap in the Middle East. Now, the United States government must prepare for an inevitable change in the wind. It is likely that the new governments to be formed will be less secular and more theocratic. In short, Arab publics are engaged in self-determination based on their traditional and historical values. This does not translate into identifying with US interests or values. The situation for the United States has become immediately more complex.

Add to this the success enjoyed by the Iranian government in projecting its power and influence in the region, most notably in Lebanon where Hezbollah is essentially in control of the national government and is armed to the teeth not only to protect its political gains but also to square off with the state of Israel, which it fought to a standstill in 2006. Iranian dissidents have been agitating for change for years, without much success. Even if these dissidents forced a political change in government, the still unanswered question is how that translates into dealing with the country’s theocracy. Further, even if Iranian dissidents force a change in government, this does not necessarily translate into the abandonment of the Iranian nuclear program. Iranians know that this program gives Iran an enormous amount of political leverage. The Iranians are not about to dispose of that leverage easily.

In short, the BBG effort has had no effect on Arab and Muslim sentiment. It is a failure. It is a waste of taxpayer dollars. The BBG is so far behind the public opinion curve in the Middle East that it will take more decades and taxpayer money to try to have some meaningful resonance. On the current trajectory of Middle East political developments, the chances of recovering the US image in the Middle East through the BBG are slim to none and will haunt US policy in the regions for decades.

China

In late February 2011, VOA director Austin and other officials held a “town hall meeting” to rationalize with agency employees the cuts the BBG intended to make to VOA China Branch Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts, which would ironically take place on October 1, a national political holiday in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC).

This intended outcome highlights all of the ineptitude, incompetence and idiocy of the BBG “strategic plan.”

The BBG, through the VOA Director, justify this decision on a whole lot of suspect reasoning. According to Austin, the agency wants to go after “new” media…the Internet users in China. There is only one “small” problem with this: the Chinese government knows that it can control Internet website access. It can, does and will continue to block sites that it considers detrimental to Chinese national interests. The Chinese have already demonstrated its capability in this regard. The PRC government blocked outside news reporting on the unrest in the Middle East. That effort was not limited to the Internet but across all media platforms.

As large as the Chinese Internet audience may be, the BBG will not have access to that market. The cost to the Chinese government is next to nothing. The government controls all the in-country Internet service providers.

From the Chinese perspective, this unilateral decision is a gift. The BBG, an agency of the US Government is unilaterally narrowing its footprint inside China. It is funneling its program output into a medium that the Chinese government controls and will continue to control for the foreseeable future.

The Chinese are not being stupid about this. They know their Internet users. They know the content that is attractive to them and allows access to those sites that have commercial, entertainment and other non-political interests. This is about control, not about across-the-board blockage.

The other skillfulness in this approach is that, after a fashion, what the government provides ultimately outweighs what it blocks. With the passage of time, this renders the VOA program output irrelevant.

Danforth Austin suggested that the Chinese government would want the BBG to continue to do shortwave radio broadcasting. In Austin’s view – and no doubt that of the BBG – this is a waste of money. They believe that radio is passé. This is just plain stupid. Radio is about as passé as the wheel…and no one is abandoning the wheel as a critical part of technology.

The fact of the matter is that the Chinese government spends large amounts of money to jam VOA Chinese shortwave radio programs. That means that VOA radio program content has a value placed not on what the US Government spends to transmit its broadcasts but how much the Chinese spend to block it.

Another fact: Chinese radio users far outnumber those with broadband Internet access. As one VOA staffer asked Austin: are you prepared to buy a computer for those Chinese who don’t own a computer? You could see Austin bristle at the question posed by the staffer.

Another specious argument offered by the BBG and Austin is that the Chinese would not block the Internet because they would suffer economically and in prestige.

Truthfully, it is painful is hear this delusional babble coming out of an agency charged with communicating with the rest of the world.

Here is the truth of the matter: the Chinese are riding the crest of a wave of an economic juggernaut which has yet to reach maximum effectiveness. This juggernaut, which is worldwide in scope, shows no signs of negative backlash from its blocking of US government websites. Globalized economies want access to Chinese goods. Globalized businesses want access to Chinese labor which reduces their costs. Advantage: PRC.

Further, the PRC owns a huge amount of US debt. No one should operate under the delusion that blocking US government websites is somehow going to have significant impact on the leverage the Chinese government has.

Lastly, as VOA Chinese staffers pointed out, the BBG spends $8-million dollars on its transmission costs. By comparison, the Chinese government spends $8-billion dollars on its overseas media campaign. This includes advertising in the Verizon Center in Washington, DC and Times Square in New York City. It includes a robust radio broadcasting effort in English to North America. It includes inserts in major American newspapers including the Washington Post.

The Chinese government has been quick to comment on its victory over the hapless and inept BBG. Through its official media, it has proclaimed the BBG action as a retreat and defeat, a mission abandoned and unfinished.

The Chinese are right.

More on the Cyber Front

One of the more ludicrous pronouncements from the BBG comes via one of its public relations flaks who stated in a press release that the BBG was a “leader” in cyber security and countermeasures.

The blatant idiocy of this remark was made clear when BBG/VOA websites were recently hacked by the “Iranian Cyber Army,” an operation with apparent links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. This attack took down all VOA websites and proxies for five hours. Repeat: all VOA websites and proxies for five hours. The attack occurred a few days before the BBG town hall meeting.

The BBG response was a reflection of its naivety in the cyber environment, complaining about infringement on freedom of the press and similar blah, blah, blah that means absolutely nothing to those opposed to US interests. After indulging in this rant, the statement followed by saying that the attack did not penetrate deeper into the agency’s IT infrastructure.

Not this time.

No doubt, the Iranians will study its successes and make efforts to expand and improve upon them. The next attack may be longer. The next attack may indeed penetrate deeper into the IT infrastructure disrupting perhaps actual on-air programs as well as websites. Clearly, the BBG does not have effective measures in place to prevent such attacks or similar ones in the future.

This is important to note when it comes to the Chinese. The BBG needs to be reminded that the Chinese government has the equivalent of unlimited resources and it will expend those resources to protect its national interests. For example, the PRC could match the BBG employee-for-employee in a cyber warfare operation and double it and not break a sweat. Even VOA director Austin noted that the Chinese are very focused on their goals. Apparently, the VOA director isn’t listening to what he’s saying and the import behind it. The Chinese government means business. They are not coy about it. They will tell the US government exactly what it will do to protect its interests.

On the Political Front

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In her testimony, the secretary noted that the United States is losing in the court of world opinion. Using the often-expressed “war” analogy, Secretary Clinton said, “We are in an information war and we are losing that war.” She also noted that “Most people still get their news from TV and radio.”

Secretary Clinton is right on both counts. Unfortunately, the BBG – which the State Department oversees – is committed to abandoning radio both immediately and in the long term in favor of the Internet. Well over 70 percent of the world population does not have Internet access. That 70 percent is a bountiful resource for organizations that hate the United States. Out of these impoverished and oppressed peoples come recruits for terrorist organizations and operations.

Senator Richard Lugar asked Secretary Clinton about a more assertive role for the BBG. While Secretary Clinton’s response was not fleshed out in press accounts, there is a message for the secretary and for Senator Lugar in the BBG town hall meeting. From that meeting it is evident that the BBG intends to press forward in abandoning world publics and narrowing the US government information footprint around the world. Channeling more funding toward the BBG will be money wasted on an already bankrupt “strategic plan” that cripples access to mass audiences and goes after audiences that are and will continue to be effectively blocked.

Mrs. Clinton also noted that the major player in the Middle East is al-Jazeera television. Thanks to the arrogance and mismanagement perpetrated by the BBG, other major players are already on the rise in Russia and China which have mounted robust international media programs.

We have become the world’s big time loser in news and information. We have allowed US international prestige and credibility to be undermined and our national interests compromised. For that reason, as the direct consequence of the BBG’s decisions, the Board should be held accountable and be given the heave-ho, along with the IBB and VOA management that has supported the Board’s actions and shares in its culpability.

The Federalist
March 2011

Sign a petition on http://voashortwave.org

Join Save Voice of America Radio to China Groupon Facebook

View Voice of America Chinese Branch journalists protesting the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ decision to end VOA on-the-air radio programs to China in Mandarin and Cantonese.

The BBG has long been considered one of the worst managed Federal agencies. The current Bush-era members of the bipartisan Board in charge of U.S. international broadcasting are expected to be replaced soon by President Obama’s nominees who now await confirmation by the U.S. Senate. (You would not know it if you open the BBG website.)

As new BBG members are getting ready to take their positions, the executives responsible for such journalistic and public relations disasters as airing of Holocaust denial propaganda on Alhurra television and discrimination against foreign-born journalists at Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (a case now pending before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg) have been busy making themselves look good to their soon-to-be bosses.

But rather than to improve their management style, the BBG/VOA executive staff used the well-tried method of buying votes that goes back, well, all the way to the Roman times.

“Give them bread and games and they will vote for you.”

We hasten to add that this was not an election fraud, which the last time we checked is still a felony, but a Federal survey fraud. The goal was to make the management look good in a Federal survey that measures employee satisfaction.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) relies on the accuracy and impartiality of these employee surveys to make important decisions about personnel policies. The BBG/VOA executives undermined this process not only at their own agency but for the entire Federal government. Survey results at BBG/VOA can no longer be compared to results at other U.S. government agencies which don’t engage in bribing employees to encourage them to participate.

Giving away prizes is a not-too-subtle form of influencing how employees will vote. Ironically, the same executives, who have no problem ignoring government regulations when they apply to them, have been actively engaged in firing VOA journalists for minor time-and-attendance transgressions. They treat journalists who need to work irregular hours and move around to get their stories as bureaucrats tied to their desks.

What we want to know is whether in addition to pizza, the BBG/VOA executives also provided beer. God forbid if they did, because that would also be against Federal regulations unless they granted themselves a special exemption.

If the soon-to-be active new BBG members in charge of the U.S. international broadcasting empire will not be able to change the management culture at their Agency, we suggest that they pay for regular pizza and beer parties for the BBG and VOA employees. If nothing changes under the new Board, we might as well really go back to the Roman Empire ways of keeping the masses happy.

The following commentary is from The Federalist, one of our regular bloggers who reports on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the Voice of America (VOA).

Down The Path Called Dysfunctional

Just when you thought that the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the Voice of America (VOA) couldn’t become any more dysfunctional than they already are, comes the following:

The VOA Director, Dan Austin, recently issued an email regarding the results of the 2009 Human Capital Survey. This is the annual survey mandated by Congress of Federal agencies, a snapshot of how the employees of the Federal workforce feel about the agencies they work in. In odd-numbered years, the survey is conducted by each Federal agency. In even-numbered years, the survey is conducted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), even though some Federal agencies, including BBG/VOA contract with OPM to conduct the survey in the even-numbered years.

At the outset, Austin crows about the increased level of participation in the 2009 survey…up to 58 percent as opposed to the 35 percent in 2008. Austin goes on to make a vague reference to “improvements” in some areas, but key issues, including leadership (i.e., Austin, the BBG and the rest of the senior agency officials) remain areas of concern.

What Austin doesn’t say in his email is that senior agency leadership offered a prize for the agency element with the most participants. That prize is…

A pizza party.

A pizza party?!?

This is quite revealing of the senior VOA leadership attitude toward the Human Capital Survey and by extension, the agency’s employees.

The attitude is quite clear: the senior leadership sees the survey as a trivial, nuisance exercise and the employee workforce as if it were a group of children.

Whatever “improvements” have been claimed in Austin’s email, it is evident that even with a sophomoric attempt at “bribing” employees with a pizza party reward, the real numbers of positive direction are insignificant…and are made even more watered down when measured against the increased participation.

The heart of any survey of this kind are what are commonly referred to as “core issues;” namely, how the execution of the agency’s mission is perceived and where the employees see themselves now and in the future. In view of the increasingly bizarre behavior of its senior officials, employees should be concerned.

The Federalist

December 2009

The Humpty Dumpty Strategic Plan at the Broadcasting Board of Governors

by The Federalist

Let us refresh our memories…

Last year, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) made the decision to eliminate all Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to Russia. Not long afterward, Russia invaded the Georgian Republic in a dispute over border provinces. To this day, there are no direct VOA on-air radio broadcasts to all of Russia.

Not long after the initial uproar over this decision, senior VOA officials stopped by the VOA Russian Service to pompously declare that all of VOA would be like the Russian Service in five years…meaning that VOA would be reduced to a collection of Internet websites as part of the Broadcasting Board of Governors/the International Broadcasting Bureau’s glorious “strategic plan.”

Arrogant, pompous and stupid to a fault.

Since then, it has been determined, through BBG’s own research conducted by an independent contractor, that the audience in Russia for VOA programs has been drastically reduced as a result of taking radio and TV programs off the air.

On Wednesday, July 08, 2009 US Government officials announced that a major cyber attack was directed against Federal government websites and others, including those of major financial institutions and multimedia organizations like The Washington Post.

Lo and behold, sources have indicated that many – perhaps – all VOA websites were put out of commission for a substantial period of time. While other Federal agencies and news organizations were quickly able to fend off these cyber attacks, the Voice of America website was out of commission for hours and was still not working late Wednesday afternoon EST.

It is unclear who orchestrated these attacks, although speculation appears to be focused on North Korea.

Let’s speak plainly:

The people in charge of BBG, IBB and VOA represent for American public and taxpayers a dangerous combination of arrogance and incompetence. Those responsible for creating and embracing this porous strategic plan should be fired. Period. It is well known to the agency’s workforce just how inept and incompetent these people are. The seriousness of the problem can be seen in the results of the US Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Federal Human Capital Survey. The agency (BBG) is dead last among comparable Federal agencies and has been hovering around the bottom for the past five years…seemingly content to be populated by a group of senior managers, protecting their big salaries and completely corrosive in their handling of critical government resources. Because the mission of US international broadcasting is all important at the time of terrorist threats and growing anti-Americanism in countries like Russia, this is a very serious lapse for US national security.

The shortcomings of the BBG strategic plan are painfully obvious. The officials running the agency choose to ignore the threat.

This threat itself is no mystery. The ability to disrupt strategic communications was aptly demonstrated by the Russian security services during the Kremlin’s conflict with the Georgian Republic.

This threat is so significant that both the outgoing Bush Administration and the incoming Obama Administration were both briefed on the subject and its possible consequences to communications systems as well as computer systems. These systems are integrated with various parts of US domestic infrastructure, including power plants, power grids, air traffic control systems and nearly anything that his heavily reliant upon computers.

Be assured that the executive staff of the BBG do not want the public to know just how badly they have mangled this aspect of the US international broadcasting operations. Their primary concern seems to be to protect their bloated salaries. It has been commonly said that the Voice of America and other BBG-managed broadcasting entities run in spite of the bungled decisionmaking of the senior management, but VOA journalists and IBB broadcasting engineers can only so much to limit the damage of the BBG’s Humpty Dumpty strategic plan.

It is reckless and irresponsible for a Federal agency to leave itself extremely vulnerable to these cyber attacks and not have a real strategic plan built on the redundancies found in the right combination of radio, television and the Internet.

To be certain, the self-aggrandizers of the BBG/IBB/VOA will try to make the argument that they are saving enormous sums of money by going all-Internet, all the time. On the other hand, since the decisions of these officials have caused substantial reductions in the audiences for these programs, to the extent that VOA no longer has a substantial audience penetration in places like Russia, the argument can then be turned around and the case made to close the agency altogether.

These cyber attacks seems to be beyond the comprehension of the less-than-competent self-promoters of the BBG/IBB. The hackers probe for weakness and vulnerabilities and they found them in the VOA website. They are precursors of worse things to come. And all the while, the senior IBB/VOA management appears to be sitting back hoping that no one will notice.

Well, we did.

And now that you know, it is incumbent upon the Obama administration to do some serious housecleaning of the BBG/IBB/VOA management structure.

Nothing less will do.

The Federalist
July 2009

Mistakes Repeated

by The Federalist

On January 20, 2009, as the United States inaugurated Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, the Associated Press reported that Hamas was holding victory rallies in Gaza amid the ruins from its recent combat with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

The idea of Hamas victory rallies may seem ludicrous to some.  However, it is consistent with the ideology of annihilation.  Standing atop a pile of rubble, with destruction all around and over an estimated one thousand civilians killed is seen as a victory because one has survived the onslaught.

It should also be noted that Hamas is not leading the discussion about the cost of its latest intentional provocation of conflict with Israel.  Instead, it is the United States, United Nations and Saudi Arabia that are talking of the cost of reconstruction of Gaza neighborhoods and will no doubt provide the funds.

To all appearances, Hamas’ interests are to reconstitute its forces and prepare the next stage of its conflict with Israel.  It bears no sense of responsibility for the death and destruction inflicted upon Gaza and the Palestinians.  Destruction is a means to an end.  It reinforces anger and rage.  It helps to sustain Hamas’ recruitment needs as it pursues its endless cycle of violence against Israel.  Hamas is in the business of violence and conflict.  It has no plan to sustain nonviolent infrastructure.  Peace means no Hamas or certainly a Hamas of less political potency.

At the same time, polling in the state of Israel shows an alarming trend that the Israeli public feels that there will never be peace between their country and the Arab world.  This is a dangerous turn of events.  It speaks to a narrowing of options, a state of perpetual conflict and reliance upon an increasingly powerful military response to the jihadists in a densely populated region of the world, raising the potential for further noncombatant casualties.

Hillary Clinton is on the job as the new Secretary of State.  There is an acknowledgement that restoring American prestige and image is an important goal of the Obama presidency.  Carrying out this task falls to whoever Secretary Clinton has in the position of undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.

Early indications are that Mrs. Clinton may be leaning toward Judith McHale, a longtime Clinton supporter, Democratic campaign contributor and senior executive with Discovery Communications.

Regardless of who fills this post, it should be understood from the outset that public diplomacy should not be equated with a marketing or advertising campaign.  Democracy is not an easily packaged commodity. We have to demonstrate the framework for democracy, what it is founded upon, what is required to sustain it and how we make it work.  We are advocating a way of life and governance as an alternative to a paradigm that has a long history and a perpetual cycle of violence.

Also important is the realization that we are dealing with confronting an ideology of annihilation manifest in a worldwide, loosely confederated network of terrorists and jihadists.

It seems that US government has an almost Pavlov-like reaction to public diplomacy that sees the task in a marketing or advertising environment.  Taking this approach does not get to the substance of the core issue at hand and will leave us with less than sterling results.

The best piece of advice for the Obama administration’s public diplomacy initiative is to see the world as it is, rather than as we wish it to be.  Public diplomacy should be seen as a facilitator of positive outcomes rather than a shill in a marketing ploy.  We must have a new vision that breaks our own cycle of mistakes repeated.

The Federalist 2009

When A Federal Agency Goes Bad

by The Federalist

“US international broadcasting is being led by people not interested in its mission or sustaining its programs.”

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has released results of its 2008 Human Capital Survey. The numbers are in for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and they are not good. In fact, they are the worst ever.

We have obtained a copy of the survey results. The negative responses are staggering. We will not recite the numbers here. However, it is more than likely that in a ranking of Federal agencies, the BBG (representing all its entities in the survey) will be at or very near the bottom among Federal agencies of comparable size…a place altogether familiar for the BBG because that is where the agency has resided in several annual surveys running.

Why is this important?

Agency employees have overwhelmingly rejected the strategic plan of the BBG and the agency’s senior managers. They do not identify with the BBG world view and rightly so, because it is grossly flawed. Here’s an example, using figures cited recently in the Washington Post:

Over 2 billion people, many of them women or girls, earn less than $2 per day.

Where do these people – often among the world’s most abused and exploited – fit into the BBG’s all-or-nothing Internet strategy? The answer is: they don’t. The BBG’s strategy should be seen for what it is: an elitist strategy designed to abandon the world’s poorest of the poor. The BBG’s strategy, developed in conjunction with its International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) staff, is intended to embrace the haves at the expense of the have-nots.

And you wonder why the US is reviled around the world? And you wonder why you see acts of desperate terrorism directed against perceived symbols of this exploitation and abuse?

Standing up to this abuse of power, agency employees have used one of the few means available to them to show the IBB/BBG for what it is. That instrument is the Human Capital Survey.

Here is what you don’t have at this agency: leadership, competence, advocacy and managers who know and identify with the employees doing the work. On those occasions when the agency functions properly, it is in spite of and not because of its senior officials.

Here is what you do have at this agency: sycophancy, ineptitude, incompetence, self-aggrandizement, self-promotion, a culture of cover-ups and deceit, spending millions of dollars on failed projects at the expense of program operations that do work; in other words, intentionally setting up good programs to fail and last but not least, intentionally terminating broadcasts to known audiences in areas on the flashpoint of broader conflicts.

The next administration is faced with a decision what to do regarding US international broadcasting. One thing is for certain: protecting the status quo, business-as-usual in this agency is unacceptable. If the Obama administration intends to make the US international broadcasting effort successful, it must rehabilitate this agency and that means removing people who are responsible for failed decision-making. It must seek out and attract a new, competent leadership to reinvigorate the agency, restore its effectiveness and help lead the effort to recover the prestige and image of the United States.

If this effort isn’t made and the corrosive environment is allowed to remain in place, the only likely outcome is a further erosion of how world’s populations view the United States. No broadcasting means silence. Silence is seen as abandonment. That silence will be filled by the jihadist message and ideology.

“US international broadcasting is being led by people not interested in its mission or sustaining its programs.”

The Federalist 2009

The Worst of Times

by The Federalist

“US international broadcasting is being led by people not interested in its mission or in sustaining its programs.”

This applies to all levels of US international broadcasting, from the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs down to managers within the broadcasting entities, the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).  When it comes to public diplomacy, the greatest detriment to the national and public Interest may, in fact, be these officials.

Time and again, they have demonstrated an extraordinary disregard for the power, consequence, and significance of silence.  In public diplomacy and in international broadcasting, silence equates with failure, abandonment, and a loss of international power and prestige.

These officials have systematically engaged in silencing US international broadcasting assets: in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, India and Pakistan…all flashpoints for much larger conflicts.  Worse, they do so with extreme arrogance, without regard to painful realities around the world.  They do not understand the necessity of a strategic triad of broadcast mediums that allow for a flexible and fluid response to changing situations.  In their decision-making, they have repeatedly demonstrated that they are shortsighted, unimaginative, and inflexible…the perfect faults to exploit by forces intent upon defeating the reach of US international broadcasting assets and the US public diplomacy effort.  Discrediting the United States is made a whole lot easier by the ineptitude exhibited in these processes.

In the face of deteriorating circumstances, these officials have embraced an all-or-nothing strategy based on using the Internet as their sole source for audio, video and text.

Let us disabuse the notion that this strategy is groundbreaking, trendsetting or staying ahead of the technological curve.  US government computer systems are vulnerable to cyber warfare.  Recently, a high level briefing was provided the outgoing Bush and incoming Obama administrations regarding the vulnerabilities of and threats to US government computer systems.  The threat is real and substantial.

No doubt, those responsible for Internet security for US international broadcasting would claim that its systems are secure.  However, it should be remembered that a culture of deceit permeates many levels of the US international broadcasting entities…the same kind of deceit that attempts to cover up embarrassing failures of its operations, such as with alHurra television, until the cover-up effort was trumped by  the release of the Annenberg Report on alHurra credited to the Obama transition team.  Claims of cyber security for US international broadcasting systems should be met with great skepticism.  Be mindful of the admonition: consider the source.

One more point: the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, James Glassman, thinks that “we’re Coke and they’re Pepsi.”  Perhaps Mr. Glassman doesn’t have a television and hasn’t had the opportunity to watch footage of the current round of conflict between Hamas and the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, or the widening of the conflict by rocket fire now coming from southern Lebanon into Israel.  Or perhaps Mr. Glassman can inquire of Hamas or Hezbollah if they think they are Coke or Pepsi. 

The point is this: the analogy is idiotic…under almost any circumstances but especially those of the present.

These are not the best of times for US international broadcasting.  Maintaining the status quo, through the twits and tweets of a fairy tale world view pontificated by inept political appointees or senior officials covering up the multi-million dollar failures of its high profile projects like alHurra, is the short march to the worst of times.

The Federalist 2009

Thinking About The Unthinkable

by The Federalist

If you think about the above phrase coined by the late nuclear war theorist, Herman Kahn, you might find it  both unusually appropriate and alarming when applied to US public diplomacy.

There is a fundamental flaw in the current US thinking about this subject.  We seem to believe that the strategies of the Cold War can be updated to successfully deal with our current adversaries.  Such thinking is wrong and, if it continues, it can have fatal consequences for our future.

In facing Islamic extremism, we are not dealing with a “war of ideas”  typical of the Cold War. Neither are we going to impress our adversaries with “Public Diplomacy 2.0.”

The “war of ideas” terminology aptly described the competition between two economic and political systems, capitalism and communism.  Both were products of Western thought and resulted in a public diplomacy strategy that was successful during the Cold War but is not likely to work against Islamist extremists.

“Public Diplomacy 2.0” describes an approach to public diplomacy that seemingly is more focused on a technological medium (and being social gadflies) and less focused on the underlying issues.

Neither term accurately describes the current world environment.  We are faced not with a war of ideas but a war of beliefs — the worst kind of conflict.  The war of beliefs deals in terms of finality and absolutes.

Americans have become too wrapped around the babble of our own point of view.  We are not listening to our adversaries.  This is a serious lapse that, if not corrected, could prove more disastrous than some of our already well-publicized public diplomacy flops.

Our public diplomacy apparatus still believes we are dealing with a competition between two ideologies.  The current Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, James K. Glassman, even talks in analogies of Coca-Cola versus Pepsi.  In doing so, Mr. Glassman makes a good case that he should be replaced.

Al-Qaeda, radical fundamentalists, jihadists and terrorists often use the same technological tools as we do.  However, their message is entirely different from what Mr. Glassman’s analogy seems to suggest.

If one listens carefully to the message of these groups, it’s clear that they do not talk using the terminology of “Coke versus Pepsi.”  Their language is one of annihilation and total war against those they see as a threat to their way of life and their interests.  Americans and other Westerners are seen as nonbelievers or infidels.  We are portrayed as being driven by vice, greed and corruption.  These groups are determined to destroy the Western way of life by any means possible and available.  Generally speaking, they are not interested in talking with us or engaging in a polite discussion over our differences.

When it comes to launching a war, the jihadists have done the math, both on a tactical and strategic level. In responding, we need to reflect on the events of September 11, 2001.  We seem to have forgotten but should remind ourselves that a small number of operatives commandeered four commercial airliners and used them to attack three known sites and a probable fourth.  Three of the four aircraft reached their targets.  Of the three targets, two were completely destroyed and the third damaged.  In each case,  there was a substantial loss of life.  Billions of dollars have been spent in the aftermath of the attacks, both domestically and abroad, to improve defenses against further attacks and presumably to take the fight directly to the terrorists.

Still, the jihadists have done the math…use the smallest number of operatives to inflict the maximum amount of damage, destruction and loss of life. They are likely to use the same tactics again.

Part of the billions of dollars spent has been to upgrade US military and intelligence capabilities to deal with the threat.  Our defense and intelligence agencies point with some pride to the increased level of security we have enjoyed up to this moment.  However, as any analyst knows, understanding the jihadists’ math and developing effective countermeasures is the key to achieving victory or suffering another serious, catastrophic attack.  It is a constantly evolving set of circumstances, until the core threat and its offshoots are completely eliminated.  It requires constant vigilance.

On the tactical level, the concept of  using the smallest number of operatives to inflict the maximum amount of damage is being acted out over and over again.  Witness the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai, India.  A small group of operatives attacked a soft target and inflicted the maximum amount of death and destruction proportionate to their numbers.

Witness also the more recent rocket attacks by Hamas against Israel.  This is another form of the same tactical process.  The Israeli response and the attendant casualties among the Palestinian civilian population are seen as validation of the jihadists’ belief that nothing short of annihilation of the enemy will resolve the situation.

On the strategic level, the jihadists have not deviated from their purpose to bring about the total destruction of the United States.  Destruction of civil society is an acceptable part of this strategy.  The vision that the jihadists have of the United States is not unlike the recently released video game, “Fallout 3.”  This is the America the jihadists want to see.  Acquiring the technology and a deliverable weapon to accomplish this goal is high on the jihadists’ list of priorities.

Seen in this light, the threat from Iran becomes much more real.  It is not merely high-handed volatile rhetoric coming from the Iranian leadership.  That leadership believes in and embraces the jihadists’ strategic concept of annihilation.

We have difficulty in being able to rationally understand this level of rage toward the United States, Israel or other Western societies.  However, we need to see and understand what factors into the jihadists’ calculations as they act upon their sense of rage.  These extremists profess to be Islamists.  Islam is the largest world religion.  Knowing this, the jihadists have drawn the conclusion that, even if they precipitate Armageddon, there is a high likelihood that the group most likely to survive are people who identify with these religious beliefs.  The condition of a post-Apocalyptic world is not a matter of great concern.  The only thing that matters is winning at all costs.

In the United States, most people live in relative comfort.  Many who identify with the religion of Islam comprise some of the poorest of the global poor.  We have a lot to lose.  From the jihadists’ perspective, there is little left to lose in this life.  This is a very appealing message to those whose lives are filled with desperation and who see themselves as exploited by and victims of Western affluence.  The jihadists do not hesitate to draw on examples of over a thousand years of history to point out examples of Western acts against their theology and people.  The jihadists’ philosophy makes heroes out of all those who sacrifice their lives in achieving victory.  Victory is its own reward.

We need to take this threat very seriously.  Up to this point, certain aspects of US public diplomacy, such as “Public Diplomacy 2.0,” have demonstrated that the threat is not being taken seriously.  We have tailored a public diplomacy strategy that seems more like a media advertising campaign during a major sporting event.

In overview, the incoming Obama administration needs to consider several issues:

First, we need to be realistic as to the nature of this threat and its intended outcomes.  This means paying close attention to the message of the jihadists and taking it literally.

Second, the primary objective of US public diplomacy is to deprive jihadists and international terrorism of its most important resource: human capital.  The task is daunting.  The jihadists promise restoring the power of Islam as a global political, social and cultural force to be reckoned with.  The jihadists promise removing the oppressors of downtrodden Muslim people around the world.  The jihadists reinforce this message with action.  Seven years after the attacks of September 11, 2001 the architect of these attacks, Osama bin Laden, remains at-large.  This increases the power of the jihadist message.  If all we have to offer in our public diplomacy effort is the status quo or trite techno-babble, the advantage will remain with the radical fundamentalists.

Third, we need to speak boldly with the international community, our allies, neighbors and those warily watching world events from the sidelines.  We need to appeal to a sense of common purpose to defeat those who intend to bring about the destruction of civilization as we know it.

Fourth, we need to get the Russians back to being fully on board with this effort.  Rather than allow themselves to be distracted by armed or verbal conflict with its neighbors, the Russian leadership faces a much more genuine threat to Russia’s interests.  The United States needs to speak directly to the Russian leadership and to the Russian people through our international broadcasting assets.  It is a serious mistake to be dismissive of the Russian people, their history and their sacrifices…a mistake compounded by the termination of direct Russian radio broadcasts by the Voice of America.  This fatal decision was implemented by the Broadcasting Board of Governors in 2008.

Fifth, we need a thorough rehabilitation of our public diplomacy effort in the Arab and Muslim world.  Current projects such as Radio Sawa and alHurra television are not getting the job done.

Finally, “Public Diplomacy 2.0” should be relegated to the category of fantasy fiction…in much the same way as “Dow 36,000” ( a book co-authored by James K. Glassman).

The Federalist 2008

This commentary was written before the Broadcasting Board of Governors released the Alhurra report in response to pressures from Congress,  investigative journalists and media freedom organizations. ProPublica.org, a nonprofit investigative journalisim website, reported that BBG Executive Director Jeffrey Trimble delivered copies of the report Wedenesday to Congressional investigators with the House Foreign Affairs Committee who until then had unsuccessfully sought the report for several months.

According to ProPublica.org, Trimble has appeared three times before House committee staff this year to answer questions on Alhurra since a joint investigation of the network in June by ProPublica and CBS’ 60 Minutes. Trimble and BBG members have also ignored Congressional requests and warnings not to end Voice of America radio broadcasts to Russia, which they did secretly 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia. It is likely that the sudden decision by the BBG to make the Alhurra report public was due to the arrival in Washington of the Obama transision team members selected to review U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting operations.  

Transition

In the weeks between the November national election and the January inauguration, the incoming administration fans out members of its transition team to the many Federal agencies to obtain an overview of their operations. This tradition is currently underway by the incoming Obama administration.

One of these transition units has been assigned to assess the operations of the US international broadcasting entities under the direction of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

It is rather doubtful that this team will receive a complete, objective and detailed explanation of what has been taking place under the BBG for the past eight years. This may not be solely related to the Board, but also due to the senior International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) career bureaucrats who act on behalf of the Board, but are also tenacious in protecting their own interests (and careers) above all else.

Therefore, the following is offered as a critique of certain aspects of US international broadcasting under the direction of the BBG that warrant the attention of the transition team.

The BBG “Strategic Plan”

US international broadcasting has suffered from flawed decision-making and strategic misdirection under the BBG/IBB.

A key component to the BBG strategic plan is the intention to move the Voice of America (VOA) in a direction that ultimately results in ending its direct radio broadcasts. In place of these broadcasts, the Board intends to adopt an Internet-only strategy, relying solely upon its websites to provide audio, video and text to potential audiences. This may appear as a state-of-the-art approach, attractive to our technology-driven outlook, particularly inside the Washington Beltway. However, for most global populations, this technology is unaffordable, unavailable or impractical, particularly at the high end of the spectrum using broadband or wireless technologies.

It also ignores the fact that taking a one-dimensional approach makes it much easier to adopt a variety of countermeasures, electronic and otherwise, from simply cutting off access to BBG/VOA websites to more aggressive acts such as hacking these sites in direct cyber warfare. The BBG is wholly unprepared for and dismissive of the scope of this threat.

Since it will take decades for this strategy to reach optimum penetration in the best of circumstances, it provides long-term job security to those who are its proponents. This puts self interest ahead of mission effectiveness or the National and Public Interest.

The transition unit should be concerned that the consequence of this BBG strategy is to eliminate the VOA as an international broadcaster, cutting off existing and potential mass global audiences who have access to relatively inexpensive radios capable of receiving VOA radio broadcasts. The effect is similar to that of an inverted pyramid, where large audiences are eliminated by funneling them through Internet choke points that can be blocked off with minimal effort and maximum effect.

Vacuum of Silence

The transition unit should be concerned that BBG decisions have resulted in a deliberate, self-imposed US international broadcasting communications blackout in key regions of the world.

In the late Summer of 2008, the Board eliminated direct radio broadcasts to Russia. Not long afterward, Russian military units moved against the Republic of Georgia in a dispute over the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The BBG blackout of VOA direct broadcasts to Russia remains in effect. This blackout not only ended radio broadcasts for audiences in the Russian Republic. It also cut off and blacked out radio programs in Russian to the former Soviet republics where Russian is spoken as a second language.

In September 2008, the BBG ended Hindi-language broadcasts to India. Thus, in December 2008 there was a US international broadcasting blackout in Hindi language programming when a terrorist cell attacked civilian commercial targets frequented by Westerners in Mumbai, India. This BBG blackout remains in effect.

The BBG has created a strategic vacuum in US international broadcasting. Its “strategic plan” has placed virtually complete reliance upon non-US Internet service providers (ISPs) to carry its audio, video and text media. These foreign entities can be interdicted by cyber countermeasures or periodic cycles of news and media censorship.

This BBG plan has resulted in a wholesale abandonment of real and potential audiences through direct radio broadcasts…radio broadcasts that were largely under direct and secure US control of domestic and foreign broadcasting transmission facilities. The BBG has broken US international broadcasting’s strategic radio bridge in areas of known conflict, which can quickly escalate into broader confrontations with global repercussions.

Middle East Broadcasting

The transition unit should be particularly troubled with the BBG broadcasting project to the Middle East known as alHurra television.

By all accounts, this multi-million dollar entity is a “broadcast flop.” At enormous cost, this project has failed to achieve any substantive results in terms of changing Arab and Muslim public opinion from its highly negative posture to one that is more amenable to US policy in the region.

The BBG has suppressed a report prepared by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School, at the Board’s request and at public expense, regarding the operations of the alHurra television network. Suppressing a report on a controversial project is a deliberate attempt to prevent public and broader governmental scrutiny of the operations of the alHurra television station that the BBG oversees.

AlHurra television broadcasts to Arab and Muslims audiences over public airwaves. For the Board to suppress and/or otherwise cover-up a report on the operations of this station leads inexorably to the conclusion that there must be something seriously amiss. One would think that the Board would understand the implication. Apparently, it does not.

A Development on the Transition Team

Dean Wilson appointed to presidential transition team
USC Annenberg School for Communications
December 2, 2008
Dean Wilson will serve several functions in the transition. He will lead a team reviewing America’s international broadcasting services, including the Voice of America and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. He will also be an advisor to the transition team working with the U.S. Department of State on public diplomacy issues.

http://annenberg.usc.edu/AboutUs/News/081202WilsonTransition.aspx?p=1

This is of particular note to interested observers of the transition process. It is unclear and unstated what Mr. Wilson’s view is of the BBG action to suppress the Annenberg Report on the controversial alHurra television project.

If previous experience is of any value, in the politics of the BBG it may be observed that nothing happens by chance or coincidence.

From published reports, indications are that the BBG appears to be suppressing the report because it contains observations and conclusions that may reflect negatively upon the operations of alHurra or point to the ineffectiveness of the BBG and its senior career managers to take effective remedial action.

It is in the National and Public Interest that this report be made public.
Clearly, the operative issue of the moment is: what happens to the Annenberg Report in this mix of circumstances and events? Does it remain buried or does it receive public attention, discussion and debate? As long as the Annenberg report remains suppressed, legitimate deficiencies in that operation will remain uncorrected and the damage to US credibility with Arab and Muslim audiences will be perpetuated indefinitely.

The OPM Human Capital Survey

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) conducts a regular survey of Federal agencies known as “The Human Capital Survey.”

Consistently, the BBG ranks near or at rock bottom among Federal agencies of similar size. Among other things, this survey demonstrates that the employees do not identify with the goals and objectives of the Board. If the Board cannot win over its own employees to its broad strategic vision, it is not likely to be able to achieve satisfactory results with its international audiences. Employees perceive the BBG as intent upon undermining the effectiveness of the agency’s mission, particularly as applies to the broadcasts of the VOA. This is commonly referred to as being set up to fail.

One of the great ironies in all of this is the manner in which BBG decision-making has facilitated the convergence of arrogance, ignorance, political and personal self-interest as the driving forces behind the US international broadcasting strategy.

Thus, the cumulative effects of flawed BBG/IBB decisions results in an undermined US international broadcasting mission. When this happens, the BBG fails a Public Trust.

The entities controlled by the BBG are in serious need of assessment as to their prospects for effectiveness. The current state of the BBG/IBB, which is one of denial of its shortcomings and a “business as usual” posture, hinders this process and is unacceptable to the immediate and long term interests of the United States.

Earning and maintaining US credibility, prestige and respect with the international community appears to be rapidly slipping from the grasp of the BBG.

The Federalist 2008

The BBG strategy clearly abandons the have-nots. In doing so, the BBG dismisses what we have already learned; namely, that trouble often begins in places that are “off the radar screen” and the ability of peoples in these circumstances to wage war, rebellion or terrorism. The consequences of this lesson should have been learned by the BBG on September 11, 2001. Clearly, it has not. The Federalist

Reverse Propagation

The great American showman PT Barnum is said to have made the statement that there’s a sucker born every moment. One is left to wonder who the sucker is in the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) strategic plan. This creation of staffers serving the BBG posits an all-or nothing Internet strategy in which the Internet would be the sole source for all BBG programs…audio, video and text. The BBG would eventually abandon almost all direct broadcasts by radio and television. While this would result in large savings in production and transmission costs, it would pass those costs onto the potential listener or viewer of BBG media

The BBG and the staff proponents of this plan have an “inside the Beltway” myopic view of the rest of the world. That view is high-tech driven where one has virtually instantaneous access to all forms of media. Not only does one have the access, the population set also has the per capita income (or consumer debt limitations) to purchase and maintain state-of-the-art technology.

Well beyond the Beltway, international audiences are less well situated. With a world population numbering in the billions, per capita income levels vary, the ability to purchase the technology that the BBG would require of its audience is limited as would be reliable infrastructure sources of power and energy required to operate and pay for the necessary equipment.

The BBG plan also dismisses any notion of electronic countermeasures to interfere with its Internet-driven product, measures in the 21^st century that replicate, in effect, the radio jamming of the 20^th century.

The BBG is in the formative stages of implementing this strategy. It has deliberately abandoned radio and television audiences in Russia. The decision to do so was made prior to the Russian invasion of Georgia and remains in place to this day.

An examination of the consequences of this plan is in order:

First, the BBG is no longer a serious international broadcaster. It is abandoning mass media audiences in favor of an elitist plan, reliant solely upon people of means to purchase the necessary technology and support (a personal computer with Internet broadband access and a reliable source of power). The question then becomes whether or not the societal elites have an interest in the message that the BBG is offering. The follow-on question is what interest do the societal elites in the target area have with regard to the general socio-political issues in the target area? The divisions between have and have-not in many countries are stark. What interest would the societal elites have in “sharing the wealth,” so to speak?

Second, in adopting this plan, the BBG is committing the Congress and the American taxpayer to a plan that will take decades to reach its optimum potential. This is also assuming a best case scenario, uninterrupted by war, social upheaval or natural disasters. Large segments of the world’s population live well below the poverty level. These populations struggle with ineffective or failed government infrastructures and most contend with a daily struggle over basic necessities…food, clothing, shelter, energy and potable water supplies. Where does the high-tech BBG PC and Internet-driven technology fit in? The answer is that it doesn’t…in the immediate and indeterminate future.

This strategy deliberately abandons existing and inexpensive technologies that are affordable even among struggling populations. Radio continues to be a viable medium serving mass audiences. Unlike the BBG, most serious international broadcasters maintain their radio broadcasts while using the Internet as a complement where access is available. These broadcasters have not executed a wholesale abandonment of known audiences and proven technologies as part of their integrated international broadcasting strategies.

Some historians and economists believe that the next world war will be fought between the Northern and Southern hemispheres…in short, a struggle between the haves and the have-nots. The BBG strategy clearly abandons the have-nots. In doing so, the BBG dismisses what we have already learned; namely, that trouble often begins in places that are “off the radar screen” and the ability of peoples in these circumstances to wage war, rebellion or terrorism. The consequences of this lesson should have been learned by the BBG on September 11, 2001. Clearly, it has not.

If there is one thing that is obvious from the BBG strategic plan it is this: it provides long-term career job security for its proponents on the BBG staff. In each successive budget cycle, one can be certain that the BBG will make a case for more taxpayer funds to justify and support this strategic debacle. The question then becomes whether or not the Congress will exercise proper oversight of BBG activities or succumb to yet another manifestation of “inside the Beltway” myopia. Lack of oversight has put us in the circumstances that we are in today, with a BBG that is out of step with international geopolitical realities and intentionally silencing itself to known audiences.

The Federalist 2008

One example has been discussed at length…the strategic “vision” of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to adopt an all-or-nothing Internet strategy for its media.  No other international broadcaster of consequence is taking this approach.  One can only be truly amazed at this “Don Quixote” approach to the U.S. international broadcasting mission in the face of today’s social, economic and political realities.
 
Another aspect of the BBG’s faulty world view has also been discussed in depth; namely, the decision to end Voice of America direct broadcasts to Russia, without regard to the political realities of the reconstituted nationalism under Vladimir Putin.

The latest manifestation of the endless reservoir of fantasy is a video contest on the subject of democracy in which the State Department is soliciting amateur video entries worldwide.  It doesn’t matter that this subject gets broad treatment on such video websites like YouTube.  But then again, originality has become one of the casualties in the fool’s paradise of mediocrity in the U.S. public diplomacy bureaucracy.

One can rightfully question what the criteria will be used for evaluating this contest since the U.S. taxpayer will be footing the bill for the prizes.  In searching through YouTube content with “democracy” as the subject, one can find a broad and diverse selection of offerings, some not quite complimentary to the U.S. government perspective.  Will critical video essays on the subject of democracy be among the winning selections?  Probably not.  One can hardly imagine a selection critical of the subject that the State Department seeks to promote.  If that, in fact, becomes the case, then we (i.e., the U.S. Government) will have spent more US taxpayer funds and learned nothing from this exercise.

One is left to wonder who came up with this latest faux pas.  Previous efforts have been made by the State Department to package “democracy” like a commodity, sometimes with the assistance of Madison Avenue or other advertising or public relations firms, where previous Under Secretaries of State have either come from or gone to after serving in this position.

This “Democracy” contest is yet another unbridled display of arrogance and ignorance, in true Ugly American style.  Those who concoct these projects appear to be blissfully dismissive of two processes: 

First, government is an evolutionary process.  Societies are rarely transformed overnight.  They have established cultures, traditions, histories and heritage.  Embracing social, economic and political concepts where they have heretofore not existed can be a difficult proposition, with less than ideal results.

Second, the next crucial component is that of self-determination.  People want to get where they are going in their own time and place.  Forcing something down people’s throats when they are not prepared for it is a prescription for trouble.

This State Department video contest would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad and vacuous.  This is a superficial treatment of a social and political process.  It bears no resemblance to reality.

Incredibly, each in its own way, the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors are poised for failure, not learning from their own mistakes and ill-conceived notions of what is required to engage in meaningful, intelligent and thoughtful interaction with global peoples on the complexities of maintaining a democratic society.

The Federalist 2008/3

No one knows with certainty if this proverb is a famous Chinese curse or not.  However, one can certainly accept the fact that these times are indeed interesting…meaning troubled…in many spheres including economics and international broadcasting.  While the fine points of U.S. international broadcasting are debated among a fairly small circle of interested participants and observers, the globalized financial markets appear to be poised on the brink of collapse.

What’s the connection?

Not long ago, a book was published with the title “Dow 36,000.”  This book was authored by James K. Glassman, the most recent chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and now the current Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

Depending on your point of view, you may want to laugh or cry.  If you are heavily invested in the stock market, other financial instruments or a disintegrating 401(k) retirement plan, it is likely to be the latter.

A book with an impressive title like Dow 36,000 is indicative of an outlook that goes beyond plain optimism and approaches the realm of fantasy.  It assumes a perfect trajectory of unbounded growth.  It does not take into account, the unknown, the unpredictable, weaknesses of human nature for greed and miscalculation or political and fundamentalist movements which specifically intend to topple our economic system and weaken our ability to project global power.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) seems to embrace the Dow 36,000 philosophy.  Similarly, the BBG makes assumptions based on best case scenarios; for example, rolling the dice on an all-or-nothing Internet-based platform for all BBG media: audio, video and text.  The opening gambit of this wildly optimistic strategic plan is seen in the Board’s unilateral decision to end direct broadcasting by the VOA Russian service.  The plan clearly requires that large costs be passed to the potential “consumers” of the BBG media offerings…a Russian population with presently limited exposure to the Internet except in its major metropolitan centers…a Russian population roiling with the rest of the world in the present global financial crisis…a resurgent nationalistic Russia which has engaged in armed conflict with the nation of Georgia…a Russia whose military campaign against Georgia was assisted by Internet countermeasures employed against Georgian and other Internet websites.

A rosy Dow 36,000 outlook dismisses the importance of history.  History repeats itself.  It is not linear.  It is cyclical.  There have been other economic downturns since the Great Depression of 1929, though not as severe…until now.  The interconnectivity of global economic systems and markets has reached a new pinnacle…meaning, in part, that a severe economic downturn is less likely to be localized and is rather more likely to be globalized.  Such are the circumstances today.

The same holds true for the euphoric, best case scenario model of BBG strategic planning for international broadcasting.  The Board is equally dismissive of historical antecedents, ignores the fact that democracy, capitalism and various other “isms” are evolutionary processes heavily influenced by circumstances specific to the experiences of certain cultures.  For example, anyone with a fundamental understanding of Russian history and the Russian psyche would be aware of the importance Russians hold for strength and leadership.  The Board lacks this form of “fortunate awareness” and clings to the arrogant and misshapen belief that the Russians will naturally embrace our perspective without regard to Russian experiences and interests.

Similar costly errors in judgment can be seen in the BBG programs to the Middle East, especially the Alhurra television project created as the result of an erroneous, superfluous vision of certain Board members regarding the depth of feelings among Arabs and Muslims regarding the substance of Middle East conflict.

In all its component parts, the BBG has become a symbol of the “ugly American,” syndrome, an assumption that the Board and only the Board knows what is best for U.S. international broadcasting.

The BBG is anything but a hallmark of U.S. government functioning at its best.  It is in many ways not much different in philosophy and action from the corporate entities and officers who have propelled US financial interests over a cliff with their own brand of arrogance and hubris.  Like those involved in the financial crisis, the Board no longer functions in the National or Public Interest and imperils both.

The Dow has fallen through “support” at 10,000.  Yes, we do live in interesting times…realities that are far from the market fiction of “Dow 36,000.”

The Federalist 2008/2

The Brownback legislation is a step in the right direction. It acknowledges the problem. It remains to be seen if elected officials respond to this problem in a manner that restores the effectiveness of US international broadcasting or if the legislation will be undermined by special interests or agendas that perpetuate and expand the known failure of this agency [Broadcasting Board of Governors]. The Federalist 

Restoring Effectiveness of U.S. Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting

The Federalist 2008/1

The legislation introduced by Senator Sam Brownback is an acknowledgement that US international broadcasting is broken and needs to be fixed and in a dramatic fashion.  The senator’s legislation would dramatically reshape how the US Government goes about the business of public diplomacy.  Not only does the legislation eliminate the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG); it also eliminates the position of undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.  The former has been a hotbed of sometimes vicious partisan bickering and the latter a steady succession of appointees who have searched in vain for an answer, almost any answer, to the woeful state of American prestige abroad.

Without a doubt, this legislation will have opponents.  Most likely to lead these forces will be Senator Joe Biden who has a demonstrated interest in this area of government operations.  He will likely be joined in opposition to the Brownback bill by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, no doubt led by Biden’s former chief of staff, Ted Kaufman.

The dismissive attitude demonstrated that the BBG does not think its Russian audiences are important anymore. … Putin, by training, a KGB professional, understands the importance of being several steps ahead of one’s adversaries. 

At this early juncture, it is unclear who will prevail in the political contest over the fate of US international broadcasting.

At the same time, it is important to make note of the record of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, particularly in recent years.  This Board has presided over a failed effort in the Middle East; namely, the Radio Sawa project and worse, the al-Hurra television project.  The fanciful vision of the Board has been akin to if we put these projects on the air, Arabs and Muslims would be enamored of our program content and we will have miraculously won them over to our point of view.  Wrong, on many different levels.  First and foremost, it ignores the obvious; namely, the ability of Arabs and Muslims to distinguish between their expectations and those of the United States through the BBG programming.  No one makes significant life decisions solely on the basis of what someone puts on the radio or television, particularly if that programming is out of step with the daily realities of the target audience.  The al-Hurra project has been called a “broadcast flop” and indeed it is so, in part for the reason stated above.

Putin can congratulate himself on being able to control the media environment in Russia and portray the military incursion in his own terms, exploiting a void created by the BBG in the absence of direct VOA radio programming to the Russian people.

Next, the BBG made a unilateral decision to end 60 years of direct broadcasting to Russia.  One should not treat lightly the significance of these broadcasts…but the BBG did.  The dismissive attitude demonstrated that the BBG does not think its Russian audiences are important anymore.  Clearly, the BBG is oblivious to the changes underway in Russia under Vladimir Putin.  Putin, by training, a KGB professional, understands the importance of being several steps ahead of one’s adversaries.  If he were a chess player, in dealing with the BBG, he would appear to be a grand master.  He knows the opponent and the opponent’s weaknesses.  He has skillfully manipulated the media environment to limit or outright eliminate the ability of alternative points of view to be heard.  He is also mindful of Russian history, something totally outside the parameters of BBG thinking.  He intends to reestablish Russian prestige both domestically and abroad.  Russians have historically responded to calls upon their national pride, particularly in the hands of a strong leader.

Timing is everything.  While not likely a determinant of the Russian decision to invade Georgia, it no doubt had some bearing accessible information to the Russian people as to how this action was viewed abroad.  Putin can congratulate himself on being able to control the media environment in Russia and portray the military incursion in his own terms, exploiting a void created by the BBG in the absence of direct VOA radio programming to the Russian people.

Lastly, an examination of the BBG “strategic plan” is in order.  This plan is available for public inspection on the BBG website.  The Board is proud of its plan.  It believes that it propels US international broadcasting into the 21st century.  In essence, this plan relies heavily on the use of the Internet as a sole source platform for all VOA program material, audio, video and text.

This would be fine in the environment of a free society with a tradition of free speech and a free press.  However, the places where VOA programming is most important are places where these freedoms are absent or under duress.

This “strategic plan” also passes the cost of receiving US government information onto the consumer.  The Board believes that it is saving large sums of money, particularly transmission costs, by pursuing this strategy.  On paper, this is correct.  However, in turn, the BBG is passing the costs onto the consumer, particularly in places where the average per capita income is at the subsistence level.  The Board’s plan would require individual’s to purchase personal computers and acquire Internet access.  In some cases, the costs of both are prohibitive and in other cases they may be nonexistent, in terms of broadband Internet service.  There is also the matter of regular and reliable electrical service to power one’s PC.

The Board also likes to argue that it is trying to reach societal elites with its programming.  These elites are the “haves” in these socio-political environments.  Thus, the question is, what motivation do these elites have in embracing larger socio-political concepts that would dilute their power to benefit the “have-nots?”

The Board is dismissive of the power of radio to reach mass audiences over large geographical areas.  The Board believes that radio is passé, particularly shortwave radio.  However, radios are abundant throughout the world and are available at far less cost than a PC with broadband Internet service.

This Board’s plan creates serious gaps that can be exploited to influence people’s attitudes toward the United States.  As such, this is a serious issue of national security. … every American adversary can easily identify, locate, attack and dispute (or destroy) BBG communication links with its overseas audiences.

Clearly, this BBG plan is an all-or-nothing strategy.  The “all” is dreamlike wonderful.  The nothing is potentially very dangerous.  Those who oppose US interests and policies look for gaps in how the United States attempts to reach large audiences.  This Board’s plan creates serious gaps that can be exploited to influence people’s attitudes toward the United States.  As such, this is a serious issue of national security.

This strategy facilitates and invites electronic countermeasures in times in crisis.  There is a lesson to be learned for the arrogant BBG in the Georgian-Russian crisis.  When hostilities erupted, Georgian websites were hacked, by persons or entities unknown (but suspected to be the Russian security services).  This electronic attack seriously disrupted information coming out of Georgian websites concerning the crisis. 

It would be foolish for the BBG to believe that, in times of crisis, BBG websites would be left alone or somehow rendered immune from such attacks.  No doubt, the BBG would be wise to take steps to protect its websites from such attacks and most likely does.  However, no amount of effort on the part of the BBG would be 100 percent in the face of a determined and focused attack.

Another aspect of this “all-or-nothing” strategic plan is that it can be argued that the BBG no longer is an international broadcaster.  As the term implies, broadcasting means reaching the widest possible range in audience and geography.  This is no longer the case when a heavy reliance is placed on terrestrial downlinks or Internet service providers, easily identified, in fixed locations.  In short, every American adversary can easily identify, locate, attack and dispute (or destroy) BBG communication links with its overseas audiences.

All aspects of these severe shortcomings in BBG thinking represent the manner in which this body fails to carry out its mission.  It is a failure in an important, though little understood and definitely underestimated commodity of government.  It also is a failure in that the Board has clearly placed political interests above the national and public interest.  The Board relishes the fact that it has screened off public scrutiny of its activities.  This is where the problem begins.  Secret governance is no governance when an agency of the Federal government is understood to be accountable to the Public Trust.  One cannot trust an entity that deliberately shrouds itself in secrecy.  It cannot be relied upon to function effectively.  It cannot be relied upon to be a guarantor of public funds well spent.  The corrosive effect of the manner in which the Board operates speaks for itself.

The Brownback legislation is a step in the right direction.  It acknowledges the problem.  It remains to be seen if elected officials respond to this problem in a manner that restores the effectiveness of US international broadcasting or if the legislation will be undermined by special interests or agendas that perpetuate and expand the known failure of this agency.

The Federalist 2008/1