by The Federalist

When Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and its International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) officials brag about growing audience numbers overseas, taxpayers and members of Congress should always ask what are these audiences actually listening to or watching: is it uncensored American, international and national news with hard-hitting commentary or are they getting English lessons on iTunes and innocuous lifestyle features that anyone in the private sector could possibly even sell to a foreign broadcaster? We’re not saying that cultural programs are bad as part of a well-rounded program, which includes news, but since BBG officials eliminate newscasts, even to China, there is a need for a better disclosure of inconvenient facts that may lead to questioning of BBG audience and impact claims.

Our sources are always looking for these rarely reported facts relating to the BBG and IBB staff. More often than not they find a something worth commenting on.

Here’s one:

We have a web version of the “JakartaGlobe” and an article titled “Voice of America Leans on Indonesia to Alter Broadcast Law.”

Some years ago, the Indonesian government enacted a law that regulates the live broadcast of news from foreign news outlets over Indonesian radio and television.

Enter Norman Goodman, chief of the Voice of America (VOA) Indonesian service. During a visit by Indonesian lawmakers in April, the article reports that Goodman “requested” that the Indonesian House of Representatives make changes to their Broadcast Law to amend prohibitions against live broadcasts by foreign media.

You can read the full article here:

The Jakarta Globe – “Voice of America Leans on Indonesia to Alter Broadcast Law,” Markus Junianto Sihaloho | April 30, 2012

Here’s a little background and perspective:

The VOA Indonesian Service has been around for a long time. In the big picture, Indonesia is an important place for US Government broadcasts. Indonesia is a country with the world’s largest Muslim population. Some years ago al-Qaeda, or one of its affiliates, conducted a terrorist attack against a Bali nightclub. It is the kind of thing that makes both Indonesian and US authorities nervous and watchful.

In the last ten years or so, the VOA Indonesian Service has embraced television in a big way. The Indonesian Service has a large television contingent made up largely of young Indonesians recruited by the agency for this purpose. The radio part of the service is made up of more veteran broadcasters.

So what’s the story here, with a VOA service chief deciding to – in so many words – tell the Indonesian government what to do?

Direct broadcasting to Indonesia is really not the issue. The Indonesian government would have to spend a lot of money on jamming direct broadcasts whether by radio or television.

The Indonesian government’s attention is on foreign broadcasters using local Indonesian radio and television stations to carry their programs. In VOA, they call these stations “affiliates.” They really aren’t. What is really going on is what is called “placement.” In this instance, getting an Indonesian radio or television station, or network, to agree to carry VOA Indonesian Service programs. These agreements often involve payments of large sums of money by the BBG to a local station or network.

What are US taxpayers paying for is a legitimate question.

If an agreement is reached, which may or may not involve a large payment by the BBG, the agency would then provide downlink equipment to the station. It would be interesting to determine how much payments for “placement” and equipment cost the American taxpayer and just as importantly, what happens to that equipment when an agreement with a particular station expires. It can’t be cheap.

Here’s the next part of the process:

By law, the Indonesian radio and television stations cannot broadcast live foreign programs, particularly news programs. The Indonesian government clearly wants to exercise control over foreign broadcaster news content.

In one scenario, on the radio side, this means structuring a program with what are called “cutaways;” in other words, the program starts, maybe with a minute of talk-up about what’s coming in the show. About sixty seconds into the program, there is a cue for the news. The Indonesian station breaks away from the VOA feed and inserts its own news segment. The length is determined by the program content to follow the news. In the meantime, back in DC, the Indonesian service broadcasts their own news – if the program is also being transmitted via shortwave and thus not directly subject to the prohibitions put in place by the Indonesian government.

Thus, when the news segment ends, the Indonesian station can rejoin the non-news segment of the program.

Of course, the station can also record the program for later broadcast to make sure there is no content that would infringe on the Indonesian Broadcast Law. Better to be safe, than sorry.

For television, it’s a little bit different.

In this scenario, perhaps the most likely one, the Indonesian station takes a satellite feed from VOA in DC. The program is recorded. Editors at the Indonesian station go over the program content. They can and will excise program content that will get the station and the station owner in trouble. No station owner is going to run afoul of the government and risk losing his/her station license and/or perhaps spend some jail time for the infraction, if it happens to be a particularly flagrant violation of Indonesian law.

In reviewing the content, the Indonesian editors have several options:

They can run the material as is, assuming it’s clear of troublesome content.

They can trash the content and not run it at all.

They can embed the content as part of a locally produced Indonesian television program. In doing so, they may or may not identify the VOA content as to its origin. In some cases, they can make it appear that the VOA Indonesian reporter is a reporter for the television station. They can also minimize or remove the VOA logo to similarly make it appear that the program content originates with the station.

Now, you can be sure that this poses a dilemma for the VOA Indonesian Service chief. News content is not going to get through. That leaves the service in the position of producing “lifestyle” features which really have a limited value for the agency’s core mission as defined in the VOA Charter.

Television production is costly. Television satellite time is costly. Paying for placement costly if a network or a station demand such payments, as many do, not only in Indonesia. Providing downlink equipment to Indonesian stations is costly. A roomful of employees to do television is costly.

How much is a “lifestyle” feature without news placed on an Indonesian station worth to American taxpayers? If a TV viewer in Indonesia gets to see such a feature but does not see VOA news, can he or she be counted as getting news from the United States? Can he or she be legitimately included in the overall weekly VOA audience numbers as one TV viewer/radio listener or perhaps as only one tenth of one?

These are not good things for the VOA Indonesian service chief to ponder day to day.

Hence, in the current VOA paradigm, a not unusual encounter between the VOA Indonesian Service chief with the Indonesian delegation “requesting” they change their laws.

Now, from the Indonesian perspective, it is doubtful they like heavy-handed tactics coming from VOA. They have a law in place which some Indonesian lawmakers claim works well enough for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). They probably don’t see any wisdom in reinventing the wheel for the sake of a complaining service chief of the VOA Indonesian Service.

As we often remark, you don’t have to like the way other governments operate vis-à-vis the BBG/IBB scheme of things. But it helps to understand it. And even better, to have a plan. US international broadcasting was invented to overcome news censorship by foreign governments. What is the BBG doing about it in countries like China and Tibet? — proposing to eliminate and actually eliminating newscasts.

One of the most important things to understand is that things have changed for the BBG/IBB. They aren’t the big man on campus in international broadcasting. It’s a different world – one which they have not adjusted to very well. They still can’t tell a difference between news and an Oscar feature. To them, they are both worth the same, in terms of audience ratings and how much they are willing to pay to have them placed.

One recalls from the “West Wing” mini-series an episode in which two of the president’s aides try to approach an aide to a foreign dignitary on a human rights issue. They scramble to find a translator and ultimately got everyone together in the White House kitchen to try to parley the problem.

After a fashion, the dignitary interrupted the translator and addressed the aides in English, remarking how President Bartlet had made remarks offending the foreign dignitary. He then tells President Bartlet’s aides to “go to hell.”

The foreign dignitary was a fictional president of Indonesia. You may want to watch it: West Wing, Season One, Episode Seven, “The State Dinner.”

This could be one of those “go to hell” moments for the BBG. If you are going to “request” a foreign government to change its laws, you better have something to offer. If you don’t, what do you expect the response will be? Such “requests” are usually discussed in confidential government-to-government diplomatic exchanges. There is always a quid pro quo. If you go public, you better know what you can hope to achieve.

Someone needs to call these BBG/IBB/VOA boys into a room before they again expose their own weakness, embarrass the United States or even cause an international incident. It would be better to have a workable plan on how to deliver the news and effectively deal with local gatekeepers. We know that much — a “request” from the VOA Indonesian Service chief is not going to do it.

The Federalist
May 2012

by The Federalist
 
 
 

Venture Capitalist - Sign at the Office of Digital Design and Innovation at the Broadcasting Board of Governors

The gift that keeps on giving:
 
By now, readers of BBG Watch have seen the photo of a hand-printed piece of paper taped to a door in the Cohen Building containing declarations not unlike what one would find in public declarations by IBB staff most responsible for the “flim flam strategic plan.”
 
But if you haven’t seen it yet, here is the text:
 
“We are an internal venture capitalist team for US international media.  We provide best in class support, guidance + development for all digital + design products.  We do this by rethinking + leading on everything that touches mobile/social/digital for serving current + future audiences.”
 
Do you know what this means?
 
Absolutely nothing.  It is a self-serving sales pitch, gibberish right up there with the oxymorons that emanate from the Third Floor of the Cohen Building.
 
In our view, venture capitalism is synonymous with risk.  A lot of risk.  It can be like gambling.  But these individuals, whoever they are, aren’t rolling the dice with their own money.  The money they use is American taxpayer dollars.
 
How much taxpayer money is being used to support this escapade?
 
How much is being paid to these “venture capitalists?”
 
What are they specifically assigned to do?
 
How much travel have these “venture capitalists” engaged in and at what cost to the American taxpayer?
 
Other than a hand-printed piece of paper, what have these “venture capitalists” produced?
 
US international broadcasting has become too bizarre for words.  We cannot make this kind of stuff up.  The House of Innovation comes by it naturally, along with its most notable by-product: oxymorons.
 
None of what is coming out of the Third Floor of the Cohen Building is the type of stuff that keeps US international broadcasting whole – focused on the mission and being effective in having resonance with audiences.
 
The one thing that the House of Innovation excels in is leading the decline of US international broadcasting with global publics by engaging in spurious mumbo-jumbo that doesn’t get the job done.
 
And here’s another thing:
 
The House of Innovation can’t play with the big boys: the Chinese, the Russians, or the Iranians.  They don’t even make the junior varsity squad.  And worst of all – the big boys know it.
 
What this agency has become is a clearinghouse for a lot of far out ideas that don’t hold up to global realities.  In some cases, the “idea” incubators are individuals we call “shortstops:” people with long resumes full of brief stays in a lot of places; people who seemingly pop out of the woodwork with a lot of jargon but not much in the way of substance.  The House of Innovation is like a magnet attracting these people.
 
These people globe trot their ideas.  That may make for a lot of nice travel, but there doesn’t seem to be a heck of a lot of traction to show for the effort.  We know the House of Innovation very well.  One of its key components is shouting about successes.  There isn’t much to shout about.  And many times, what talk there is has to do with the latest version of the “strategic flim flam plan.”  
 
New and improved!  
 
Well, not really.
 
Here is perhaps the one thing the hand-printed sign from our Cohen Building “venture capitalists” means:
 
This is indicative of the House of Innovation plan to privatize and de-Federalize US international broadcasting and go “corporate.”  We are most definitely not in favor of that scheme.
 
However, if it somehow were to come to fruition here’s the deal:
 
Cut these guys off from American taxpayer money.  Totally.  Let them try to stand on their own.
 
You know what?
 
They would fall flat on their faces.  It would be a bankrupt undertaking before barely in motion.
 
These guys want the American taxpayer to be an ATM machine for any wild, oxymoron-laced idea they can come up with.  It’s dead wrong.  It has nothing to do with the national or the public interest.
 
These guys are dead-set on their objective.  So, with that in mind, it behooves the Congress to be thinking ahead and planning to take as much of US international broadcasting out of the hands of the House of Innovation.  Transfer the vital functions and operations elsewhere in the Federal Government.
 
If the Congress and the American taxpayer want “best in class,” this represents the best alternative to the whacked out world of the Cohen Building.
 
However, if the Congress isn’t prepared to take that step, here is a short list of some other things it can do:
 
At the top of the list is meaningful oversight and accountability.  We’re not going to get to that particular objective with the current cast of characters “leading” the agency.  The name of the game in the House of Innovation is hawking damaged goods and not being held accountable for it.  These guys need something else to do and to do it far away from the Cohen Building.  
 
Next, someone at the highest levels of government has to come to the understanding that this agency is in the business of strategic communication.  It is not going to be the next CNN.  It is not going to compete with commercial media.  This agency has to be mass strategic communication that has the greatest potential to reach the most people possible, in the face of serious countermeasures by rivals and adversaries.
 
The BBG/IBB needs to be disabused of the notion that the agency is going to adopt a model that is “corporate” in nature. Given the track record established by the House of Innovation, this agency is already well on its way to being the Enron of international broadcasting.
 
Our venture capitalists and their “manifesto” are a far cry from the principles of the Voice of America (VOA) Charter.  It is no surprise to that US international broadcasting has fallen over a precipice.  It is now in the grips of people with – to all outward appearances – a calculated, exploitative agenda.  
 
People watching the situation are not stupid.  They know what they’re dealing with, especially when language service broadcasts are eliminated, programs are cut and essentially, the US international broadcasting footprint has substantially diminished.  An enterprise that is now working assiduously to be in the category of an also-ran has drained itself of a substantial amount of international credibility and respect.  
 
This is not an agency that is on the rise in its line of work.  It is not going to be reinvented as a “global news network.”  These guys can’t manage the news operations they already have.  And they are well on their to being 24 hours behind the news cycle in China when they cut live evening radio broadcasts to China (evening in DC, morning in China).
 
What they want to be is a mediocre and insipid “lifestyle” and social media website.  
 
This is the slippery down slope.
 
It is interesting to note that the BBG/IBB is soliciting public comment about aspects of its strategic plan, consolidation and related matters.  Don’t expect a groundswell of interest and/or support beyond the Beltway.  In fact, if the interest in what the agency is doing is as low as we expect, the message may well be that the agency isn’t worth American taxpayer money.  It is not on the radar of the average American who may question its relevance in the context of other pressing national priorities and have other notions about how public money should be spent.
 
We’d like to see the BBG come clean with exactly how much interest they are able to generate from this latest gambit.  We’d like to see what American citizens and taxpayers think about this little-known and less understood Federal agency.
 
We’ll wait to see how the House of Innovation spins lack of interest by the American public in their enterprise.
 
Basics and fundamentals, ladies and gentlemen.  These guys have abandoned both and have preordained the demise of US international broadcasting.  Without its core base, the House of Innovation is lost in search of an audience that has gone elsewhere or has been abandoned entirely.
 
The House of Innovation has delivered on one thing: the BBG/IBB has lost the information war.  These bureaucrats, with their own agenda and bonus-mongering, have allowed global publics to lose interest in US international broadcasting.
 
People who know, including those same rivals and adversaries, know that the BBG/IBB have thrown in the towel.  It is only a matter of time before their entire venture capitalist/corporatist fantasy collapses on itself.
 
The Federalist
May 2012
 

by The Federalist

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

Against every major American rival or adversary (China, Iran and Russia being the Big Three), the BBG/IBB is a big-time loser. It does not matter what the medium. It does not matter what the “platform.” The BBG/IBB “agnostics” have failed miserably. The results are the same.

The “BBG Strategy” is a strategy of defeat. These internationalists/globalists are just that: defeatists. They are embarrassed by the American historical record of greatness and the inspiration that greatness gives to others. They are not up to the task. They have reduced US international broadcasting to something third rate. They are not creating, as they claim, a “global news network.” They are getting out of the serious news business, as anyone in the VOA Central Newsroom knows all-too-well.

In place of the solid program requirements of the VOA Charter, the BBG Strategy (their “flim flam strategic plan”), has reduced content of VOA programs: more superficial, less long form and in-depth, leaving audiences with something less than a complete or substantive treatment of major world issues. The broadcast staff is overextended. Expected to do “more with less,” the actual result is “less with less,” in terms of both quality and quantity.

And worst of all, they want to “expand and elevate” social media and expect the American taxpayer to foot the bill. That is what the BBG/IBB “strategists” are all about: ripping off the American taxpayer, trafficking in “lifestyle” trivia and mediocrity and giving themselves bonuses in the process.

Try as they might, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and their bonus-mongering International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) staff can’t shake the obvious: they are trying to take the US Government out of the business of international broadcasting. In doing so, they are left to defend the indefensible, putting up a self-serving sales pitch on their “BBG Strategy” website.

One of the cornerstones of what the BBG/IBB does is use semantics and half-truths to argue its case.

Let’s consider some of their arguments:

We’re Not Eliminating Radio

Most assuredly, they are. In the FY2013 budget proposal, the BBG/IBB wants to eliminate or reduce 14 of 43 Voice of America (VOA) language services and their radio broadcasts. They want to make additional cuts to language services of the various grantee operations. For VOA, the reduction represents a loss of over 30% of its radio broadcasting capabilities. They are not expanding radio broadcasting operations. They are cutting them. Indeed, when the BBG/IBB shut down VOA Russian radio broadcasts in 2008, a remark attributed to a senior agency official was, “We want all of VOA to be like the Russian Service in five years.” That means: no radio.

We know these BBG/IBB types very well. When they want something, they bite down hard and don’t let go. You can sense the psychological lockjaw to their thinking. They have wanted to make serious cuts to radio operations for years. By far, this is the largest attack against radio by these bureaucrats in the history of the agency. If they get these cuts, they will want more, using the same justifications and tricked up “data” to rationalize their case. They want out of radio in a big way. That is the intended outcome.

The Chinese and Radio

The BBG/IBB concedes that the Chinese are “interested” in shortwave radio.

No.

The truth of the matter is the Chinese government is committed to radio.

According to the BBG/IBB, the Chinese government has established a network of shortwave transmitters nationwide. The BBG/IBB notes that the Chinese use the same frequency that the BBG/IBB uses.

The BBG/IBB acknowledges that the Chinese are effective in jamming (or blocking) foreign broadcasts and “do so with great effect.”

In short, the BBG/IBB is on the defensive in China. This admission of Chinese effectiveness is saying that the BBG/IBB does not have effective countermeasures in place to overcome the Chinese success in jamming programs.

And ironically, the countermeasures taken by the Chinese government are the clearest acknowledgement that they take these VOA broadcasts seriously, when it seems the BBG/IBB does not.

The Chinese have also invested serious money, to the tune of about $7-billion dollars, in their overseas media operations. The BBG/IBB acknowledges that the Chinese want to be a big-time international media player.

Typically, the BBG/IBB is behind the curve. The Chinese are big-time media heavyweights. They have made their overseas media presence felt, including brand-new facilities in DC’s Chinatown, right across the National Mall from the BBG/IBB in the Cohen Building.

The BBG/IBB then turns around and dismisses the Chinese radio effort as a loss leader: something they are willing to do, “to accept fractional returns on its investment.”

If the BBG/IBB believes its own rhetoric, the Chinese have already won a great victory.

The BBG/IBB can’t see the obvious: With one stroke, the Chinese have created a successful countermeasure: they have established a domestic network using the same frequency as that used by the BBG/IBB and have blanketed the country to reach all its population. The Chinese government would not be making this substantial investment if the BBG/IBB broadcasts had no merit. They have made that investment to counter the news and information provided by US Government international broadcasting assets. And they wouldn’t be making that investment if audiences for shortwave radio programs were “so low,” as the BBG/IBB claims. In a country of 1.5 billion people, even so-called “low” percentages still translate into BIG population numbers.

Satellite Jamming and the Internet

The BBG/IBB goes on to argue that satellite jamming occurs only with “rogue states” (i.e., those pesky Iranians). The Chinese have yet to do so.

This confuses action with capability. The Chinese no doubt make daily threat assessments. That the Chinese have not done something does not equate with the lack of the capability to do something. If a judgment is made that the nature of a threat increases, no doubt the BBG will be very surprised with what the Chinese can do or are willing to do to protect their interests.

The BBG/IBB is not even paying attention to its own employees. We remember quite well an articulate, demonstrative argument offered by members of the VOA China Branch in 2011 when the BBG/IBB wanted to wipe out VOA Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts. When it comes to capabilities of the Chinese government, a staffer correctly observed: “They can do it and they will do it.”

The BBG/IBB avoids arguing that their Internet content can’t be blocked. That’s because the Chinese, among others, have demonstrated they are more than capable of blocking, controlling and monitoring the Internet. Indeed, they have even created their own search engines and other common Internet features for use by their own population. They block. They control. They filter. The more successful the Chinese are in developing and expanding their own Internet model, the less effective will be the Internet outsiders, including the BBG/IBB, in developing a following.

And the BBG/IBB is missing the boat in another big way: the Chinese look inward for answers, not necessarily to some outside source. The Chinese leadership isn’t stupid. It is well aware that the needs of its people have to be met. It has made a conscious decision to put economic development as its top priority which in turn impacts on the effort to improve Chinese standards of living. It is not willing to turn loose the “Wild West” of the Internet on its citizens and risk what the government sees as great strides in Chinese development, stability and projection of its power.

We’re not defending what the Chinese are doing. We’re are analyzing their actions and assessing the impact of their decisions.

Like we said, the Chinese have already won a great victory. They see the BBG/IBB actions as a lack of resolve, a manifestation of weakness and lack of commitment. They’d be right on all counts.

And it doesn’t hurt to have about 7 times the money as the BBG/IBB (the kind of money which the agency will never see anytime soon) for the Chinese to make their model work.

And after all of this, one should pay close attention to the robust discussion going on inside China over the ouster of party leader Bo Xilai and the detention of his wife who is implicated in the killing of a British business consultant. Some of that discussion is taking place on the Chinese Internet, even in the face of government efforts to shut down or block certain sites.

In short, the Chinese are demonstrating that they don’t need the BBG/IBB to tell them what to think or how to conduct discussion and debate over topical Chinese issues. They are doing it for themselves.

The BBG/IBB Strategic Train Wreck:

One of the things the BBG/IBB “brain trust” has really excelled in is moving US Government international broadcasting into a no-win position.

Let’s go back to 2008 when the BBG/IBB dumped its VOA Russian broadcasts.

You know what that represents?

The BBG/IBB unconditionally surrendered to the Russians in the arena of international broadcasting.

Within weeks of that decision, the Russian military went on the offensive against the Republic of Georgia. It wasn’t just a purely conventional military operation. The Russians also used sophisticated cyber warfare assets to interdict Georgian and other websites.

And since, the Russians have expanded their broadcasting operations directed toward North America across all media: print, radio and television.

These guys don’t mess around.

And as we have seen with the VOA Russian website, it is all-too-easy to be compromised by false interviews and blogs that are easily taken over by anti-American, Russian ultra-nationalist postings. It’s a great deal for the Russians – whether government or non-government – to use a US Government website to fry the Americans.

These guys aren’t stupid. On the other hand:

At the same time the BBG/IBB was taking Russian broadcasts out of the strategic US Government broadcasting equation, they were also going after the VOA Georgian Service. Remember what we said earlier about the BBG/IBB: they bite down and don’t let go when they’re after something. They want to give up the Georgians and have once again put VOA Georgian on the chopping block.

It may have also escaped the attention of the BBG/IBB that there is a major conflict going on in Syria. The Syrian government has been tossing ordnance (artillery fire) into neighboring Turkey.

Guess what?

The BBG/IBB wants to give up its VOA Turkish service.

If there ever was a really strategic country in the Middle East, Near East or anywhere that has a convergence of critical strategic interests, it’s Turkey. And it’s been that way for two thousand years.

Of course, history is the thing the BBG/IBB knows the least and cares about even less.

And they’re giving up on Spanish to Latin America, including Cuba.

Who is filling the void?

Those pesky Iranians!

And they’re giving up on broadcasts to Tibet.

Need we say more about the defeatists and capitulators of the BBG/IBB “strategy?”

These are the same people that make gratuitous statements about “supporting freedom and democracy.” In view of what the agency is doing, that statement is BBG/IBB hypocrisy in action.

The actions of the BBG/IBB are a statement of its own. Their actions and intended objectives are saying that people and places are not important to them. Worse, they are saying that these people and places are not important to the United States Government.

And ultimately, the BBG/IBB demonstrates that it lacks the fortitude to stay with its mission. The Chinese had it right when one of their state newspapers called the decision to abandon Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts last year “mission unfinished.”

So here is where things stand:

The Russians know they have won a great victory.

The Chinese know they are well on the way to winning a great victory.

The Iranians are poised to have a field day in Latin America.

And don’t even bring up that “Arab Spring” nonsense. All those American taxpayer millions spent on broadcasting to the Arab and Muslim world over the last decade and the end result is heading toward something wholly unsettling to American interests.

It is no wonder that the United States is one, big-time loser in the arena of global public opinion. If you’re scoring results, these BBG/IBB people are 0-4 in big league play.

Another thing:

Let’s go back to that $50-million dollar contract with the Gallup polling organization.

The more we think about it, the more we see that contract as less of a vehicle for research and more of an attempt by the BBG/IBB at a public relations device – an attempt to use “data” to validate a dysfunctional “strategic plan.” It’s more of the same from the BBG/IBB: beating themselves senseless expecting a different result.

Like we said, they bite down and don’t let go, even when what they are doing compromises US national and public interests and rips off the American taxpayer in the process.

The BBG/IBB has set in motion a process in which the ultimate outcome is to abandon the agency’s mission. There will be no turning back. To do so would be an admission that they are wrong. To repair the damage would cost the American taxpayers many more millions of dollars.

Either way, to continue the dysfunctional plan or to take remedial action to repair the damage from that plan, the BBG/IBB folks don’t care.

No accountability.

No responsibility.

The ultimate expression of arrogance and the corporate “strategy” which they have adopted.

The Federalist
April 2012

Broadcasting Board of Governors

Negative Impact Through Disintegration

by The Federalist

In late March, the Broadcasting Board of Governors/International Broadcasting Bureau (BBG/IBB) announced that it is partnering with the Gallup organization on “research.”

Gallup is a venerable polling and survey research company.  It has been around for a very long time, much like the Nielsen organization which also has done research for the BBG in the past.

Over a period of five years, the “partnering” contract awarded by the BBG/IBB could cost the American taxpayer $50-million dollars, at $10-million dollars per year.

Inaugurating the partnership, the BBG/IBB issued a press release on the subject of how global publics perceive the media where they live.  Let’s examine the press release and some of the statements and materials it contains.

According to BBG Governor Michael Meehan:

“This partnership with Gallup comes at a critical juncture for U.S. international broadcasting… Research is key to knowing our audience so we can serve them better and be even more effective with the limited resources we have.”

This is indeed a critical juncture for US international broadcasting, made more so by proposals put forward by the BBG/IBB and the Obama administration to substantially reduce or eliminate 14 of 43 Voice of America (VOA) language services.  That represents over 30% of VOA broadcast operations.  As we see it, the BBG/IBB doesn’t really care or want to know about its audiences.  It is abandoning those audiences in what has always been the core foundation of VOA broadcast operations.

Next up from the press release:

“BBG Director of Strategy and Development Bruce Sherman noted that the agency had conducted audience studies through other means for years.  But he added, ‘Gallup’s industry-leading research will play a key role in helping the BBG accomplish the objectives in our new strategy, Impact through Innovation and Integration.’”

In the press release, Sherman doesn’t explain “audience studies through other means for years.”

Unless the agency was using signal flags and Morse code, the methodology throughout the world of pollsters is fairly standard: phone calls and face-to-face interviews randomly or with focus groups.

What might be more the case is the BBG/IBB doing what it has done for years: bringing on consultants or pollsters looking for someone to validate a desired BBG/IBB outcome.  It’s the BBG/IBB version of Albert Einstein’s (attributed) definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.”

And with the agency poised to make substantive cuts to its core base audience, the real title for what the BBG/IBB is doing should be: “Negative Impact Through Disintegration,” because that is the ultimate consequence of the agency’s “new strategy.”

The press release goes on to roll out some current Gallup research on perceived media freedom.  Working off that research, the press release states:

“With few exceptions, perceived media freedom is highest in developed countries in Asia, Europe, and North America.”

This is all fine and good.  The problem is, as a general rule, VOA’s intended audiences are in places where things are a whole lot less free beyond the parameters noted above.  In so many words, this speaks to things that are known.  At $50-million dollars, that’s a pretty steep price tag for knowing the already knowable.

But wait, there’s more:

“The Gallup research is largely consistent with earlier studies of press freedom and with the BBG’s strategic plan to promote global media freedom and provide a credible source of uncensored world news.”

Here’s the rub: if this research is largely consistent with earlier studies, including those obliquely referenced by Sherman, why is the agency taking it to the American taxpayer for a $50-million dollar contract for what amounts to a reaffirmation of what is already obvious?  You can’t fault Gallup for picking up a cool multi-million dollar contract, at $10-mill a pop for each of five years.

However, there is a lot to question of a BBG/IBB that appears to be either asleep at the switch or oblivious to known realities.  And it could also be that the BBG/IBB is intentionally ignoring these realities.

As to “promoting global media freedom,” we can add that to the other BBG/IBB mantra of “supporting freedom and democracy.”  You can’t be doing a very good job of either when you take a sledgehammer to the operation and reduce your known audience by about 30% in a part of the operation (radio) that represents 50% of your known core audience.  The BBG/IBB uses phrases like these to get congressional buy-in to use American taxpayer dollars for “Negative Impact Through Disintegration.”

Moving on:

“The BBG is partnering with Gallup to conduct its global audience research program, which will inform current and future operations of its broadcasts in 59 languages to more than 100 countries.”

Let’s quickly revisit the statement up above about cutting broadcast services.  It’s not only VOA where there will be cuts, but also in US Government grantee broadcasting entities also under the BBG/IBB.  Thenumbers above will have to be revised downward if the FY2013 budget proposal goes forward.  Less broadcasting equates with reduced effectiveness.

When you talk about the BBG/IBB, you are talking about an agency that costs about the same and does less with diminished impact and effectiveness.  That’s kind of crazy, from the American taxpayer perspective.  But Einstein’s definition of insanity appears to be an operative methodology embraced by the BBG/IBB.

In short, why is it that the BBG needs to spend $50-million dollars on what is evident and obvious?

The American people would be better served if the agency spent that $50-million dollars on the language broadcasts it intends to reduce or eliminate, including broadcasts in English, particularly in the face of increased broadcasting to North America by China and Russia.

And the Congress would be best served by hammering the BBG/IBB on how it goes about spending (which equates with wasting) American taxpayer dollars.

Finally:

“The Gallup results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, conducted in 133 countries between February and December 2011.”

Again, this is standard operating procedure in the polling universe.

The full press release is attached for your complete reading pleasure.

US international broadcasting has been around for 70 years.  That means there is a lot of known historical context.  If you know that, you know that the BBG/IBB is trafficking in a lot of nonsense in order to cloak a dysfunctional “strategy” that is way off the rails from the agency’s core mission.  It is not interested in historical context or institutional memory.

Don’t forget: this is yet another manifestation of what Secretary of State Clinton meant when she said, “We are losing the information war.”  The value of this press release is that it is an apt demonstration of how the BBG/IBB is losing the contest of global public opinion and spending oodles of your American taxpayer dollars doing so.

This is your BBG/IBB:

“Negative Impact Through Disintegration!”

The Federalist

(Part of the BBG Watch Collective)

April 2012

It is one of the primary targets in the proposed 30% reduction in VOA broadcast operations.

It is a place with an estranged relationship with its managers who are seen as defensive at best, vindictive at worst.

It is being saddled with a set of production objectives which are impossible to meet, mainly involving the time-consuming requirements to integrate the disparate needs of radio, television and agency websites.

It is being used as a clearinghouse for commingled content between itself and the agency grantees which have different missions and standards which raises a number of other serious concerns.

The latest reaching the Federalist from various sources:

On Thursday, March 15 (the Ides of March no less), VOA Director David Ensor held a meeting with Newsroom staff. He got an earful. He may not have been happy with what he heard. Nevertheless, he needed to hear it, directly from the staff feeling the consequences of poor/hostile management and the disarray as the direct consequence of BBG/IBB decisions adversely impacting on Newsroom operations.

Ensor should take staff input seriously, rather than accepting the sycophancy coming from Newsroom management.

In the Newsroom and elsewhere in the Cohen Building: threats, intimidation and bullying are poor substitutes for leadership. They have become an institutionalized part of the agency’s management philosophy. It makes the agency what it is: a hostile work environment. These are not qualities. They are liabilities, along with the people who perpetuate their existence. They don’t need to be encouraged, much less condoned or supported. They are not hallmarks for an effective and mission-successful operation. They are the basis for failure.

Mr. Ensor may not have experienced a reduction-in-force (RIF) firsthand. He should be concerned. If you haven’t been through it, it would be unwise to allow one’s ego to dismiss the effects caustically. The effects are felt long before the actual event.

In an agency with a long history and tradition, such an action is a breach of faith with the workforce. Ensor would be well served to remember what he said some months ago in a previous meeting with the Newsroom staff – his comment about the place not being the same with what is to come. Worse, if what the BBG/IBB proposes comes to pass, it would likely be one of the largest RIFs on record in the agency – fertile ground for things to get messed up or manipulated.

In short, Mr. Ensor has it right. It won’t be the same.

It will be worse.

There are certain things which VOA does well. They should be the top priority, rather than the BBG/IBB “flim flam plan” approach of trying to reinvent the wheel. The BBG/IBB likes to throw caution to the wind, rely upon cheesy and arrogant pronouncements and tamper with core operations.

One of the things the agency doesn’t do well is television, with elongated production costs, staff and time requirements. In this regard, too much of what the agency is doing is cheap television done badly. Shortcomings in other areas aside, this is the one thing capable of taking the whole place down. One of the principle fault lines for this is the Newsroom.

It is no secret that we are big believers in radio: it is immediate, it is right now, it is covering the news as it happens. Everything else comes – later.

The message to Mr. Ensor and the BBG/IBB is simple: play to your strengths, not your weaknesses.

Start with the Newsroom. Bag the notion that big cuts to the Newsroom operation will make things better. Forget it. It won’t. Not even remotely.

Beware of cheap television done badly.

The Federalist
March 2012

It certainly isn’t BBG Watch. And it isn’t the Committee on US International Broadcasting (CUSIB). One would get a different impression from snarky comments offered by some who blog from inside the Cohen Building.

In our view, the “enemy” is the Board – or more pointedly, the bonus-mongers and self-interested members of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) who spare no effort in pontificating their “vision” of the future. Although they would intend that people believe otherwise, this “vision,” captured in their “flim flam plan,” is one with apocalyptic consequences for US international broadcasting. Why?

At the end of the day, after all bombastic rhetoric, there won’t be any US international broadcasting. The BBG/IBB is committed to ending direct US international broadcasting to global audiences and to do so as quickly as possible.

The BBG/IBB is moving ever more vigorously away from the agency’s mission and more closely to selling propaganda. For the time being, the primary audience of that propaganda is the Congress. Mercifully, the BBG/IBB doesn’t have control over its funding (and it probably couldn’t survive if it did). It has to appeal to the Congress to pony up American taxpayer money to support its skewed vision of the present and the future. Before everything else – the agency’s mission, the agency’s employees, the agency’s global audience – the top priority is getting taxpayer money to facilitate demolishing what the agency does best.

Why do we look at Congress as a principal target of BBG/IBB propaganda?

The simple answer is obvious: that is where funding is authorized, as noted above.

But just as importantly, Congress is one of the world’s most exclusive “communities.” In terms of technology, Members have it all – mobile devices, cell phones, computers with broadband Internet access, satellite television.

Because of this, it is easy for Members and their staff people to fall into the trap set by the BBG/IBB: to believe the fiction that the rest of the world has the same purchasing power, the same access to the technology, the same unfettered way of communicating.

Reality is very different. Members – and many of the rest of us – need to remember that there are parts of the United States that don’t have the means to access this technology. When one considers the rest of the world – about 7-billion strong, the numbers of people deprived of such access increases exponentially.

And outside the United States, things driving access – or lack thereof – are accessibility, affordability, infrastructure support and media controls by governments.

Fortunately, many Members of Congress have the big picture focus and are able to parse out the phony aspects of the BBG/IBB sales pitch.

But that is not going to stop the BBG/IBB with pushing its fabricated “technotopia,” as it is an important component to convincing Members that the rest of the world is “just like us.” The BBG/IBB cannot and will not deviate from its message. If that were to happen, the “flim flam plan” would be revealed for what it is: a canard.

One of the key elements in the BBG/IBB propaganda is the pitch that shortwave radio is a thing of the past.

In that regard, one of our sources supplied us with some interesting information. It comes by way of World Christian Broadcasting, a faith-based organization. It has a website; and from that website, we learn some interesting things.

World Christian Broadcasting has a worldwide audience that it serves. Unlike the BBG/IBB, it is actively engaged in trying to expand and improve upon its audiences. With this in mind, consider the following statement direct from their website:

HYPERLINK:

http://www.worldchristian.org/WhoWeAre/whyshortwave.php

You can read the entire page as to why this faith-based broadcaster relies on shortwave radio. But here is an evocative key point:

”Internationally, however, shortwave is big. Roughly 2.5 billion shortwave receivers exist worldwide. In years’ past, most of those were in China and the old Soviet Union. Once those governments opened the window to the rest of the world, many people predicted the demise of shortwave. 

In fact, the reverse has happened. The International Broadcasting Bureau estimates that at any given time of the day or night, one billion shortwave receivers are turned on. In some places in the world, car radios come equipped with shortwave bands. Even in the U.S., in increasing numbers radios are being sold with all three—AM, FM, and shortwave. For millions of people around the world, shortwave radio is the only means they have for communication from the outside world. And for millions more, though they have local AM and FM available, they tune in to shortwave radio to listen to programs that originate on the other side of the world. It is truly the only international radio source.” (emphasis added)

Wait a minute!

This is the same International Broadcasting Bureau that claims that shortwave radio is passé!

This leads to something for the Congress to consider:

To all outward appearances, there seems to be some misrepresentation going on here. Either the BBG/IBB is misrepresenting shortwave penetration to the Congress and the administration or it is misrepresenting data to World Christian Broadcasting. Which is it? It may be both. Is the BBG/IBB tricking up its research data to suit the audience it is making “data” available to?

World Christian Broadcasting is doing something that to all intents and purposes the BBG/IBB is abandoning: it has a global message that it is trying to get to as many people as possible, by the most effective means as possible.

Let’s go over it again:

“The International Broadcasting Bureau estimates that at any given time of the day or night, one billion shortwave receivers are turned on. In some places in the world, car radios come equipped with shortwave bands.”

One billion shortwave receivers – at any given time day or night.

Presently, the BBG/IBB claims radio audiences at 100-million. That’s 10% of those 1-billion shortwave radios. The BBG/IBB wants to take that 100-million and reduce it to zero, over time, in favor of a paltry 10-million for its Internet content. The BBG/IBB is trying to make that time as short as possible. It is trying to get rid of 33% of its VOA radio operations in one shot in FY2013. In short, the BBG/IBB is going out of its way to undermine a strategic asset of the United States Government, as quickly as possible.

We know who the “enemy” is. Read the paragraph above.

As we have said before, there is nothing more insidious than an organization that is destroyed from within. That seems to be what is going on here.

What needs to be done?

The most important thing is an all-out investigation of what the BBG/IBB is up to. The core issue should focus on the national security implications of faulty BBG/IBB decisions, to be followed by the wasteful or inefficient ways it goes about spending taxpayer dollars and a specious BBG/IBB claim that it is creating a “global news network.”

We see the “flim flam strategic plan” promoted by the BBG/IBB as a cancer, a disease that is terminal for US Government national interests via international broadcasting. The more one looks into what the BBG/IBB is doing, the more that cancer is exposed.

We know who the “enemy” is.

By any measure of our national values, what is going on inside the Cohen Building is an outrage. It cannot be ignored. It cannot be tolerated.

The Federalist
March 2012

On March 7, 2012 the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) plans to mark the 70th anniversary of the Voice of America (VOA) and its 70 years of international broadcasting on behalf of the US Government and the American people.
 
It is a hollow and somewhat hypocritical moment because the BBG and its International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) minions are the spearhead of the Obama administration’s FY2013 budget proposal to decimate 33% of the VOA’s broadcast operations.
 
No doubt, the BBG/IBB will try to make a spectacle of things.  But it will be the hypocrisy that people will remember most, long after things get wrapped up in the Cohen Building auditorium.  It will less of a celebratory event and more like a death watch.
 
An institution of government like VOA rarely recovers from this kind of decimation.  The effect on employee morale and productivity is likely already noticeable.  People are going through the motions, coming to work, doing their jobs but hardly with the kind of robust enthusiasm of the past when employees knew the mission, understood the mission and knew they were making a substantive contribution to vital US national interests.
 
All of these things are in the past.  Now, the BBG/IBB, enthusiastically embracing bonus-mongering and self-interest, has also embraced a corporate mentality that reduces employees to collateral damage in their grand designs.
 
This is at the center of just about everything that is wrong with this agency and is a potent contributor to the agency’s diminished effectiveness.  These guys (the BBG/IBB) have lost the big picture focus.  They traffic in a whole lot of empty words and phrases that have no meaning in terms of execution of the agency’s mission.  
 
In its effect, these guys are engaged in is a phony sales job with the Congress and the American taxpayers.
 
Anything remotely resembling the demolitions effort represented in the administration’s cuts embraced by the BBG/IBB takes the United States out of any meaningful presence in international broadcasting.
 
If one were to talk directly with the agency’s employees, the message would be this:
 
Make no mistake about it – the effort to reverse this proposed destruction is going to be one, tough fight because of the size and scope of what the BBG/IBB wants to do.  For the purposes of this fight, one has to be of the mindset that you have no friends on the Third Floor of the Cohen Building.  Senior officials cannot and will not be of any value in this fight.  They have a different agenda.  There may be those who do not agree with the big rollout of the demolitions project, but they are effectively muzzled and of no use.
 
In order to win this fight for the mission of the agency, you have to be totally committed to it.  That is particularly true for all the employee unions and their representatives.  The employees must do their part as well.  It’s time to step up and not sit back in the shadows hoping that someone else is going to do all the heavy lifting and prevail.
 
This is your last stand and you must think of it that way.  Any substantial success by the BBG/IBB in pulling this off and the days of VOA are numbered.  Forget the Third Floor talk that there is still a place for radio at VOA.  That’s a crock.  There will be no turning back.  The mission will not be rescued.  The agency will be permanently broken and rendered ineffective in the most important strategic demographic there is: the global publics in the arena of international broadcasting.
 
So get with it.  You have to make the case that you’re worth saving.  If you are in denial about what is going on around you, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
 
There is support for you in this fight and those forces are already in motion.  Some are above the radar.  Some are operating below the radar – the ones whose actions and initiatives the agency cannot anticipate or counter.  There are people who don’t like the BBG or the IBB bonus-mongers.  They do have an abiding respect for the agency, its mission and its employees who have been under assault for a long time.  They are motivated to “level the playing field” on your behalf for no personal or professional gain.  And you are lucky to have them on your side.
 
The BBG/IBB is already prepared to lay out and ramp up its justifications for the cuts it is making.  You have to be prepared to counter these arguments effectively.  We are not going to walk through every issue represented by these cuts, but here are some general observations:
 
You can start out with a big one: the world is globalized.  Every part of the world is strategic.  There are a whole lot of global players who view the world that way, even if the BBG/IBB doesn’t.  It’s a chess game with major consequences.  One misstep and you can end up a big-time loser.
 
Start with some good visuals.  Use a map and take that map when you go and pay a visit to people outside the building who have an interest in the issue of US international broadcasting.  People have to see what you’re talking about.  Look at the places/countries that are targeted to be cut.  See who their “neighbors” are.  Look at the strategic trade routes that traverse through these areas, the major ports, bodies of water.  Think of the consequences if these areas are “zoned out.”
 
The BBG/IBB is tone deaf, dumb (really dumb) and intentionally blind to history.  All the places targeted by the BBG/IBB for cuts have history.  Long history.  Some treat the last couple of millennia as if it were yesterday.  You have to know the players and know their history.  They see themselves in an historical context.  The BBG/IBB mindset is inside the Beltway.  You have to look and think globally and demonstrate how the BBG/IBB is on a fool’s errand.
 
We know what the BBG/IBB doesn’t want to do: radio in 14 of 43 VOA languages and other reductions among the grantees.  Let’s take a look at what they do want to be doing.
 
They want to spend $9-million dollars on television to Egypt.  This is supposed to accomplish what?  Anyone in the American government who believes that the Egyptians are interested in seeing things our way needs to do some serious recalibration.  This is another one of those audiences that is lost to the US.  Forget all the Western-media hyped “Arab Spring” nonsense.  The region is embroiled in revolution.  The wind isn’t blowing in the direction of American-style democracy.  The real deal is something else.  The players to be watching are the Egyptian military, a tradition-based, conservative organization and the Muslim Brotherhood, formerly and long-oppressed and now rejuvenated.  These organizations will not go quietly into the night.  They will not turn the country over to some flash mob in the streets of Cairo.  We are likely to see a country guided by its traditional beliefs.  It may be “democratic,” but most assuredly it won’t be passive, particularly with regard to its policy toward Israel.  $9-million dollars is chump change as far as television is concerned.  Some people on the Third Floor believe they can do television cheaply.  In reality, what they are doing is cheap television badly.
 
By the way – Egyptian authorities recently arrested 16 Americans working for non-governmental organizations and charged them with “subversion.”  There’s your “Arab Spring” in Egypt.  They have been spirited out of the country after the US Government paid $300-thousand dollars bail for each one.  Some might look at this as less of bail money and more of a ransom payment.  And it could be the precursor of other things to come.
 
And here’s another thing. VOA reports are calling uprising leaders in Yemen “citizen journalists.”
 
You know what this is?  It’s taking a side in sectarian violence. Glorifying a participant as a “citizen journalist” is a crock.  That person referred to as a “citizen journalist” is an Islamic revolutionary, not a reporter. That’s what’s going on.  Get real.  This kind of “angle” to a story buys a lot of trouble.
 
And buying more trouble is a “Faces of the Fallen” feature being kicked around in the VOA Newsroom regarding the conflict in Syria.  It’s not even an original thought, since the Washington Post has long run such a feature with regard to American military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
But the essential point remains the same as the Yemen “story:” the VOA is taking sides in a sectarian conflict.  The VOA is no longer a neutral observer of events, a balanced chronicler of these events.  In sectarian violence – particularly in the Middle East – there are no winners.  These kinds of conflicts have a long, long shelf life where the name of the game is to get even when the opportunity presents itself.  It has been embedded in Middle East history for well over a thousand years.  It’s a fact.
 
Advocacy in a sectarian conflict comes with consequences.  In the immediate sense, it could endanger agency personnel in the field.  More broadly, it could provoke attacks against other Americans as soft targets for terrorists.
 
What the BBG/IBB is doing is bad, stupid, reckless and irresponsible.
 
We may view certain regimes as despicable and their actions heinous.  But for the work of VOA, the agency must appear outwardly neutral and stick to fair and balanced reporting of events.
 
And then there are those pesky Iranians.  The latest in that saga is the BBG/IBB wants to take the Persian News Network (PNN) program “Parazit” and move it to the VOA New York News Bureau.  This is going to cost money.  How much money remains to be seen.  That’s one issue.  The other issue is: of what value does this program have to the agency’s mission as regards Iran?  Okay, it’s a campy satire program that has gotten the agency some media exposure.  The exposure is over.  Now what?
 
With no disrespect to the people who do the show, the question is: what is this supposed to accomplish?  Yes, people back in Iran – the 6% who may or may not be watching PNN – might be getting a good laugh at some of the things the “Parazit” producers target.  But at the end of the day, things are getting really tense between Iran and the West – and with Israel in particular.  Recent elections in Iran find the hard-liners making substantial gains.  These are the guys who are the most belligerent toward Israel and the West.  The audience that is laughing now may find itself getting in the way of some heavy ordnance and becoming collateral damage.
 
 
So, let’s put a question to the BBG/IBB “brain trust:”
 
Do you think that war with Iran is a good idea?
 
The Iranians play hardball.  They have assets prepositioned all around the globe.  One of their nuclear scientists gets assassinated and then the next thing you see is the Iranians retaliating with their own hit squads going after soft targets of their suspected adversaries, particularly the Israelis.
 
Remember what we talked about some months ago: six minutes to Armageddon.  That’s flight time for an Iranian ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead to reach Israeli territory.  That causes a whole lot of sleepless nights in the higher echelons of the Israeli government in Tel Aviv.  And it probably does the same in Washington, DC if you pay attention to the high-level delegations going back and forth between the two countries.  The Israelis most certainly have a plan in place for a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.  That plan is being revised and refined.  The Israeli government has already told the United States that it won’t be consulted if the plan goes operational.  The only question is when it will be executed.  It’s not even a question of “if.”
 
The point is this – “Parazit” is entertainment.  It isn’t news.  The Iranians aren’t watching PNN for news.  For that they turn to the BBC.  “Parazit” is supposed to be a “hook” to get Iranians to watch PNN news programs.  Obviously, it isn’t working.  And there is no absence of hard news coming out of Iran and the rest of the Middle East.
 
The BBG/IBB “brain trust” also wants to “elevate and expand social media.”  That is revealing.  “Social media” is entertainment, not substantive news and analysis.  It is Internet-based.  Among other things, there is the inherent vulnerability of the Internet to cyber-countermeasures.  Some of these operations are individuals or non-government organizations.  Some, however, are state-sponsored.  In addition, governments, including those in the West, are taking a look-see at what people are viewing on the Internet, often without the user’s knowledge.  And in other cases, it is just plain unavailable, inaccessible and/or unaffordable.
 
Clearly, the BBG/IBB wants to “elevate and expand social media” because at present it is the weakest link in their media assets.  It has the smallest audience by far, according to the agency’s own research – a paltry 10-million compared to 100-million plus for radio and similar numbers for television.  And let’s not forget, the global population is around 7-billion.
 
And didn’t the agency recently get burned badly by a phony “interview” with a Russian opposition leader that got posted on the VOA Russian Service website?
 
This is clearly the direction the agency wants to go in: to be an entertainment source, not a source for news and information.  If the BBG/IBB wants to do that, it should do it on its own dime and not at public expense because they are not doing what they are charged to do: international broadcasting.  And in the case of the VOA, executing its mission via the VOA Charter.
 
And forget that nonsense that the BBG/IBB wants to be a “leading global news network.”  That’s cheap talk designed to get the Congress to pony up big taxpayer dollars.  In reality, it’s the –
 
Global Nothing Network.
 
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the best thing that can happen for US national and public interests is to make the BBG/IBB “advisory,” find them office space in the far reaches of the Washington suburbs and forget about them.
 
For those supportive of the VOA, its mission and employees, there are some good issues to bang on.  You don’t tap these issues gently.  You pound on them relentlessly.  You give Congress and others a good reason never to want to hear the BBG/IBB and US international broadcasting mentioned in the same breath.
 
You let the fat cats and the bonus-mongers of the IBB know that you’ve come to play hardball.
 
If you want to see the 71st anniversary of your language service: it’s time to get busy.
 
And remember this: there is nothing more insidious than having an institution with 70 years of serving US national and public interests destroyed from within.  Your so-called “leaders” have spoken:
 
The mission is expendable.  You are expendable.  
 
The Federalist
March 2012
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

BBG members with IBB Director Richard Lobo and Deputy Director Jeff Trimble

by The Federalist
 
As we already know, as part of the administration’s FY2013 budget, the Broadcasting Board of Governors and International Broadcasting Bureau (BBG/IBB) want to destroy 33% of Voice of America (VOA) language services, totally or in part.  The list of services affected has already been identified in other commentaries and won’t be repeated here.  Cuts to other US Government broadcasting entities are also proposed.
 
Concurrent with this demolition operation is something else which we believe is intended to facilitate the process and ultimately take the United States Government out of the business of direct international broadcasting.  Considered in all its aggregate parts, the BBG/IBB “flim flam strategic plan” will represent a strategic victory for US adversaries around the world.
 
Below is an email from VOA director David Ensor.  In this email, Mr. Ensor announces that content from other US Government entities will be commingled on the VOA website.  We can dismiss the “blue sky, best case scenario” outlined in Mr. Ensor’s memo.  Things don’t go smoothly inside the Cohen Building and this will be no exception.  But it makes for interesting reading and gaining insight into the mindset of the BBG/IBB.
 
Let us examine what we believe to be the scenario that is unfolding and its long-range goals and consequences.
 
Commingling content from different US Government broadcasting entities is disturbing.  Each entity has a specific mission as identified in enacting legislation by the US Congress.  If successful in demolishing the various broadcasting assets, the BBG/IBB clearly would intend to increase the commingled content to the point that it will be difficult to identify what content belongs to whom.
 
With the broadcasting elements destroyed, the BBG/IBB will have accomplished what it sets out to do: deprive global publics of direct US Government broadcasts and limit agency output to the Internet, making it the sole source for audio, video and text.  The agency will have eliminated its core audience base on radio.  To follow will be television.  The agency may claim otherwise, but it is obvious that it would be substantially cheaper to produce web-television rather than direct broadcast television.  And please note that this will not be high-end television.  It will be cheap television which equates with bad television.
 
At present, the agency’s own data shows that its audience via the Internet is about 10-million.  That’s 10-million out of a world population of 7-billion.  It would take decades to acquire the audience the BBG/IBB intentionally will abandon: 100-million on radio, another 100-million on television.
 
In the process, it is likely that the identity of the various US Government broadcasting assets will be so badly obliterated that no one will know what the replacement is and who is running it.  To outward appearances, it will be just another (mediocre) website competing with thousands if not millions of others.  It will have social media content as its top priority and maybe some news material dispersed throughout.  But don’t expect it to be anything remotely cutting edge or up to the same standard as the VOA Charter – which the BBG/IBB makes every effort to seemingly ignore, evade or disavow knowledge of still being in existence.
 
Also to be considered is the success that various hostile elements have had in cyber-warfare operations against agency websites.  BBG/IBB websites have demonstrated their value – as vulnerable soft targets for honing one’s offensive cyber-warfare skills.  If there were Olympic medals for cyber warfare operations, the Iranians, Chinese and Russians would be competing for gold, silver and bronze – especially when going up against rube operations of the BBG/IBB.
 
Not part of the Ensor memo is another development which is an important element in the mix.
 
Recently, the BBG/IBB dropped InterMedia as its audience research partner.  A new contract has been let with the well known Gallup polling organization.  This is a $50-million dollar contract which appears to be parsed out in $10-million dollar annual increments.
 
One of the things the BBG/IBB hopes to do is market the research provided by Gallup to customers.  These customers would include other international broadcasters and media.  It would also market the research to other agencies of the US Government, including the Department of Defense and perhaps also the Central Intelligence Agency.
 
It is hoped that selling its research to non-US Government customers will help offset the costs incurred in the new Gallup contract.
 
The results of this “strategy” have already turned up some ironic results.
 
Recently, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) announced that it had almost doubled its audience in Iran.  Now who do you suppose supplied the research data that the BBC relied upon?
 
The Broadcasting Board of Governors and International Broadcasting Bureau!
 
Thus, the agency’s own research shows that the BBC is clobbering BBG broadcasts to Iran via its Persian News Network, which is supposedly coming in at around 6% – and maybe less now.
 
So why are we spending a lot of money on what appears to be yet another BBG/IBB failure-in-progress?
 
But there’s more to this scenario.
 
One can envision without needing too much imagination to see where this is heading.
 
One can foresee a BBG/IBB that will reduce itself to being a social website which also supplies research data to a variety of clients and generates revenue.  Let’s carry it further: it can relocate itself to the Dulles Town Center, out of sight and out of mind and without having to manage and maintain expensive broadcasting infrastructure and staff.
 
And it will undoubtedly be fully privatized.
 
But privatized means just that.  Should this be the scenario that comes to pass, the Congress should end taxpayer support of BBG/IBB activities.  The BBG/IBB will be out of the business of direct US Government international broadcasting which has been determined to be in the national and public interest, social chit-chat is not.  It will not have or support the missions of its current entities.  It will have re-fabricated itself as the “GNN:”
 
Global Nothing Network.
 
Mr. Ensor’s email/memo follows for your reading pleasure.
 
The Federalist
March 2012
 
 
 

###
From: David Ensor
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 12:28 PM

To: VOA Language Service Chiefs; VOA Language Service Division Directors; VOA Language Programming Directorate; VOA Managing Editors; Matthew Baise

Cc: Steve Redisch; Rebecca McMenamin; Barbara Brady; David Borgida; Richard M. Lobo; Jeffrey Trimble; Jay Tolson

Subject: VOANews.com
 
Colleagues,
 
Our English language website-one of the most popular websites offered by U.S. international broadcasting– is going to try something new.
 
In the next few days, our website will broaden its offering to readers, by adding a few stories each day chosen by VOA web editors from the reporting of our sister news organizations, RFE/RL, RFA, MBN and OCB.  This will enrich our already strong site, and we hope, attract more readers to it, (and also to those of our colleagues, since there will be links).
 
Here is how it will work:  when the VOA web team identifies a story from-for example RFE– that it would like to use, it will send that story to the relevant VOA personnel to make sure the story is not one that VOA already has from its own reporting, or in which there may be problems. For example, a story on Ukraine would be sent to the VOA Ukrainian Service and to Central News, for vetting.  They will then have about an hour to let the web editor know if:
 
 
1.      VOA already has this story so if we’re putting it on our website, we should use our own version,
 
2.      There may be factual or editorial problems that need to be addressed before the story should be put on our site.
 
 
 
When the web editor does not hear back on either point one or two, the story will go up on the site about an hour after the query.
 
I want to stress another important point about VOANews.com:
 
the VOA English language web team is eager to put more original content stories generated by VOA journalists on the site. Reporters working in the language services, and language service chiefs should be on the look-out for stories that break news or offer special insights and that might be of interest to VOA’s English internet public.  If your service breaks a story that might be of interest beyond your audience, please assign someone to make at least a rough English translation and flag it to Central News, and to Matthew Baise and his team.
 
This will help VOANews.com to continue its growth as a significant global site, one that offers original content, in addition to a presentation of the main stories around the world and about the Unite States.
 
 
David
 
 
David Ensor
Director
 
Voice of America
330 Independence Ave, SW
Washington DC 20237
(202) 203.4500

Snapshot of Voice of America website under cyber attack by Iranian hackers.

Voice of America (VOA) Director David Ensor is taking on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its Iranian Cyber Army!  Well, not exactly but close, at least symbolically.
 
As addressed in a recent BBG Watch article, Voice of America (VOA) director David Ensor has posted comments on his blog critical of Iran’s jamming of VOA Farsi television programs intended to reach Iranian audiences by satellite.
 
BBG Watch points out, Mr. Ensor and/or the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) can complain all they want, but absent an effective back-up plan, US international broadcasting is being stymied by the Iranians.
 
This is more than communications warfare.  This is the Iranians – and others – waging a form of economic warfare against the United States.  Satellites cost money.  Airtime on satellites costs money.  Producing programs that few if anyone is able to watch costs more money, along with equipment, personnel salaries, etc.  It’s an effective tactic, especially when the United States is not flush with cash these days and won’t be for the foreseeable future.
 
The Iranians are not likely to back down from what they are doing.  And from their perspective, the fact that Ensor gives them some free attention and publicity may be seen as validating the effectiveness of their actions.  It’s all about perception.  The perception the Iranians are trying to create is that the United States is weak and powerless to stop them from what they are doing.  And to a certain extent, they are correct.
 
As to an effective BBG/IBB back-up plan to deal with the situation -
 
There is no effective back-up plan.
 
The ultimate objective of the agency’s “flim, flam strategic plan” is to be wholly reliant on the Internet as its sole source platform for audio, video and text.  This “plan” is inherently vulnerable.  Iran, China and other nations have the capability to control or take down the Internet and other forms of communication technology at will and have done so.  In places where we have strategic interests (Russia, China and Iran), US international broadcasting is right on the cusp of being rendered irrelevant.
 
The only effective plan for US international broadcasting begins with radio:
 
First, radio goes everywhere.  Attempts to jam radio broadcasts over shortwave are not wholly or uniformly effective.  That makes radio the core strategic asset of US international broadcasting.
 
Second, radio signals cover the greatest expanse of territory.  They can blanket a country if not entire geographic regions.  The more territory you cover, the more listeners you can reach, the better investment of American taxpayer dollars.
 
Third, radio is the most affordable at the receiving end.  The first order of business should be making maximum use of the medium that is able to reach the largest number of people by the cheapest means available for the audience.
 
Everything after this is extra.  For the person at the receiving end, the other mediums of television and the Internet start ratcheting up affordability, accessibility and connectivity.
 
Of course, in the mindset of the BBG/IBB, the first thing to get rid of is radio!  They want you to believe that radio is old-fashioned.  Tell that to people who listen to Washington, DC radio station WTOP and rely upon it for all kinds of relevant news and information.  That kind of reliance is no different when applied to international audiences.  If the radio programming is compelling, people will listen.
 
Instead of expanding the audience for US international broadcasting, the agency’s “scam plan,” at its ultimate goal, has the effect of narrowing the potential audience.  Either the majority general population hasn’t the per capita income to purchase the technology, can’t get connected to the technology or is at the mercy of a national government’s ability to block connectivity and expose individuals to retaliation, arrest or other punitive measures.
 
Why does BBG/IBB research show that radio has far superior numbers to its Internet operations?  Read the paragraphs above.  The BBG/IBB is going out of its way to cripple the effectiveness of US international broadcasting.
 
It is unlikely that the Iranians will be much disturbed by Mr. Ensor’s blog and will likely continue to commit itself to continuing the disruption of VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) programs.
 
But there’s more to what the Iranians are doing:
 
Recently, the Iranians have expanded their global broadcasting outreach to include television broadcasts in Spanish.
 
More than likely, this is a gesture of solidarity with the regime of Hugo Chavez, the Iranians ally in Venezuela and Latin America.  It’s a slick maneuver on the part of both the Iranians and Chavez, the second greatest irritant to the United States in the Southern Hemisphere next to Fidel Castro.
 
Chavez sees himself as the likely ideological successor to Castro and no doubt wants to build upon that image.  That makes his connection to the Iranians very disturbing.  As part of its nuclear ambitions, the Iranians are known to be working on increasing the range of their ballistic missiles.  The last thing the United States needs is a surprise coming out of the Southern Hemisphere, a scenario in which Iranian ballistic missiles are forward deployed to Venezuela.  Chavez is certainly capable of making that kind of deal with the Iranians.
 
At present, we don’t know much about what the BBG/IBB is doing in its broadcasts to Latin America.  It’s off the radar – and with the BBG/IBB that’s never a good thing.  We hear of protests outside the offices of Radio/TV Marti in Miami with Cuban expatriates unhappy with what they see as the agency going soft on the Castro regime.  That could be an outward indication of an eroded effectiveness of the broadcasting effort to Latin America in general.
 
At the end of the day, here’s the deal:
 
The Iranian government is very determined to achieve its national goals and objectives.  It looks for openings, opportunities.  Latin America is on the Iranian radar.
 
The BBG/IBB represents just the opposite – a lack of determination and commitment compromising the nature and effectiveness of the US Government international broadcasting effort.
 
See the big picture:
 
The BBG/IBB: strategically outmaneuvered once again.
 
The Federalist
February 10, 2012
 
 

Snapshot of Voice of America website under cyber attack by Iranian hackers.

Voice of America (VOA) Director David Ensor is taking on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its Iranian Cyber Army!  Well, not exactly but close, at least symbolically.
 
As addressed in a recent BBG Watch article, Voice of America (VOA) director David Ensor has posted comments on his blog critical of Iran’s jamming of VOA Farsi television programs intended to reach Iranian audiences by satellite.
 
BBG Watch points out, Mr. Ensor and/or the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) can complain all they want, but absent an effective back-up plan, US international broadcasting is being stymied by the Iranians.
 
This is more than communications warfare.  This is the Iranians – and others – waging a form of economic warfare against the United States.  Satellites cost money.  Airtime on satellites costs money.  Producing programs that few if anyone is able to watch costs more money, along with equipment, personnel salaries, etc.  It’s an effective tactic, especially when the United States is not flush with cash these days and won’t be for the foreseeable future.
 
The Iranians are not likely to back down from what they are doing.  And from their perspective, the fact that Ensor gives them some free attention and publicity may be seen as validating the effectiveness of their actions.  It’s all about perception.  The perception the Iranians are trying to create is that the United States is weak and powerless to stop them from what they are doing.  And to a certain extent, they are correct.
 
As to an effective BBG/IBB back-up plan to deal with the situation -
 
There is no effective back-up plan.
 
The ultimate objective of the agency’s “flim, flam strategic plan” is to be wholly reliant on the Internet as its sole source platform for audio, video and text.  This “plan” is inherently vulnerable.  Iran, China and other nations have the capability to control or take down the Internet and other forms of communication technology at will and have done so.  In places where we have strategic interests (Russia, China and Iran), US international broadcasting is right on the cusp of being rendered irrelevant.
 
The only effective plan for US international broadcasting begins with radio:
 
First, radio goes everywhere.  Attempts to jam radio broadcasts over shortwave are not wholly or uniformly effective.  That makes radio the core strategic asset of US international broadcasting.
 
Second, radio signals cover the greatest expanse of territory.  They can blanket a country if not entire geographic regions.  The more territory you cover, the more listeners you can reach, the better investment of American taxpayer dollars.
 
Third, radio is the most affordable at the receiving end.  The first order of business should be making maximum use of the medium that is able to reach the largest number of people by the cheapest means available for the audience.
 
Everything after this is extra.  For the person at the receiving end, the other mediums of television and the Internet start ratcheting up affordability, accessibility and connectivity.
 
Of course, in the mindset of the BBG/IBB, the first thing to get rid of is radio!  They want you to believe that radio is old-fashioned.  Tell that to people who listen to Washington, DC radio station WTOP and rely upon it for all kinds of relevant news and information.  That kind of reliance is no different when applied to international audiences.  If the radio programming is compelling, people will listen.
 
Instead of expanding the audience for US international broadcasting, the agency’s “scam plan,” at its ultimate goal, has the effect of narrowing the potential audience.  Either the majority general population hasn’t the per capita income to purchase the technology, can’t get connected to the technology or is at the mercy of a national government’s ability to block connectivity and expose individuals to retaliation, arrest or other punitive measures.
 
Why does BBG/IBB research show that radio has far superior numbers to its Internet operations?  Read the paragraphs above.  The BBG/IBB is going out of its way to cripple the effectiveness of US international broadcasting.
 
It is unlikely that the Iranians will be much disturbed by Mr. Ensor’s blog and will likely continue to commit itself to continuing the disruption of VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) programs.
 
But there’s more to what the Iranians are doing:
 
Recently, the Iranians have expanded their global broadcasting outreach to include television broadcasts in Spanish.
 
More than likely, this is a gesture of solidarity with the regime of Hugo Chavez, the Iranians ally in Venezuela and Latin America.  It’s a slick maneuver on the part of both the Iranians and Chavez, the second greatest irritant to the United States in the Southern Hemisphere next to Fidel Castro.
 
Chavez sees himself as the likely ideological successor to Castro and no doubt wants to build upon that image.  That makes his connection to the Iranians very disturbing.  As part of its nuclear ambitions, the Iranians are known to be working on increasing the range of their ballistic missiles.  The last thing the United States needs is a surprise coming out of the Southern Hemisphere, a scenario in which Iranian ballistic missiles are forward deployed to Venezuela.  Chavez is certainly capable of making that kind of deal with the Iranians.
 
At present, we don’t know much about what the BBG/IBB is doing in its broadcasts to Latin America.  It’s off the radar – and with the BBG/IBB that’s never a good thing.  We hear of protests outside the offices of Radio/TV Marti in Miami with Cuban expatriates unhappy with what they see as the agency going soft on the Castro regime.  That could be an outward indication of an eroded effectiveness of the broadcasting effort to Latin America in general.
 
At the end of the day, here’s the deal:
 
The Iranian government is very determined to achieve its national goals and objectives.  It looks for openings, opportunities.  Latin America is on the Iranian radar.
 
The BBG/IBB represents just the opposite – a lack of determination and commitment compromising the nature and effectiveness of the US Government international broadcasting effort.
 
See the big picture:
 
The BBG/IBB: strategically outmaneuvered once again.
 
The Federalist
February 10, 2012
 
 

The entities – all the entities – function better as self-contained units, serving their respective missions and intended audiences. — The Federalist

We could not agree more with this statement from The Federalist, one of our regular and popular contributors. A Global News Network envisioned by BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson strikes us as a job creation project for former CNN employees, favorite contractors and other recent hires who speak no foreign languages and have no experience in international broadcasting. But they have to do something, so there you have it.

It will be a major distraction to the mission of serving information needs of foreign audiences. That job requires specialization, not centralization. The merger proposal in its current form is also likely to destroy the effectiveness of the surrogate broadcasters. For Chairman Isaacson’s information, surrogate broadcasters were created because there was too much centralization at the Voice of America. A Global News Network can never provide what these surrogate broadcasters and VOA language services need. We know it from our own experience.

Broadcasting Board of Governors: BBG Plans Hit Major Rocks and Realities in VOA Central News – A Federalist Extra
 
 
 
Note: In this piece, we take a look at the operations of the Voice of America (VOA) Central Newsroom.  This is “getting down in the weeds,” a place we don’t often go.  However, as anyone inside the Cohen Building knows,” the weeds” are where the action is, where the big ideas of the BBG’s “flim flam strategic plan” come into contact with reality.  We examine some key aspects of how the “new world order” as dictated by the BBG/IBB is impacting a core VOA operation and its relationship with the various VOA language services and other entities.
 
—
 
For a long time now, stretching across two stages of what has been called the “reorg” in the VOA central newsroom, discussion has been intensifying about the role the BBG envisions for what was, back to the time of VOA’s founding, the essential core operation of U.S. international broadcasting.
 
Recently, an email from the Central News Director, Sonja Pace, touted the newsroom as an important agency core operation. However, based on what The Federalist has learned, it seems that the VOA Central News operation has been thrust by BBG plans into a barely-controlled chaos as it tries to be too many things to too many people.
 
A view purported to be that of VOA David Ensor is that the 40-plus VOA language services are now each their own newsroom. In other words, each service appears to be expected to generate original material to be available on-demand throughout the agency, including the grantee operations of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Sawa/Al-Hurra television, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio/TV Marti.
 
Here is where reality intervenes.
 
Consider the internal VOA environment. It is one thing for a language service to provide a report for distribution to all of VOA. It is another thing altogether when breaking news happens and a language service is besieged by the other forty-odd services for material. What appears to be the plan is for material from services to be “re-versioned.”  It is not clear if the bulk of this is to be done by an already over-burdened Central News operation, or if language services themselves are expected to do this.  It could be a combination of the two.
 
Add to this the various grantee operations, each with their own missions, and the editorial direction and perspectives they want to put to stories, although it is now unknown how a revised reorganization creating a so-called “hybrid” amalgamation of grantees and VOA will affect the latest vision of VOA Central News.
 
This latest development aside, what is happening is a division of resources away from the center.  An example would be the preparation of news items for the central news file.

Rather than continuing what was a finely-honed operation in which Central News, with various regional desks prepared news for distribution to language services, the BBG (with its endorsement last year of what newsroom staffers saw as a highly-flawed program review document) is now busy taking apart that system.
 
VOA language services — many utterly incapable of shouldering the news writing burden in addition to translation of news material not generated within a language service — have been ordered to start writing news for the countries or regions they broadcast to. BBG re-negotiated contracts with major news services to accomplish this.  Having direct access to news services without depending on Central News was long a goal of language services — a symbol of their independence, so to speak. The problem is that many are understaffed and under-resourced, due in large part to the deliberate attempt by the Third Floor’s “ideas people” to seemingly undermine and undo language services, at times using highly questionable audience research.  Added to the mix are requirements for doing television pieces and keeping language service websites updated.
 
To appearances and in its effect, in the revamped news environment, language services will be expected to generate their own radio, television and Internet product, and turn themselves into those 43-plus newsrooms in the Cohen building. This appears to be nothing short of a disaster in the making.  It is unclear how the BBG intends to ensure that services are carrying out this new function well, or detect if they are doing so poorly and what is falling through the cracks, the kinds of things that may not register with the Board when they give something their approval.
 
What we understand is that some the language services contributed a lot of vocal support to decentralization finding expression in the “program review” document ultimately adopted by the BBG.  “Program review” is an in-house process in which language services are critiqued.  Various agency elements get involved in the process and congregate around a large table in an agency conference room for a lengthy discussion of conclusions reached.
 
In this case, a prevailing sentiment in the VOA newsroom is that insufficient consultation took place with the staff making up the varied elements of the newsroom.
What appears to have won the day were the views of language services exerted through the program review process, and a desire by other agency officials to “reinvent the wheel” as far as Central News is concerned.
 
 
Further, if there is any hint that senior officials are inclined to buy into the idea of reinvention, other factors start to kick in, not the least of which would be to get enthusiastically supportive of what is being embraced by senior officialdom in the Cohen.  Cautions and reservations are often muted, as one doesn’t want to be seen as being out of sync with Third Floor thinking.
 
Back for a moment to the plan, mentioned in several BBG Watch reports, to create a Global News Network (remember BBG’s annual budget has remained largely static over the years,  now in the mid $700 million range and BBG and IBB officials have been clear that there should be no expectation of larger budgets coming down the pike).  Under that plan (prior to this latest BBG talk of a “hybrid organization”) in theory any material developed by any of the entities should be able to be used by other entities.
 
However, in reality, what appears to be the case is that the entities don’t necessarily want the same product in the same media.  In the obsession with television product, some entities may want a “re-versioned” piece that is formatted for television.  Others may want a piece for the Internet.  And lastly, some might want all three!
 
And then there is always the presence of shifting priorities.
 
We have heard employees describe situations in which they have had to drop everything to produce a television spot, scramble to put a production together, and are then told to drop the piece for some reason or other. In one case, after
hours of work, an order came down from one major non-VOA BBG entity to have a certain report delivered within 30 minutes.  This may not seem like a big deal.  However, the fact is that all the entities have their own broadcast times and program schedules, making requirements or demands easier said than done.
 
The television aspect of what is now being expected has consequences.  It takes more time and more staff to produce a television piece, compared to what can be done in the same amount of time for a radio piece.  One wonders if this aspect of working with these media hasn’t been examined by agency heads, to see what gets the most bang for the buck.  Cross-pollination of media product is not always a seamless process.
 
The Federalist has heard that in the frenzy to produce TV, senior officials ordered Central News to steadily reduce its production of news items, the so-called central file which used to be the “bread and butter” of VOA, in favor of increasing video product.  At times, this created a situation where VOA’s newsroom often did not cover certain breaking news stories.  One has to wonder what happens when production of news stories finally drops to only a few each day, on the assumption that language services will be able to pick up the burden.  
 
The goal apparently is for Central News to decrease production of news items from say, 100 ore more a day, to only a dozen or so.  If this is correct, it’s a broad differential to be placed on the backs of the language services to make up.  That’s one of the things that appears on its face to be out of whack:  previously VOA Central News was supposed to service all language services, not for individual services to attempt to create material for the entire BBG and its entities, but lacking the resources on hand to do so, in a timely manner and to ensure that reports are accurate.  Also, under the goal, explained in the most recent BBG meeting by Walter Isaacson, to create a new “hybrid” agency, individual entities are to retain their brands and identities.  So it appears that, in addition to the 40-plus separate newsrooms in the Cohen building, similar multiple operations in RFE/RL, RFA, etc. will still be busy doing what they have always done to produce material for their programs.  It’s starting to look like that old Abbott and Costello routine of “who’s on first,” etc.
 
For VOA in particular, television is a black hole – gobbling up resources and with a high price tag attached.  Within easy eyesight of Capitol Hill, agency officials seem to be blind to the fact that this is not an era of unlimited resources.  The United States Government is confronted with problems of enormous import to the American people.  It cannot support the blue skies ideas concocted on the Third Floor of the Cohen Building.  
 
It seems to be the view of VOA director David Ensor that television can be done on the cheap.  Most assuredly it can.  However, it is equally likely that the product will be seen as such.  In the increasingly competitive environment that includes not only international broadcasters but capable regional ones as well, a cheap product is going to be outclassed by superior product.  This will make it all the more likely that potential audiences will turn elsewhere as they have in the Middle East and Iran, two key strategic locales for US international broadcasting.
 
VOA Central News and the VOA language services need to have a balanced, symbiotic relationship.  The plan being orchestrated by agency officials is not that relationship.
 
Wasting American taxpayer money in attempting yet another reinvention is not an option for the BBG/IBB.  The taxpayer cannot be treated in the manner of an ATM machine.  Congress and the White House must demand a higher standard of performance and results buttressed by greater oversight and accountability.
 
Nothing else is going to work or work well enough to justify the expense of U.S international broadcasting which, in the hands of the IBB, is open-ended and growing.
 
If there is one thing to be learned from examining this one issue it is that embracing complexity is not a solution to the dilemmas of U.S international broadcasting.  The reorganization plan concocted by the IBB doesn’t make things run smoother or work better.  The entities – all the entities – function better as self-contained units, serving their respective missions and intended audiences.
 
The Federalist
January 2012
 
 
 

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

A considerable amount of howling has been coming from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and their International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) bonus-mongers.  The reason for the howling: reports by BBG Watch regarding bonuses, promotions and reorganization.
 
Somehow the BBG, IBB and other senior staff seem to have forgotten that they are public officials.  They need to be reminded who they are working for and that they are not a power unto themselves, as they most certainly like to think they are.  They are paid from American taxpayer money.  Worse, they spend American taxpayer money.  What they do – or don’t do – in their official capacity is open to scrutiny and criticism, particularly when the agency’s record of “performance” requires it.  Unfortunately, it would seem that these same officials have the same level of contempt for the American taxpayer as they exhibit toward the agency’s employees, both staff and contractors.  They might also be of the mindset to go into the BBG chairman’s office, sit behind his desk and put their feet up as a demonstration of contempt – contempt for authority – all authority – above their rank.
 
Part of the howling also has to do with the fact that these same officials are not used to being under such scrutiny.  It’s been absent and is long overdue.  It is made all the more pressing as the agency is poised to spend even more millions of US taxpayer dollars on its seriously flawed “flim flam strategic plan.”  Enough is enough.
 
No matter what these officials do or want to do, anything they intend to do is likely to invite even more scrutiny.  Sound advice to the Third Floor of the Cohen Building would be to put a cork on the ranting and take your medicine.  And get used to being held to a standard other than the usual self-serving, self-congratulatory “press releases” that the agency puts out periodically trying to justify its existence.
 
Speaking of which:
 
The Obama administration wants to do some consolidation and reorganization of its own.  We’re in a national election cycle and people outside the Beltway want to see something done to reduce the size of the Federal Government.  There is a lot of antipathy outside the Beltway toward the Federal Government.  People see it as wasteful and unresponsive to their needs – two categories that the BBG and IBB seem to excel in.  People outside the Beltway don’t know what the place does and don’t care.  What they don’t know, they don’t like.  They don’t see the place as having a material impact on their day-to-day.  It doesn’t put large numbers of Americans to work.  It doesn’t put food on the table.  It doesn’t help put their kids through school.  It doesn’t reduce rising costs on daily necessities.  It doesn’t provide for the national defense.
 
This makes the BBG/IBB vulnerable and expendable.  It is ripe for the picking.  The current administration – caught up in the national election cycle – can make a production out of eliminating it altogether or absorbing it into some other agency, in order to demonstrate for short-term political traction, that it is doing something to eliminate waste in the Federal Government.
 
In today’s world, it’s all about timing, opportunity and perception.  And the timing is bad for the BBG/IBB.  Among other things, the agency has demonstrated itself to be the poorest of poor performers in the annual survey of Federal agencies and has institutionalized and solidified that position.  It is not one of the best places to work in the Federal Government.  What is it?
 
“One of the worst organizations in the Federal Government.”
 
It has assiduously earned that reputation.  
 
It has intentionally constructed, expanded upon and institutionalized that reputation.  
 
It deserves that representation.
 
So, what to do with our poor performer?  There are a couple of scenarios which come to mind.
 
One would be USAID (the Agency for International Development) which has a language component.  Plus, it’s part of the State Department which already has a tepid relationship with the BBG.  If anything, being absorbed into USAID could result in making it more difficult for the BBG/IBB to slip and slide its way with its business-as-usual paradigm.  Nothing would serve the interests over at State better than to clip the wings of the BBG operation particularly among those who believe that “public diplomacy” is an oxymoron.
 
Another possibility would be: the Department of Defense (DOD).  One can really hear the howling now.  However, the fact of the matter is the origins of the VOA were in the War Department, Office of War Information, during World War II.  So, there’s a history, a connection.  Today, DOD runs a variety of multi-language operations.  It certainly has a need for a resource of trained linguists and it has its Armed Forces Network.  Plus, it is at work establishing itself on the property that already has the VOA Greenville transmitter sites.  A perfect scenario, a perfect opportunity, a different culture.  No more BBG.  No more IBB.  And with new bosses, maybe a higher standard of performance.
 
Of course, the doomsday scenario would be to eliminate the BBG/IBB altogether.  That may prove to be a bit more difficult, but not impossible.  As we keep reminding the BBG/IBB: very, very few people outside the Beltway would miss the agency if it were to disappear tomorrow.  Keep in mind that the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy just went good-bye and it was around almost as long as VOA.  Things change.  Things happen.  Things can be made to happen.
 
Speaking of disappearing acts:
 
One of our concerns is the extent to which the BBG has ceded its authority to the IBB.  Certain members of the Board appear to have distanced themselves from their roles and have absented themselves from Board meetings.
 
One’s physical presence speaks volumes.  It demonstrates commitment, especially if one follows up with getting to the heart of various agency problems on all levels.  Physical presence also speaks to keeping an eye on what the senior career staff is up to, what they are doing or what they are not doing.
 
To outward appearances, not doing these things is a lapse in carrying out duties and responsibilities with which Board members have been charged with as presidential appointees.  If there is any agency that needs greater oversight and accountability, this is it.  It is not enough to put matters in the hands of the IBB or a “chief executive officer.”  That doesn’t get the job done with the degree and extent of dysfunction existent inside the Cohen Building.  It also raises the question of why we need the Board in the first place?
 
All of these things make for the kinds of conditions that bode for absorbing the agency’s mission into another entity, hopefully one with a greater sense of accountability to the American taxpayers and a better record of performance.
 
No attempted consolidation – no huge bonuses – no redistribution of assignments among the same cast of managers – no greasy IBB sales pitch – no attempt at rosy “happy talk” by members of the BBG/IBB – no amount of wishful thinking – is going to change the agency from what it has become and the depths to which it has fallen.
 
One should not have confidence in the grand schemes of the BBG/IBB.  They have reduced US international broadcasting to the category of an also-ran.  The actions necessary to restore this effort will not come from within the Cohen Building and cannot be accomplished so long as the current embedded group of bonus-mongers remains in place.
 
As Secretary of State Clinton declared, “We are losing the information war.”
 
These are the people who are losing the information war: members of the BBG, their IBB staff and other senior agency officials.
 
They are not going to change their ways.
 
Time to find them something else to do and preferably somewhere else to do it.
 
The Federalist
January 2012
 
 

The folks on the Third Floor of the Cohen Building really don’t get it.  They are the gift that just keeps on giving.  When not promoting their bogus “new strategic plan,” they are now trying – vainly – to limit the damage from the publication of cash bonuses handed out to themselves.
 
On December 21, 2011, Richard Lobo, the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Director, issued a statement regarding these awards.
 
The statement is a recitation of government-wide statistics and other statements which have the net effect of defending the indefensible, rationalizing the bonuses in the seeming context of government business as usual and totally missing the point of the criticisms leveled against the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the IBB for their largesse among the senior ranks.
 
Mr. Lobo’s memo takes the convenient way out, via government-wide statistics.  More than convenience, it is an attempt to give credibility to the agency’s actions.  However, by burying the agency’s actions within the Federal government as a whole, what the memo does is bury the credibility of Mr. Lobo.
 
The issue isn’t the government as a whole.  The issue is this agency and its senior officials.
 
This is the agency which has earned the description, “One of the worst organizations in the Federal government.”  The BBG/IBB continues to deserve that distinction because they have continued, institutionalized and built upon a record for being dysfunctional and ineffective.  Relative to this issue, the agency continues to rank at or near the bottom in the Federal government employee surveys and is dead last in the specific category of Leadership.
 
Under the circumstances, handing out bonuses to senior agency officials has the appearance of rewarding the creation and perpetuation of a hostile work environment.  Actually, it’s more than the appearance.  It’s a fact.  That’s the record.
 
Now, here’s an interesting quote from the memo:
 
“While concerted efforts resulted in improvements in a number of areas, the overall results of the federal employee satisfaction survey remain a serious concern.”
 
This is a load of nonsense.  Miniscule improvements on peripheral matters do not equate with a wholesale sea change in the overall management philosophy inside the Cohen Building.  We know it and so do the agency’s employees.  In fact, the only people to whom the survey results are a serious concern are the employees, not the agency’s senior officials.  Why?  Because to this point, there has been no penalty applied to the managers who perpetuate the conditions that produce the agency’s earned reputation for being one of the worst places to work in the Federal Government.
 
To that end, here is the game the agency plays:
 
Regularly, agency officials meet with employee representatives.  We’ve referred to these meetings before.  We call them “motion without movement.”  The agency’s intent in these meetings is to build a record that it had a series of meetings with the employee representatives.  It is not to show that progress has been made on any major issue.  It is merely to say that it had a number of meetings with the agency’s employee representatives.  That is it.  Nothing more.  And the reason why these meetings produce no constructive results is because the management intent is to stall, delay and otherwise obstruct any progress on issues resulting in a substantive positive outcome for the employees.
 
Agency employees and their representatives have been the last line of defense against the perpetration of waste, fraud and abuse.  They have struggled mightily but have had some noteworthy successes apart from these meetings.
 
However, we would argue that these meetings are a huge waste of time.  They are a waste of the taxpayers’ money.  Having these meetings has had no material effect on the existing paradigm.  The employee representatives would be better served to use their time to great effect with Members of Congress and with the press to get the word out as to what is going on inside the Cohen Building.  “The worst organization in the Federal government” is a label that sticks and has not gone away.
 
Not having these meetings doesn’t make things worse.  When you’re at the bottom in these surveys as the BBG/IBB is – and prefers and intends to remain – things are already worse.  The BBG/IBB is in the business of defining the worst.  Putting the lid on further meetings doesn’t invite legal retaliation by the agency against the employee unions because the context of these meetings does not trump the Federal Labor Relations Statute.  So there – bag it and move on to more productive activities elsewhere and forget the self-interested, self-aggrandizing bonus-mongers on the other side of table.
 
Employees and their representatives should disabuse themselves of the notion that there are common interests between agency officials and agency employees.  There are none.  If senior officials can sell out the employee workforce, they will do it.  In fact, that is an inherent part of their “flim, flam plan:” to privatize the workforce and remove as much if not all of the rights employees enjoy as Federal workers.  And you can best believe that these officials will turn around and use this intended result as a justification for more bonuses in the future.
 
Mr. Lobo’s memo studiously avoids the fact that the Social Security Administration gave out zero bonuses to its Senior Executive Service (SES) officials in FY2010.  In the current fiscal environment and Federal employee raises through cost-of-living-allowances (COLAs) going flat, this is what is commonly referred to as taking the high road and being on the same page with employees.
 
What we know is that senior officials of the BBG/IBB are not on the high road.  They are not on the same page with their employees and they don’t want to be.  To all appearances, the senior managers are trolling the low road.  There are signposts along the low road.  They read: ego, arrogance, self-aggrandizement, contempt, greed, avarice.
 
And let us remember, in the Federal employee workplace surveys:
 
37 out of 37 in Leadership: dead last.  For years.
 
But #1 in putting self-interest ahead of everything else.
 
The Lobo memo makes each point abundantly clear.
 
If you are looking for a mission statement from the BBG/IBB, it isn’t the VOA Charter and it most certainly isn’t “promoting freedom and democracy.”  The real mission statement is:
 
“Self-Interest is Job One!”
 
The Federalist
January 2012
 
 

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

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)

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

VOA building in Washington, D.C.

As said before, this alleged “plan” isn’t new. It’s recycled and repackaged a bit, but the goals are the same, the primary one being eliminating US international broadcasting. Whatever is left will be something else, but it won’t be a broadcasting entity. Perhaps it will be a mediocre Internet website, blocked in countries where there is still a substantial radio audience (as in China) and otherwise lost in the cacophony of cyberspace. And that’s on a good day, when the BBG (Broadcasting Board of Governors) websites aren’t being attacked, hacked and otherwise neutralized.

As expected, the BBG has hired a consulting firm to try to map the way for implementing this “plan,” which we see as more of an idea rather than an actual plan with timelines and costs mapped out. It needs a contractor because agency officials can’t get their arms around what they are trying to pull off. That is not a good sign right from the get-go.

How much is this “plan” going to cost? This is the priority question that needs to be asked and to be responded to by the BBG in detail. To this point, what the BBG is doing is masking specifics and asking for a blank check from the Congress and the American taxpayer. The BBG and the IBB salesmen promoting this plan are long on big ideas but short on details – the kind of details needed for the Congress and the American people to decide if the expenditure is worth it.

The BBG talks about a five-year window for this ambiguous “plan” to be rolled out, complete and running. This seems like strangely familiar territory. Another government entity believed in five-year plans: the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union isn’t around anymore. Maybe that should tell the BBG something. But nevertheless, we now have the mindset of the Kremlin on C Street: the Cohen Building, along with a bureaucracy acting not unlike the Politburo. Quite a picture.

Let’s put funding in an important context:

According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) half of American families do not make enough income to file income taxes.

Half.

That’s puts an enormous burden on the other half.

At the same time, the mortgage and foreclosure crises continue to have a crippling effect on many American families.

Meanwhile, “Occupy Wall Street” protests have mushroomed across the country protesting financial practices, unemployment and what is seen as corporate greed. We won’t put a value judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the protests. However, it is clearly evident that there is a substantial body of discontent and people have mobilized to express it.

On top of that there is the continuing problem with debt, both that carried by the US Government and personal debt on the part of individual Americans.

In short, the United States is in the midst of a very serious, multi-dimensional problem, the kind can be self-perpetuating, the kind that doesn’t go away overnight and the kind that requires some serious reprogramming of how the US Government goes about spending money.

With a problem of this size and scope, it is incumbent upon the Congress to demand an accounting by the BBG as to the price tag of its “new” strategic plan. And that’s the rub for the BBG. It isn’t used to being held accountable for the way it goes about spending public funds. It has gotten into the very bad habit of seeing the Congress (and by extension, the American taxpayer) as an ATM machine.

Lack of accountability and oversight invites waste, fraud and abuse. It is all too easy to hide failures and mistakes in increased funding. It is all too easy to plead for a few more millions to make things right or, in the BBG dreamscape, to make some kind of extraordinary breakthrough, as in the claim to create a “global news network.” In the past these outrageous claims have not been challenged. Worse, the agency hasn’t been held to timelines and price tags in order to allow Congress and American taxpayers to decide if the cost is worth the expense and if the cost is actually accomplishing something substantive.

Global news networks already exist. In head-to-head comparisons, the BBG can’t compete. The best example is in the Arab and Muslim world where al-Jazeera is the recognized leader. The BBG effort, al-Hurra, is not even in al-Jazeera’s rear view mirror.

Outside the Cohen Building, the vast and overwhelming majority of Americans don’t know about the BBG and US international broadcasting. And they don’t care. They have other priorities that cut deeply into their day-to-day, things like food, clothing and shelter, the rising costs of everything, their personal debt and so forth.

To these same Americans, their idea of effective “public diplomacy” is an unmanned drone dropping a Hellfire missile on terrorists in remote locations, disrupting terrorist planning and removing key leadership cadre. It also helps to salve over the wounds many Americans still feel from watching commercial airliners being flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and people jumping to their deaths on September 11, 2001. It may have been ten years ago, but for many, it still feels like yesterday.

Mr. Ensor, the new VOA director, equated the cost of all US international broadcasting to the price of one advanced fighter aircraft. Symbolically, he said it represents a “cheap date.” However, Americans know the value of that fighter aircraft (or the drone with the Hellfire missile) and its purpose in defending American citizens, our national interests and the safety of the nation. It is money well spent, particularly when seen effectively carrying out its stated purpose. People flock to air shows all over the country to see these aircraft up close and personal. They can put their hands on it, see it and clearly know what it does.

These same Americans don’t flock to the Cohen Building in big numbers.

In Mr. Ensor’s analogy, even a “cheap date” has to have some intrinsic value. The actions of the BBG over the last ten years and those projected outward for the next five of their Soviet-style five-year plan don’t demonstrate value. If anything, the Board and its IBB apparatchiks have devalued US international broadcasting with oversized claims that don’t have a basis in reality. Remember, Secretary of State Clinton pointedly remarked in congressional testimony, “We are losing the information war.” The agency responsible for losing the information war is the BBG. And there is your devalued “cheap date.”

Call it a “cheap date” or a “new” strategic plan, in either case, the result is the same:

We lose.

By the way, to get the “new” plan from its idea stage to reality could cost over $1-million dollars just in consulting fees alone if the contract with the consultant goes all the way and the BBG doesn’t cut it off. Procedurally, this sometimes happens when a consultant comes up with a different view of reality than that of the BBG.

The Federalist
October 23, 2011

BBG Governor, Amb. Victor Ashe, raised employee morale issues at the Oct. board meeting.

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.

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

Once again, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) solidly maintains its position as one of the worst work environments in the Federal workplace.

Here are some of the “highlights:”

• 33rd of 37 in job satisfaction;

• 35th of 37 on results-oriented performance culture;

• 36th of 37 on talent management; and,

• 37th of 37 on leadership and knowledgeable management. Dead last!

The BBG has already begun to spin the small almost negligible improvements. These improvements are virtually meaningless, particularly in the context of the number of years the survey has been conducted. At its current pace, significant improvement (as in the upper 10 percent) could take well into the middle of this century, if ever. Evidently, the BBG believes in a slow creep approach to improvement. At or near the bottom has a whole different meaning than being at or near the top. Sustained placement at the bottom of the survey points to a very deep malaise.

The cover sheet of the survey contains two phrases: “Empowering Employees” and “inspiring change.”

The BBG does neither.

Let’s get down to business with a realistic appraisal of what is going on here:

The BBG has no commitment to the agency’s employees or to improving the workplace environment.

None.

Zero.

Nada.

From the first Human Capital survey to the present, the agency has consistently ranked at or near the bottom every year the survey has been conducted. There are several reasons for this:

First, what should be evident is that the agency has systemic, institutionalized problems. These problems have never been addressed in any meaningful way. Early on in the surveys, the agency has taken a “baby steps” approach toward addressing problems. It was ridiculous then and is even more so today. Routinely, agency officials meet with employee representatives. The sole purpose of these meetings appears to be for agency officials to say that a meeting was held. This is commonly referred to as “motion without movement.” These meetings are a colossal waste of time. That waste of time equates with wasting taxpayer money. Stall and delay are cornerstones of the tactics of agency officials in these meetings who are, in effect, representing the BBG.

Second, the perpetrators of the agency’s at or near-bottom-dwelling position are the careerists who populate the senior ranks of agency management. Some of these people are operating at a level way above their ability, with predictable results. For them, their top priority is to protect the positions they encumber and the six figure salaries that come with them.

If the BBG was serious about improving the agency’s ranking in this survey, it would move out these non-performing, inept and incapable careerists and relegate them to other duties. It is not a perfect solution, but it is likely the only one.

The BBG hasn’t done this and isn’t about to. Why?

The answer is because the BBG has made failure an acceptable standard of performance. It has rewarded failure, if one would care to examine the bonuses and awards presented to senior agency officials through the years of the employee survey. It has embraced a so-called “strategic plan” which is a proven, demonstrable failure, as demonstrated in Russia and the Middle East. Indeed, the BBG intends fully to continue the failure and expand upon it, most notably in China.

As Secretary of State Clinton testified, “We are losing the information war.” The agency responsible for losing the information war is the BBG. Losing the information war equates with failure.

Agency employees are not stupid. They know that the alleged “strategic plan” is a failure. They have repudiated the plan and that repudiation is embedded in the responses to the employee survey. The have denounced the Board and senior agency management by ranking them in the lowest category possible: 37th out of 37 agencies in the area of leadership.

The agency has no leadership.

Instead, it has a Board that is distancing itself from the agency’s problems. It has placed broad authority in the IBB (International Broadcasting Bureau) Director. As such, it is another example of failure: one person inheriting the problems perpetrated by the “usual suspects,” the embedded careerists of the agency.

One should not expect a dramatic sea change in the agency with the IBB trying to run the show. Miracles are a rarity and there is no miracle on the horizon for the employees of this agency so long as the underlying fundamental problems are not addressed.

Agency employees have demonstrated that they are the last line of defense against blatantly errant decision making by agency officials. They are fighting for the proper direction of US international broadcasting. In this regard, they have gone above and beyond and their efforts should not be treated lightly.

After years of survey results that point squarely to bad managers and bad management practices, these employees deserve attention and intervention by the highest levels of the Executive Branch. Unfortunately, they are not likely to get it, something that plays into the hands of the careerists responsible for creating a hostile, dysfunctional environment inside the Cohen Building and who appear to be perfectly content with the agency’s ranking in this survey.

The Federalist
October 2011

Read more here:
The Long Slow Crawl Up The Mountain

This continuing nightmare is revealed in a meeting that David Ensor, the new Voice of America (VOA) director, had with staffers of the VOA Central News Division. A short essay here cannot do justice to the details provided by BBG Watch in Mr. Ensor’s encounter with the staff. Indeed, the meeting went far beyond just the Central News Division but into many aspects of US international broadcasting, including those of the surrogate broadcasters like Radio Free Asia, Radio Sawa and al-Hurra television (two of the biggest wastes of money) and others.

Before dealing with this story, we must turn our attention to reports of a bizarre occurrence inside the Cohen Building this week. Some agency employees attempting to access this new website created by former and current BBG employees were greeted with a message:

“Security risk. Blocked for your protection.”

This message appeared sporadically, not uniformly. For example, two people in the VOA Newsroom attempting to access the site could find one being blocked and the other with unfettered access. We know that access was blocked on at least one computer in the VOA Mandarin Service. On the other hand, other employees reported no access problems.

In responding to an inquiry by Free Media Online, an NGO which promotes media freedom and fights press censorship, the agency’s public relations office denied that the agency was blocking access to his site. According to the agency’s IT security team, the BBG Watch website triggered a “site warning,” an automated message by Websense, an Internet security company, and that the warning went to “ALL its customers.” The agency’s IT people also said that users could manually override the blocking by hitting a “Continue” button.

This explanation raises some questions:

First, according to the agency’s IT security team, this warning went to “ALL of its customers.” This does not explain how some computers in the Cohen Building got the warning and others did not. That certainly doesn’t sound like “ALL of its customers,” unless, of course, BBG IT security team does not really secure all VOA computers. That would not be surprising considering their past record.

Second, the agency’s IT people suggest that users could manually override the warning by hitting a “Continue” button. With respect to this explanation, let’s consider this:

This is an agency of the Federal government. A computer workstation is US Government Property. Routinely, Federal employees are advised of the risks to the Federal Government IT infrastructure. They are cautioned – strongly – to avoid precipitating risks to this infrastructure. They are advised of the damage to that infrastructure caused by viruses, spyware and malware. Federal employees are also advised that if they are found to have introduced harmful IT programs into a government computer or computer system they can be disciplined up to and including removal from the Federal Service for cause.

With that in mind, and a “Continue” button staring you in the face, a rather short risk-to-reward assessment tells any rational Federal employee not to put his/her job, career, retirement, etc. on the line and to drop the attempt to view the site.

Let’s also keep in mind that this is the agency that got hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army, a division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council. “Hacked” might not be the best descriptive term. The agency got creamed – all of its websites and proxies down for five hours, while an earlier attack by a still unidentified source blacked out VOA websites for nearly two days.

As one might wryly observe, maybe this is how the agency is spending “circumvention” money it got from the State Department: a classification engine with a category of “Potentially Damaging Content” described by the agency’s IT security team as a “flaky category for us in the past.” It sounds like it is just as flaky in the present and rather revealing of existent or potential agency IT vulnerabilities.

Perhaps this is what contributes to making BBG Internet operations an inviting target: security protocols described as “flaky” that block legitimate websites and invites users to manually override warnings.

One can only imagine how this episode will be interpreted in places like Iran or China.

Accidental or just plain pedestrian – no matter what the explanation – it is yet another example of dysfunctional outcomes inside the Cohen Building and of the Board’s grand dreams for its Internet strategy.

Back to the Ensor meeting with the VOA Central News Division:

These notes from the meeting are a gold mine of information. They bear careful reading, particularly with regard to the agency’s interaction with the Congress which appropriates and authorizes American taxpayer money to provide for the operation of this agency.

To outward appearances, what is perhaps the most important revelation is this: the BBG doesn’t have a “strategic plan.” It has what might be better characterized as an agenda. The two are most certainly not the same. This agenda intends to create an agency that, among many other things, reduces the power of the Congress, as representative of the American people, to decide what is in the National and Public Interest of the American people when it comes to US international broadcasting.

This agenda is so convoluted and ponderous that the agency can’t figure out how to make it work. Instead of streamlining the organization, the wunderkinds of the IBB propose to remake the various grantees into one gigantic organization, no doubt requiring the expansion of support and administrative staff to figure out how to make it work. Indeed, the BBG is in the process of looking for a consultant to make their “strategic plan” (or rather, their agenda) work. It’s a process that has been tried before with a variety of consultants, large and small, including the well-known Booz-Allen. Recommendations have been buried in a file cabinet somewhere in the Cohen Building; and all the while, the inept bureaucrats demonstrate they lack the capacity to make the agency function effectively.

Mr. Ensor acknowledges that some of the most expensive undertakings of the Board, that of the combined operations of Radio Sawa and al-Hurra television to the Middle East, are not effective. No kidding. If you believe in the so-called “Arab Spring,” or the BBG impact on Arab/Muslim views toward the US, there’s a place for you inside the Cohen Building, or perhaps, the Sawa and al-Hurra facilities in Springfield, VA.

Anticipating the end of VOA Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts, Mr. Ensor called upon staffers in these services to come up with innovative ideas for satellite television to China. This serves as a perfect example of the fantasy world of the BBG. The Chinese government has made it plain that it is and will continue to block programs of the BBG. The main effort is with VOA and RFA websites. However, the same applies to other forms of communication, including television. The Chinese government has substantial resources at its disposal. Indeed, the BBG has facilitated the efficient and effective use of these resources by proposing the elimination of the radio broadcasts of VOA Mandarin and Cantonese. The Chinese are masterful chess players. It makes the game all the more enjoyable for them when your counterpart makes decisions that take powerful chess pieces off the game board. Advantage: People’s Republic of China.

At worst, this agenda is nothing more than a con game, hawked by IBB staff with a penchant for greasy monologues and oxymoronic phrases. Under scrutiny, the sales job doesn’t hold up. Why?

Things have gone bad and are beyond the point of no return. Mr. Ensor acknowledged as much in the case of VOA Worldwide English. He is right. There is no going back to what used to be and what was effective with global audiences. And it applies to more than just VOA Worldwide English. It applies to the entire enterprise. The agency has lost its resonance. It has been overtaken by events, some geopolitical, some technological. World populations are listening to other messages from other quarters. Momentum has shifted away from US international broadcasting.

Mr. Ensor also repeated the often-used BBG example that all of US international broadcasting is about the equivalent dollar cost of just one F-16 fighter aircraft. As he put it, “we’re a cheap date.” The problem is that we are finding it hard to pay for that one F-16 which protects and defends US interests. If the American people have to make a choice between the F-16 and US international broadcasting, the F-16 wins every time. Indeed, if the Congress or the administration ended all of US international broadcasting today, aside from a handful of academics, bloggers and organizations within various ethnic communities, the painful truth is that the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t miss it and wouldn’t care. Priorities are elsewhere.

These are just a handful of examples of how bad it is for US international broadcasting at the hands of BBG/IBB “decision-making,” and we do use the term loosely.

Mr. Ensor’s tenure with the agency may be brief. Indeed, it may be briefer by the moment because the BBG/IBB has no stomach for the true dimensions of its failures. However, the insights provided by his comments in this meeting with the VOA Central News division may be…

Priceless.

The Federalist
September 2011

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