BBG Watch News Commentary

The International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Director Richard Lobo and his staff are working behind the scenes on Capitol Hill trying to get approval for legislation that would limit Congressional oversight of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency in charge of taxpayer-supported U.S. international broadcasts, and allow them to hire a new CEO who would not be subject to Senate confirmation and Congressional oversight.

BBG Watch has learned that some of the nine members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors have been kept in the dark about significant details of the efforts by the International Broadcasting Bureau Director Richard Lobo and his staff to reorganize the federal agency in charge of U.S. international broadcasts by reducing Congressional oversight.

At least one BBG member, Victor Ashe, is demanding a more open process and public discussion of the proposed changes and expressing concerns that they could drastically limit public scrutiny of BBG operations. Ashe is the senior Republican member and former mayor of Knoxville and former U.S. Ambassador to Poland.

BBG member Michael Meehan, a Democrat, also raised objections at the Board meeting last month in Miami over the proposal to merge the so-called grantee or surrogate broadcasters into one administrative structure. Meehan is in favor of a more comprehensive merger, including the Voice of America and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB). He indicated that a partial merger may not succeed and would waste the BBG’s time and resources that could be used for more urgent international broadcasting needs.

Ashe has expressed concerns about any kind of merger without public hearings, public input and proper safeguards. Another Democratic BBG member Susan McCue was in favor of the partial merger. She may also be working on the Hill trying to gain support for the proposed legislation to establish the position of a powerful CEO without the need for a Senate confirmation. Both Meehan and McCue supported Ashe at the meeting in Miami in opposing the IBB staff’s proposal to end Voice of America radio broadcasts to Tibet and to close down the VOA Cantonese Service.

Lynne Weil is sworn in by IBB Director Richard Lobo

According to our sources, the newly-hired Director of Communications and External Affairs Lynne Weil who works for IBB Director Lobo sent out an email to BBG members earlier this week informing them about some of her efforts on Capitol Hill to get approval for a new bill that would effectively strip much of Congressional control over the BBG. The proposed legislation would place the Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti, as well as the grantee broadcasters like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) under a CEO who would not be appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate or answerable to the U.S. Congress.

While the IBB staff uses the rationale that this change would establish a journalistic firewall between the Congress and the BBG, critics have pointed out that BBG and IBB executives want to exempt themselves from public and Congressional scrutiny and use the firewall argument as an excuse to get greater control over public funds to spend them as they want and to eliminate news broadcasts to countries like China.

Outside experts familiar with the history of U.S. international broadcasting have pointed out that if it were not for Congressional interventions during the Cold War, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, as well as some broadcasting services of the Voice of America, would have been eliminated at the request of the State Department or the White House. But they also point out that more recently an even greater threat has emerged from the entrenched BBG bureaucracy. Members of Congress of both parties again had to step in to save various broadcasting services from being eliminated at the insistence of some BBG members and IBB officials.

Ted Lipien, a former Voice of America acting associate director and co-founder of the nonpartisan Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB), warned in a recent Washington Examiner op-ed that the Broadcasting Board of Governors staff is grasping for power in an effort to limit public and Congressional role in U.S. international broadcasting. He argued that editorial as well as administrative independence was the essential element of the success of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in helping to bring down communism in East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. He also argued for strong Congressional oversight of the BBG.

Many journalists working at Voice of America, Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks ( Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa) see the U.S. Congress as their only protection from IBB executives who, among other things, wanted to end VOA broadcasts to Tibet and China and to reduce RFA transmissions to other countries without free media. Critics say that the most needed firewall would be the one between the BBG/IBB staff and the journalists who are committed to U.S. International broadcasting serving the needs of those who need uncensored news and information.

We have learned that the proposed legislation covers several areas, but the last two proposals are the most important as they would create a position of a powerful CEO and would give BBG members and BBG and IBB bureaucrats vastly greater authority to run U.S. international broadcasting without worrying about Congressional mandates and public criticism.

Our sources told us that this is what the legislation proposed by the IBB staff would do:

- Authorizes the Board to hire, fire, and fix the compensation of a CEO answering directly to the Board.

- Authorizes the Board to delegate certain of its authorities to the CEO, which the CEO would exercise subject to the supervision of the Board.

- Converts the IBB Director position into the CEO position, preserving the journalistic firewall by eliminating the requirement that the position be Presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed.

- Clarifies that the VOA and OCB Directors report to the CEO.
 

We have learned that at least some BBG members were upset about not getting this information earlier and in greater detail and by Ms. Weil’s directive not to share the information that she provided with anyone outside of the Board. She reminded them that at its January 2012 meeting, the Board voted to pursue legislation to create a CEO of United States international broadcasting in the context of a proposed International Broadcasting Innovation Act. This action was planned while the BBG was still led by Walter Isaacson who had plans to turn U.S. international broadcasting into a CNN-like operation and allow it to operate in the United States like NPR and PBS. Isaacson resigned as BBG Chairman and left the Board.

Our sources told us that Lobo and Weil informed BBG members that they have identified an opportunity to implement the front-end goal of the International Broadcasting Innovation Act (IBIA) in the current Congress, rather than the 113th as originally envisioned: adding a provision to a foreign affairs authorization bill now being prepared in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.  Conversations with key House Foreign Affairs Committee majority staff indicate that this initial window of opportunity is open only for a brief time, Weil reportedly told BBG members. Weil did not identify House Republican staffers who may have told her about the “window of opportunity.” She also did not disclose information about any contacts with members of the Senate and their staff.

According to BBG Watch sources, Lobo and Weil did inform BBG members that the proposed provision creating the position of a CEO was revised and no longer includes language regarding the relationship between the CEO and the grantees, to be settled later upon further consideration by the Board. This proposed provision enables the Board to decide the CEO’s responsibilities, authorities and compensation, as well as to hire or fire the incumbent, who would answer directly to the Board.

It appears that the Congress would have no role in this process. Apparently, not even the heads of the Voice of America, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the grantee organizations were informed about the latest proposals for the authorities of a new CEO as outlined in recent communications to BBG members from Director Lobo and Lynne Weil.

The secrecy of the process and the way the BBG/IBB staff is trying to rush the proposed legislation, which may have a significant impact on the ability of the United States to inform and influence foreign audiences, raises very strong concerns. It appears that even BBG members are being kept in the dark and are ordered by bureaucrats to keep quiet.

American taxpayers who pay the salaries of these officials and pay for U.S. international broadcasting have the right to know what is being proposed. They should be invited to offer comments and be part of this process. Any proposal that puts Broadcasting Board of Governors and International Broadcasting Bureau officials outside of public scrutiny should be rejected by the Board and by members of Congress.

VOA building in Washington, D.C.

One of the great things about the Voice of America (VOA) is its location at 330 Independence Avenue, SW in Washington, DC, near the Capitol and within easy access to all Washington area news sources and events. Former BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson, who had resigned earlier this year, wanted to move VOA to an office building somewhere near the Dulles airport. It would have been a foolish idea for a news organization like the Voice of America to give up the best possible real estate in downtown Washington. Mercifully, it died with Isaacson’s departure. In these difficult economic times, US taxpayers are in no mood to pay millions of dollars in relocation costs to support grandiose plans of government officials who are political appointees.

But there may be another potential threat to VOA’s use of the two buildings on Independence Avenue that are owned and maintained by the General Services Administration (GSA). Sources have told BBG Watch that a group known as L88, which describes itself as Government Strategic Operational Asset Investment Program targeting global assets of U.S. Government agencies in partnership with its stable of investment partners and others, has been engaged in secret talks with GSA officials about the buildings used by VOA. The General Services Administration owns and leases over 9,600 buildings nationwide.

BBG Watch has learned that the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Director Richard Lobo and other top IBB officials know about these talks.

Since these are valuable historic government buildings used by the Voice of America as well as the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, there are legitimate concerns about the outcome of any talks or negotiations.

We would like to know why they are conducted in secret and why other potentially interested parties have not been invited to participate. Are there any real or potential conflicts of interest involving government and/or BBG grantee organizations officials and their current and/or former private businesses, associates, friends, and investments? Will any transaction that may result be open to bids?

In a meeting on March 8, 2012, Board members had approved BBG’s role in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) lease arrangement with the very same investment group L88. The BBG will participate as “co-obligor” in the proposed lease arrangement between RFE/RL and L88 of the RFE/RL headquarters lease in Prague, Czech Republic. The description of the proposed transaction was provided to the Board members by the International Broadcasting Bureau Director Richard Lobo. There is very little information about the financial exposure of the BBG, and consequently US taxpayers’, in this particular transaction with L88.

BBG and IBB executive staffers like secrecy and avoid public and Congressional scrutiny and oversight as much as possible. That’s way they prefer doing business through the grantee organizations like RFE/RL. They want to push forward with the merger of the grantees without Congressional and public hearings. They have plans to hire a CEO with extensive but still undefined powers who would not be answerable to Congress. And they want to keep eliminating Voice of America programs and jobs since they fall under stricter rules of public scrutiny.

Members of Congress should be asking a lot of questions about the managers running this agency and their plans.

If indeed L88 is now involved in secret talks with GSA about the historic VOA buildings in Washington, DC, Director Lobo has an obligation to share whatever information he has with IBB and VOA employees and to keep them informed if he learns anything new.

If GSA has plans that would affect the ownership and management of this property, this should be an open and transparent process. The public has the right to know. Other potentially interested parties should know as well.

These are not only historic and valuable buildings. They are also very important to the Voice of America and its mission of providing news and information to critical overseas audiences. They are the property of all Americans, as is the Voice of America, its brand name, and its broadcasts. They can’t be disposed of or moved around from one location to another just because one or two political appointees or other officials think it’s a good idea. Government officials have a duty to explain their decisions to the public and to seek public input whenever public institutions, public property or public money are involved.

Link to Washington Examiner

When the U.S. officials in charge of persuading foreign audiences must themselves be persuaded by the Dalai Lama not to end Voice of America radio programs to Tibet, it is apparent there is something rotten in the management of U.S. international broadcasting.

READ Washington Examiner Op-Ed: Bureaucrats grasp for power at Broadcasting Board of Governors by Ted Lipien

“…it took relentless efforts by the BBG’s senior Republican, former Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe, to persuade his colleagues that the executive staff is taking the agency in the wrong direction.

Ashe was supported on Tibet and China by two Democratic members of the BBG — Michael Meehan and Susan McCue, who even suggested that broadcasts to Tibet should be paid for from cuts in management expenses. Eventually, all the BBG members voted to restore funding for Tibetan and Cantonese broadcasts.

The struggle for public control of taxpayer-funded U.S. international broadcasting is, however, far from over. The BBG staff, with the support of some board members, is still pushing forward with the proposal to merge the independent surrogate broadcasters — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks — under a single administration headed by a new CEO who would not be directly answerable to Congress.”

Victor Ashe

The bipartisan effort to stop the closure of the Greenville shortwave radio broadcasting facility was led BBG’s senior Republican member Ambassador Victor Ashe. He was assisted by North Carolina congressmen from both parties: U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., R-N.C., U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., and U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C. They received strong support from numerous human rights and media freedom advocacy groups, including the independent and nonpartisan Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB).

Rep. Walter B. Jones

Other members of Congress from both parties also joined forces last year to prevent the BBG executive staff from ending shortwave radio broadcasts and satellite television transmissions by the Voice of America to China. The Greenville station is not used for transmitting radio programs to Asia but serves mostly Cuba, South America, and Africa. It is, however, the only remaining U.S. government-owned shortwave broadcasting facility on U.S. territory. Other BBG-operated shortwave transmitters are based abroad and leases for these stations may be terminated by foreign governments due to domestic or foreign pressure.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield

Victor Ashe has also led the fight within the nine-member presidentially-appointed bipartisan board to save broadcasts to China and Tibet from the new round of cuts proposed by the same BBG executive staff for the FY 2013 BBG budget. He received strong support from BBG’s Democratic member Michael Meehan. Another Democratic member Susan McCue also voiced strong support for continuing VOA radio broadcasts to Tibet.

Rep. David Price

In the end, even those BBG members who initially sided with the executive staff and supported the cuts voted to restore funding to continue broadcasting to Tibet and China, just as they had agreed earlier to save the Greenville facility. Some BBG members may have been persuaded to change their vote by a powerful plea from Holocaust survivor Mrs. Annette Lantos. She is a highly-respected human rights campaigner and the wife of the late Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos who was one of the strongest voices in Congress in defense of human rights around the world.

The effort to restore the original name of the Greenville station is seen as a symbolic gesture to stress bipartisan support for U.S. international broadcasting and as part of a larger fight to keep U.S. radio and television news flow to countries without free media. President John F. Kennedy dedicated the facility in 1963 and Edward R. Murrow was a member of his administration. Edward R. Murrow’s son, Casey Murrow, attended the rededication ceremony as did Congressman Jones, Victor Ashe, and International Broadcasting Bureau Director Richard Lobo.

A team of BBG/IBB executives has been pushing for ending many direct-to-home radio and TV broadcasts in favor of using the Internet even to countries like China and Cuba which censor and block online news from Western sources and from their own dissidents. Some of the BBG’s strategic planners and their private consultants have been also advocating downplaying of human rights reporting and expanding English lessons and other non-political programming as a way of reaching a larger audience.

While shortwave radio listening has been declining around the world, it is still a vital link for regime opponents in many countries and those who cannot afford the Internet or don’t want to use it to get uncensored news for fear of being monitored by the local authorities. The saving of the U.S. facility in North Carolina is seen as a challenge to some of the strategic planners at the BBG. Critics have accused the BBG and IBB executive team of mismanagement and diverting money from broadcasting to pay for their bonuses, travel, and expensive outside contractors. These executives have been rated in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) employee surveys as being the worst leaders and managers in the federal government. They have proposed in recent years the elimination of hundreds of journalistic and broadcasting positions while expanding their own bureaucratic staff. The BBG has one of the lowest employee morale among all government agencies.

Ashe has been the most outspoken BBG member demanding greater transparency and accountability at the agency. He has come out recently against the staff’s plan to merge the so-called surrogate broadcasters, which include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN). Critics describe the merger plan as a bureaucratic power grab to limit public and congressional scrutiny. Ashe has asked for public comments and listed his personal email. According to sources, he is also in favor of holding congressional hearings on the proposed merger and other plans developed by the BBG and IBB staff.

Members of Congress from both parties have always been the strongest supporters of U.S. international broadcasting, particularly to countries without free media. In the past, they have often come to the defense of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America against attempts by bureaucrats of both Republican and Democratic administrations to blunt human rights reporting and to close down various language broadcasting services in favor of questionable short-term gains.

Despite the setback on the Greenville station and broadcasts to Tibet and China, BBG/IBB executives still want to drastically reduce Voice of America English and Spanish broadcasts and to limit news to countries like the Russian Federation, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Turkey, Greece, and Georgia. We hope that both Republicans and Democrats in Congress will once again extend their protection to what is one of America’s most effective and least expensive national security and public diplomacy assets. U.S. government-funded international broadcasts are simply too important to be turned over to unaccountable bureaucrats just because they want it and hope that no one will notice. We do.

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The official BBG announcement:

BBG Rededicates The Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) rededicated its Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station on May 2 during a ceremony in Grimesland, N.C., that honored Murrow, the renowned broadcaster and director of the USIA (1961-1964), and recognized World Press Freedom Day.
Speakers included Congressman Walter Jones; Casey Murrow, son of Edward R. Murrow; BBG Governor Victor Ashe, and International Broadcasting Bureau Director Richard M. Lobo. Speaker Bios

Edward R. Murrow’s legacy as a journalist and his rich understanding of the importance of press freedom as part of the bedrock of democracy along with the key role of U.S. international broadcasting as a model of a free press will be highlighted in the ceremony to be held in the lead-up to World Press Freedom Day, May 3rd.

The transmitting station, a 24/7 broadcast facility, supports the mission of the Broadcasting Board of Governors to “inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy” through about 2,200 hours of transmissions each month.

The Murrow Transmitting Station

The Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station is the largest BBG transmission facility in the United States. It is a 24/7 shortwave facility, broadcasting about 2,200 hours each month. Over 80 percent of these transmissions are Radio Martí Spanish-language broadcasts to Cuba, and the balance is Voice of America programming to Latin America as well as VOA English, Portuguese, and French to Africa.

The station is located on 2,715 acres of land and is equipped with eight high-power shortwave transmitters, including five 500 kW and three 250 kW transmitters. The station has nearly 40 broadcast antennas in an arc around the main building to provide the maximum flexibility in reaching audiences overseas.

President John F. Kennedy formally dedicated the station on February 8, 1963, and in October 1968 it was named the “Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station” in honor of the renowned wartime broadcaster and director of the USIA.

Edward R. Murrow

Edward R. Murrow was a pioneering newsman whose distinctive baritone voice and devotion to the truth forever shaped the field of broadcast journalism. Beginning with his ever-calm reporting of the bombing of London during World War II, Murrow’s career spanned 25 years in both radio and television with CBS, then three years as director of the U.S. Information Agency.

Called the “Father of Broadcast Journalism,” Murrow began his broadcasts during the war with a matter-of-fact statement: “This…is London.” He survived the bombings, flew dozens of combat missions, and was among the first civilians to enter liberated Nazi death camps.

After the war, he hosted news and interview programs at CBS, including a 1954 broadcast that took on, and ultimately undid, the red-scare campaign of Senator Joseph McCarthy. He ended his career at CBS in 1961 when President Kennedy named him to head the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), where he brought his dedication to truth and accuracy to the field of public diplomacy. He died of cancer at 57 in 1965.

Broadcasting Board of Governors

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal government agency that oversees all U.S. civilian international broadcasting. Our networks—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’ (MBN) Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa—serve as indispensable sources of news for people who often lack access to independent information.

They inform, engage, and connect with international audiences across television, radio, Internet, and mobile devices in 59 languages in more than 100 countries.

In 2011, the BBG had one of its most successful years ever; our broadcasts reached a record 187 million people every week, up 22 million from 2010. We reach people in their languages of choice; in countries where independent journalism is limited or not available; and where governments jam broadcasts and censor the Internet. The International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) provides transmission, marketing, and program placement services for all BBG broadcast organizations.

For more information, please call 202-203-4400 or email pubaff@bbg.gov.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency, supervising all U.S. government-supported, civilian international broadcasting, whose mission is inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. BBG broadcasts reach an audience of 187 million in 100 countries. BBG networks include the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa), Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Martí).

Ordered by the nine-member Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) executive staff reluctantly published a draft of the controversial plan to merge administrative functions of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN). The executive staff omitted two charts which compared average compensation for various positions and categories of employees.

Sources told BBG Watch that BBG and IBB staffers were discussing among themselves whether these two charts should be included since they did not appear in the version of the plan already leaked and available online. In the end, they decided not to release the charts by claiming that they contain sensitive information. One top executive was quoted as saying that none of the plan should have been made public.

The BBG/IBB staff was also forced by BBG members to ask for public comments on its newly-released but censored plan. But even with this reluctant call for public input, the proposed merger of the surrogate broadcasters — whose effectiveness depends on their editorial and administrative independence — is far too risky and controversial to be left in the hands of the BBG and IBB bureaucrats who devised the plan in the first place to expand their power and to limit public and Congressional scrutiny.

The surrogate broadcasters play a vital role in the area of news and ideas that contributes to national security of the United States. Considering the fact that the same bureaucrats wanted to end Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to Tibet and VOA radio and television broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese to China, the U.S. Congress should definitely hold hearings to examine the merger proposal and other questionable actions of the BBG and IBB executive staff.

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The official BBG announcement:

BBG Seeks Views On Draft Consolidation Plan For RFE/RL, RFA, MBN

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is seeking public comment on its newly-released plan to consolidate several support functions of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and to create a single, non-profit grantee in an effort to redirect managerial savings into content, programming and newsrooms. The grantees’ support functions, such as payroll, would serve all the people working at RFE/RL, RFA and MBN, but each of these grantees would retain its unique brand and mission.

Read the Plan

In January, the Board tasked MBN President Brian Conniff, reporting to IBB Director Dick Lobo, with leading the effort to produce a grantee consolidation plan to reduce administrative duplication, foster greater communication and connectivity between reporters and use the savings for reporting teams, and to enhance programming and content creation.

Conniff assembled a task force consisting of the heads of the two other grantees and their senior staff and he discussed the resulting draft plan with the Board in April. The draft plan will be reviewed further by all Board members and discussed at a meeting of the Strategy and Budget Committee in late May.

It’s important to note that this document is a draft. Two charts that contain sensitive information were omitted.

The plan:

• Details a new organizational structure and workflows for each primary support function to be shared among the grantees;

• Determines human and financial resource requirements for a consolidated organization of these offices;

• Estimates the savings and costs once these back-office support functions of the three separate grantees are consolidated;

• Provides timelines at the macro and functional levels;

• Reduces administrative duplication and directs the savings for reporting teams, enhanced programming and content creation.

Under this plan, all brands that have been created within RFE/RL, RFA, and MBN over the past five decades would be preserved and one private, non-profit organization would be staffed to provide the administrative and technological support needed for their continued success in pursuit of their mission.

Please submit any comments by 11:59 p.m. EDT on May 22 to ConsolidationReportComment@bbg.gov .

The writer, who uses the pen name Jan Palach, was responding to questions posted earlier by another anonymous RFE/RL employee:

“Is anyone actually noticing the disaster being perpetrated against Radio Free Europe by its new management? Is anyone going to stop this madness?”

The RFE/RL journalist wrote that according to what he had been told, only four BBG Governors are likely to attend the June Board meeting in Prague. That information is subject to change and BBG members may participate in the meeting by telephone. Granted, that is not the same as being in Prague and being able to talk to RFE/RL employees. That requires getting away from the RFE/RL top management handlers who will no doubt hover over the Governors. BBG Watch received reports earlier that RFE/RL President Steven Korn tried to discourage BBG members from going to Prague. He reportedly cited the need to save money. Subsequently, he himself embarked on a number of foreign travels. There was speculation that he did not want Board members to poke around RFE/RL.

The anonymous journalist presents three theories circulating among RFE/RL employees in Prague with regard to what their management is doing and what may be the BBG’s plans regarding the future of RFE/RL. These theories do not necessarily reflect the truth, but they are symptomatic of a work force being kept in the dark and deeply unhappy with their management.

It is not likely that the Obama Administration or BBG Governors have a single master plan for RFE/RL. BBG Governors often do not agree with each other. The Board is bipartisan. Recently, some BBG members have been trying to assert their authority vis-a-vis the BBG and IBB staff and are asking difficult questions.

The BBG executive staff is a different story. They do want to keep as much control and power for themselves and to manage information reaching BBG members. Their plans change depending on what may be in their best interest at any given moment. They also look for a patron among Board members like Walter Isaacson or S. Enders Wimbush. Walter Isaacson is gone and with him went some of his grandiose plans. With BBG members becoming more inquisitive, the BBG executive staff will have a more difficult time building up their bureaucratic empire at the expense of journalism. This may potentially be good news for RFE/RL. Let’s hope it is.

We offer this opinion piece by an anonymous RFE/RL journalist for further discussion.

Does anyone care about Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty?

opinions gathered by anonymous RFE/RL journalist

Is anyone noticing what is happening at RFE/RL? That is a really good question. As I read this site, most of the attention for the past month or so has been on VOA, Tibet and China, so I do not think we on the forefront of anyone’s mind at the Governors or BBG staff. In fact, we were told on Monday that only four Governors are expected to come to Prague in June for that month’s board meeting. This is a very strong signal that at least four members of the board are not that interested in learning how their actions are affecting our work. Perhaps they are afraid to look us in the eyes, after providing us with a management team that places little value on the actual journalism we are presenting to our audiences.

As to the original questions posed I assume by one of my colleagues here at RFE/RL, I have heard three theories as to why our current management behaves the way they do.

The first is that they are truly in over their heads. Our President did some tangential work for CNN and his friend former Governor Isaacson brought him on board because he dreamed of reliving that triumph by creating a new CNN. Once he realized that competing with private news outlets was not what the U.S. taxpayers hired him for, Chairman Isaacson left, and now President Korn is left without clear instructions, and is now looking to find a new path. This would explain his recent attempts at outreach to the RFE/RL staff. If we were not too afraid to give him the advice of the collective experience of hundreds of journalists, we might be able to redirect his efforts more productively.

The second theory is that the current team was chosen to make us more compliant when it comes time to consolidate the operations of the grantees. Maybe after a year or two a senior management team that shows very little interest in our actual work, we will be so happy for the opportunity to work for someone else, that we will willingly embrace the change of management, even if it means a change in the focus of our journalism.

The third theory is the most widespread amongst my colleagues, which is unfortunate as it is the one that most affects morale. The theory goes that President Korn was brought in to close down RFE/RL, and that ignoring our output and shifting our focus from radio to the web, our stories will be lost in clutter of available information on the internet. This assumes that unfriendly governments will not be blocking access to our websites, which is a dubious assumption at best. The overriding sentiment of backers of this theory is that the U.S. Government does not want to continue to fund U.S. International Broadcasting, and they have instructed the BBG to move away from radio and TV, put all of us onto the internet to wither and die on the vine. Then when it is shown that our message is being lost, it will be easy to convince Congress that USIB is no longer needed.

Regardless of the validity of any of the above theories, my colleagues and I will continue to do our best for the audiences in our respective home countries until such a time as we are no longer needed by them or wanted by the BBG.

For the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency that runs the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and other stations broadcasting news to the world with U.S. taxpayers’ money, the public opinion that matters is mostly abroad.

These stations provide uncensored news to many countries without free media and some, specifically the Voice of America, also represent the United States — the full spectrum of American opinions — as part of VOA’s mission. These stations are not in the public diplomacy business per se, but their news reporting and the image they project adds to the overall U.S. public diplomacy message in various countries.

If you are a foreign national and the news gets out that your U.S. government employer mistreats you and takes advantage of you, it’s not a good thing for America’s reputation abroad. Journalists talk to other journalists who in turn publish what they hear from their colleagues.

If the U.S. government employer claims that its activities reflect American values and help other nations transition to media freedom and democracy, the gap between actions and words becomes even more apparent.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors executive staff has never cared about such things. They have ignored the public impact of their actions for years as they continued to exploit foreign born and U.S. visa status journalists, denied them basic rights and got away with it until now.

But the news about their mistreatment of employees is now leaking out, bad press in many countries intensifies, and court cases pile up, including one at the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. Even pro-American foreign politicians speak out in defense of journalists mistreated and exploited by the BBG. This is not the kind of public diplomacy the U.S. needs. Yet, the BBG executive staff has remained unmoved.

But the tide may be turning against the BBG managers now working for the director of the International Broadcasting Bureau Richard Lobo. The fact that BBG employees rate their managers as being the worst leaders in the entire U.S. government, as reflected in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) surveys, has caught the attention of BBG member Ambassador Victor Ashe. He started meeting with employees and urged other BBG members to do the same.

Ashe reported at the BBG meeting held last week in Miami that Board members have learned about management practices that were hidden in the closet for many years. He also said that Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine, who represented Secretary of State Clinton at the BBG meeting in Miami, made valuable suggestions on public input into the Agency’s operations. Another BBG member Susan McCue suggested that instead of cutting programs, the management should look for savings in “management.” At the same meeting, the Board reversed their staff’s recommendation to eliminate Voice of America radio broadcasts to Tibet and to close down the VOA Cantonese Service. The decision to reverse the Tibet and China cuts was announced by Governor Michael Meehan.

It appears that BBG members are finally beginning to realize that they themselves have been the victims of their own staff which has been responsible for numerous blunders, such as the proposal to end VOA radio to Tibet, but also for constantly proposing to cut programs, expanding their own bureaucracy at the expense of programming, and exploiting foreign journalists to maintain their positions and power.

The scheme devised by BBG executives involves cutting or reducing broadcasts, firing regular employees and replacing them with contractors who are paid very little, are denied basic employment benefits and can’t defend themselves effectively against abuses by the management.

Thanks to Governor Ashe’s efforts, BBG members and IBB director Richard Lobo have been hearing from some of these contractors at the Voice of America. For the first time, BBG members have met with union representatives. As Governor Ashe said, they have learned things they would rather not hear about, but things they should know. Exploitation and discrimination of foreign-born contractors was one of many topics which were discussed.

But neither employees nor their union are convinced that the current top BBG/IBB managers can be reformed. Most recently, the union representing BBG employees, AFGE Local 1812, posted an item on its website on the continuec Agency’s abuse of its J-1 Visa status journalists. It reads:

“Every so often there is case that so perfectly illustrates the mistreatment of employees committed by the BBG/IBB/VOA management that it needs to be told. The way this management has mistreated people that they brought into this country via the inappropriate use of the J-1 Visa process (known for good reason as the “nanny visa”) is appalling. Unfortunately the example below is not a singular case. There have been others that this management has sent packing in a similar manner. These former employees now have a very low opinion of the United States Government; if not America itself (although it needs to be pointed out that Sumaira has not indicated any ill will towards anyone at this point). I believe that the BBG/IBB/VOA management, by treating their J-1 Visa holders the way they do, turn these once enthusiastic promoters of America and our values into less than enthusiastic admirers of this country. In this way the management under the BBG undermines the Voice of America’s purpose, at least to the extent that we are supposed to promote good will towards this country and our ideals. I cannot vouch for everything she states but I can state that when the head of the H.R. office was asked what would have happened if Sumaira left the country when she was first informed that her visa had expired, she me told that there would not have been a reconsideration appeal because the Agency would not sponsor her to bring her back. In addition, the deciding official who heard Sumaira’s appeal did not sign the decision letter. One has to wonder why. I was a witness to Sumaira’s appeal and believe a third party decision maker would have thrown out the Agency’s allegations completely. Read Sumaira’s account by clicking on the title of this story.” Agency Abuse of J-1 Visa

Snjezana Pelivan is suing RFE/RL and BBG at the European Court of Human Rights

Then there is the longstanding discrimination of foreign-born journalists employed as contractors by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty at their headquarters in Prague, the Czech Republic. The Broadcasting Board of Governors executives devised a scheme of depriving these journalists of the protections they could receive under the current Czech labor law. That way they can fire them at will without any explanation and they can do that — they claim — under the communist-era rules that exempted certain foreign employers (It used to be Soviet companies in communist-run Czechoslovakia.) from some of the local laws and regulations.

This cynical abuse of the Czech legal system by the BBG has been a public diplomacy disaster abroad for the United States, but somehow it escaped the attention of most U.S. media and U.S. public officials.

Anna Karapetian is suing RFE/RL in Czech courts

This scandal has, however, been reported on widely by foreign media in some of the countries where RFE/RL operates. One case of a former RFE/RL employee Snjezana Pelivan has reached the European Court of Human Rights. Another case filed by an Armenian journalist Anna Karapetian is being reviewed by the courts in the Czech Republic. Both plaintiffs are women. They claim they were denied the protections of the Czech labor law because they were foreigners employed and then dismissed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. RFE/RL was merely following personnel policies set by BBG executives.

The husband of one of the women, himself a distinguished former RFE/RL editor and commentator, wrote a letter about the impact of this BBG policy on America’s image abroad. He provided a list of foreign media titles highly negative toward the United States as they reported on these court cases. The letter was addressed to the newly sworn in Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine.  The author of the letter Lev Roitman is the husband of Snjezana Pelivan whose case against RFE/RL and the BBG is pending before the European Court of Human Rights.  Roitman is a former RFE/RL senior commentator. He retired in 2005,after thirty years with RFE/RL in New York, Munich, and Prague.

“Please accept my congratulations on your confirmation by Senate as the next Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy. Hopefully, you will achieve better results for the United States than the kaleidoscope of your predecessors in that position.

 

In particular, the Secretary of State serves ex officio as a member of BBG and of RFE/RL’s

Board of Directors. You will represent her in that critical segment of U.S. public diplomacy.

For your predecessors, it was just a ceremonial and burdensome chore. The results of such a “leadership” (to use a politically correct word) are devastating to American image abroad.

 

Enclosed please find an Open Letter

At Broadcasting Board of Governors and Radio Free Europe/Liberty –Public Diplomacy is Public Scandal at Public Expense

It was delivered in hard copies to the listed addresses. On January 24th, the Open Letter was published and widely multiplied by Internet.

 

On January 27th, Mr. Walter Isaacson resigned as the BBG Chairman. Otherwise, nothing changed since then. Just the list of scandalous for the United States international publications (follows) grew longer. It is your task now to stop that cancerous grows of negative publicity.

 

I wish you real achievements in public diplomacy. You may start by confronting the self-serving BBG bureaucracy — for immediate benefit to our country.

 

“Abbreviated List of international publications (in Czech, Serbo-Croatian, English, Russian, Armenian, etc.) condemning RFE/RL discriminative personnel policies practiced in the Czech Republic”:

“At Broadcasting Board of Governors and Radio Free Europe/Liberty –

Public Diplomacy is Public Scandal at Public Expense,” 

“Snjezana Pelivan asks Croatian government to support her legal claim in Strasbourg,” 

“’Prague winter’ for USA’s Radio Free Europe/Liberty,”

“A Spectre (ghost) Haunts ‘Free Europe’ ,”

“A Letter from Prague: Two Women Fighting to Uphold America’s Principles at America’s Radio,”

“Samizdat at Radio Free Europe/ Liberty describes discrimination against foreigners, women,”

“American Radio Free Europe violates equal rights of its foreign employees in Prague,”

“U.S.-Funded Radio Free Europe Invokes Communist Law to Violate the Will of Congress,”

“American RFE/RL Fights in Courts against Armenian Journalist. And Scores Against America,”

“From RFE/RL: Immorality as a Matter of Policy,”

“Czech Court Rules Against RFE/RL in Suit by Dismissed Armenian Employee,”

“In handcuffs of ‘Liberty’,”

“Czech Court to American Radio Free Europe: No Use for U.S. Laws in the Czech Republic.         Hillary Clinton Will Not Be Asked to Testify,”

“Czech Court Rules RFE/RL Cannot Discriminate Against Its Own Foreign Journalists,”

“Radio Liberty Betrays Its Ideals,”

“Czech Supreme Court Rules Against Radio Free Europe. Karapetian’s Case Returned for New Consideration”,

“It’s the Morality, Stupid,”

“Radio Free Europe – Task for Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg,”

“Radio Free Europe – Guantanamo in Prague,”

“Armenian journalist appeals to Obama to Protect Rights of Foreign Journalists at U.S. Government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,”  

“Equality With Precondition. Practice of Free Europe Contradicts Its Ideals,”

“U.S. Attorney General is Asked to Investigate Fraud at RFE/RL,”

“Doomsday of Radio Liberty. From Double Standards to Double Morals?”

“A Sense of Betrayal,”

“Czech Politician Accuses U.S. of Discrimination Against Foreign Journalists,”

“On Air in Legal Vacuum,”

“Czech MP Writes to U.S. Counterparts Over Work Conditions in RFE/RL,”

”New Administration Must Undo RFE/RL Anti-Diplomacy Abroad,”

“BBG, RFE/RL: Bring Public Diplomats Instead of Public Bureaucrats,”

“Don’t Feed Kremlin’s Public Diplomacy With U.S. Public Hypocrisy,”

“Public Disaster Instead of Public Diplomacy,”

“Cases of Karapetian and Pelivan as Morality Check for Obama Administration. Radio Free Europe to Face European Court of Human Rights,”

“Czech MP Questions Pelivan Case,”

“Czech Sovereignty Ends at RFE/RL,”

“At Radio Free Europe/Liberty, Bulk of Discriminated Employees is Muslims. Hillary Clinton Serves on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Board of Directors,”

“Free Europe With Its Own Laws in Colonial Czech Republic?”  

“From Human Rights Show to Human Rights Court,”

“Prague Spring Leads to Strasbourg,”

”News Flashes From Radio Free/Radio Liberty. The Face of America Abroad,”

“Czech senator angry about Croat’s lawsuit”… “

Send an email to BBG member Victor Ashe

Often referred to as a senior Republican member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Ambassador Victor Ashe has invited the public, including BBG employees and contractors, to send comments to his personal email address, Send an e-mail to BBG member Victor Ashe, on the controversial plan to merge BBG-managed Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) into a single administrative unit.

Ashe has become a champion of transparency and raising employee morale at the federal agency which oversees U.S. international broadcasting. He is one of nine members serving on the bipartisan Board. In the absence of Michael Lynton, the BBG’s interim presiding governor, the meeting in Miami was presided over by Governor Dennis Mulhaupt. Governor Dana Perino was also absent. Both Lynton and Perino have a poor attendance record at BBG meetings. Lynton is a Democrat. Mulhaupt and Perino are Republicans.

Victor Ashe

While the open meeting of the Board on Friday at the headquarters of Radio and TV Marti in Miami was chaired by Governor Mulhaupt, Governors Victor Ashe and Michael Meehan clearly dominated the discussion. On-demand video and audio from the meeting is available on the BBG official website.

Ashe, who in addition to serving as U.S. ambassador to Poland was earlier the mayor of Knoxville, TN and is the most experienced public official on the Board, called attention to a number of unresolved issues in the proposal to merge the publicly funded surrogate broadcasters who get their grants from Congress through the BBG. He expressed concerns about the lack of information on the selection and the authority of the CEO for the merged entity. Ashe warned that rushing to implement the plan in its current form may damage U.S. international broadcasting and said that he would oppose the idea of selecting the CEO for the proposed entity as early as next month.

At one point Ashe was interrupted by another Republican member S. Enders Wimbush with whom he has had disagreements on various BBG issues. Ashe managed to introduce a parliamentary maneuver to divide the merger proposal motion into three separate questions and voted against an early selection of outside contractors to help implement the plan which has not yet been fully discussed and approved. He explained why he voted “no” by saying “I’m not comfortable with this, and I just don’t have enough information.” Ashe asked for a complete documentation of how the proposed merger can produce $10 million in savings. He also disclosed that the heads of broadcasting entities have reservations about the Global News Network. The network functioning as a news agency aggregating news content from all BBG entities was an idea of the former BBG chairman Walter Isaacson who suddenly resigned earlier this year. Critics have described the Global News Network as redundant and lacking a target audience.

Michael Meehan

Also raising reservations at the meeting in Miami about the proposed merger was BBG Democratic member Michael Meehan. Meehan is not opposed to streamlining BBG administrative operations, but he expressed concerns that a partial merger will only divert resources from other urgent BBG business without achieving desired results. Meehan believes that these resources would be better used for a comprehensive merger of U.S. international broadcasting operations involving all BBG entities.

Another BBG Democratic member Susan McCue disagreed with Meehan on proceeding with only the partial merger. She is working on a legislative proposal which she described as “U.S. Broadcasting Innovation Act.” She said that the proposed administrative merger of the three grantee organizations would help with the passage of the proposed legislation. She has not disclosed any details of her legislative proposal and has not invited public comments.

Meehan supported Ashe on the reversal of the proposed elimination of Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to China, the closing down in FY 2013 of the VOA Cantonese Service providing radio, TV and Internet content, and reductions in Radio Free Asia broadcasts. At the BBG meeting in Miami, Meehan announced the decision to reject the earlier recommendations of the BBG executive staff on cuts in broadcasting to China by VOA and RFA.

S. Enders Wimbush

It is believed that S. Enders Wimbush, a strong supporter of ending Voice of America radio and television broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese to China, helped to push through the earlier staff recommendations which were rejected at the meeting in Miami. After a storm of criticism from human rights organizations and members of Congress, some BBG governors claimed that their executive staff did not brief them sufficiently on the FY2013 budget proposal for China and did not provide adequate public input.

Victor Ashe spoke at length at the meeting about the benefits of involving the public and major stakeholders in the discussions and cited President Obama’s statement in support of transparency in government. He urged BBG members not to rush major decisions on issues such as broadcasting to China and Tibet and the merger of the surrogate broadcasters. He suggested that the Board allocate more time for discussion and questions at future meetings.

Critics of the merger plan worry that if implemented in its current form it would undermine independence and effectiveness of the surrogate broadcasters as well diminish public and Congressional scrutiny over U.S. international broadcasting. They also fear that area experts and other professionals currently running these broadcasters will be replaced by International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) bureaucrats who have devised the merger plan and made recommendations to limit broadcasting to Tibet, China and other countries without free media. Some critics have described the merger plan as a power grab by BBG and IBB executives who don’t like Congressional oversight.

Referring to the interim report on the proposed merger, which was prepared by an inside working group led by MBN head Brian Conniff, Victor Ashe said that he looks forward to hearing comments from the public when the document is posted on the official BBG website. It was suggested at the meeting that the report will be posted by May 1, but an unofficial copy of the interim report is already available online.

At the open meeting in Miami, Ashe said that Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine, who has been recently confirmed by the Senate and represents Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at BBG meetings, made valuable suggestions to BBG members about the importance of public input into government decision-making process.

Ashe asked the public to share their suggestions with him by sending them to his personal email address:

“I would encourage everyone who is listening, talk to your friends and share this among them once it goes on the website. It is an official document. It’s not a bootleg document. And share your ideas with us.

If you want to share them personally with me, my email is: vhashe@aol.com.

I’m more than happy to hear from you. I’m only one member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. My views only reflect myself. But if you want me to share whatever you send to me with my colleagues, I will more than happily do it.

But again, we want this process to be open, transparent — all the stakeholders at the table. And if we do that in good faith, in good conscience, at the end of the day — whatever the outcome is, wherever the vote falls — we will have a better product. We will have more of buying-in by the process than if we don’t.”

To demonstrate his commitment to transparency, Ashe disclosed at the open meeting the cost of his recent trip to Asia (between $7,000 and $7,500), during which he visited BBG radio transmission facilities and held discussions with U.S. embassy personnel and government officials in Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. He said that he was the first BBG member visiting Laos in an official capacity. Laos has a communist-run government and government-controlled media. Ashe, who supports continued VOA and RFA shortwave radio broadcasts to Laos, noted the extensive Chinese economic presence and influence in the country.

Ashe also spoke about an unprecedented meeting the BBG’s Governance Committee had in March with representatives of the employee unions and contractors. Ashe was an early supporter of establishing this kind of dialogue to improve employee morale at the BBG, which is among the worst in the entire federal government. He has met personally with a number of employee groups. Speaking about the March meeting with the unions and contractors, Ashe said that it was difficult:

“We heard things we did not want to hear, but we heard things that we all agree we should hear. And I think that the result of it is that now a number of these issues are now on the table. It’s no longer hidden. It’s not in the closet. And we’re discussing them openly.”

Annette Lantos with her husband Congressman Tom Lantos

Ashe also paid tribute to Annette Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, whose recent plea in defense of Voice of America broadcasts to China, Tibet and Russia may have contributed to the BBG’s reversal of some of the broadcasting cuts. He recalled that in 2005 as U.S. Ambassador to Poland he accompanied the late Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos and his wife Annette Lantos when they visited the site of the former Nazi death camp in Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation.

Ashe also announced that Edward R. Murrow’s only son, Charles Casey Murrow, will participate in the the rededication ceremony at the BBG Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina, in honor of the renowned broadcaster and director of the USIA (1961-1964) and in recognition of World Press Freedom Day. Ashe and Congressman Walter Jones (R – NC) also plan to attend the event. The BBG and IBB executive staff wanted to close down the facility, but Ashe insisted that the only remaining shortwave transmitting station on U.S. territory remain open.

During the meeting in Miami, BBG governors also stressed the importance of U.S. broadcasting to Latin America, but it is not clear what they plan to do about their FY 2013 budget proposal to eliminate several positions in the Voice of America Spanish Service. There was no mention at the open meeting about the FY 2013 budget proposal to eliminate dozens of VOA newsroom and English broadcasting positions and cuts and reductions in other VOA programs, including VOA Georgian, Turkish, and Greek broadcasts.

The merger plan is highly controversial. Critics of the plan argue that the surrogate broadcasters have been successful in large part due to their independence and regional specialization. These broadcasters were established by various U.S. administrations and the U.S. Congress to operate independently. Their independence has always been viewed as their greatest asset in serving information needs of people living in countries without free media.

Here are some of the major points made by the critics of the merger:

Bureaucrats and bureaucratic generalists will replace professionals who are experts on their target countries and regions and care deeply about their specific missions.

There are strong concerns that BBG and IBB executives want to take control over the surrogate broadcasters and to limit public and Congressional scrutiny.

The same BBG and IBB executives who drafted the merger proposal also wanted to end radio and television broadcasts to Tibet and proposed other cuts to U.S. international broadcasting while protecting and expanding their bureaucratic operations. Due to overwhelming public criticism, the Board rejected their proposed programming cuts to Tibet and China.

The proposed merger could become an administrative disaster if the same officials are in charge of implementing the plan and are put in charge of the new administrative structure.

The projected savings are questionable and the final costs of the merger could be much higher due to expected administrative complications resulting from the merger.

It is unclear how the new CEO would be selected.

The role of the International Broadcasting Bureau with its director, deputy director and a growing number of highly-paid officials is not explained in the merger proposal.

A reform of IBB could achieve much greater savings for U.S. taxpayers without undermining the independence and effectiveness of the surrogate broadcasters.

IBB executives are wasting millions of dollars and pay themselves high bonuses despite being rated in OPM employee opinion surveys as the worst leaders and managers in the entire federal government. Putting them in charge of the merger represent a serious risk to U.S. international broadcasting assets which are also national security assets.

The BBG is also planning to waste millions of dollars on the redundant Global News Network.

Even individual BBG members have strong misgivings about the merger plan and the Global News Network.

Heads of some of the surrogate broadcasters have also expressed strong misgivings about the merger plan. They fear that the plan will make their organizations much less effective.

The official BBG announcement says:

“The consolidation would combine certain behind-the-scenes functions at the media outlets supported by grants from the BBG — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. The top management of these grantees, together with key BBG senior staff, teamed up to produce a plan based on directions from the Board in a resolution passed in January. Their work will be reviewed by all Board members and discussed at a meeting of the Strategy and Budget Committee in late May. The interim report is to be posted for public comment by May 1.”

The interim report can be viewed here: Click to View

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2012

Broadcasting Board of Governors Should Stay True to Their Mandate Not Only in China and Tibet

CUSIB/New York, NY — The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) has been vindicated by the action of Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) who approved a plan to restore funding in the FY 2013 budget request that the BBG proposed to cut earlier this year for U.S. international broadcasting to China and Tibet.

CUSIB applauds efforts by its members to bring this important issue to the attention of the American public. We are also deeply grateful to Mrs. Annette Lantos, a Holocaust survivor and human rights campaigner, who made a powerful plea to the Broadcasting Board of Governors in defense of Voice of America programs to China, Tibet, and Russia. CUSIB also thanks its Advisory Board members Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, and Jing Zhang, founder and president of Women’s Rights in China, for their efforts to show how VOA and Radio Free Asia (RFA) radio and television broadcasts help women in China who are victims of human rights abuses.

CUSIB Executive Director Ann Noonan stated: “Although we appreciate today’s decision by the BBG to restore Voice of America (VOA) Tibetan radio broadcasts and the Voice of America Cantonese Service, we remain concerned about how Voice of America English to Asia radio broadcasts and Voice of America Spanish and English radio, television and Internet to Latin America will be affected. We also remain concerned that the BBG executive staff ignored the message sent to them by Congress last year when they attempted to reallocate resources away from Voice of America broadcasting services and cut the jobs of their journalists committed to serving information needs of people living in countries without free media. The U.S. Congress had told the BBG in no uncertain terms that they were on the wrong course. This is not a battle we want to wage each year, and we would like to remain hopeful that the BBG will review its mission statement and use its resources wisely.”

“CUSIB would like to go on the record as opposing the proposed administrative merger of the surrogate broadcasters in its current form as undermining their independence, effectiveness and accountability to Congress and the American people,” stated CUSIB Director and co-founder Ted Lipien. “If the BBG is going to embrace internal administrative reform at its executive level, then CUSIB would strongly support increased funding from Congress for China, Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America. If wisely managed, U.S. international broadcasting represents the best investment for U.S. national security interests. But we are concerned that the same officials who wanted to reduce broadcasts to Tibet and China using faulty research are also in charge of the proposed merger of the surrogate broadcasters and make unfounded claims about its benefits and presumed savings while pushing to limit public ownership and scrutiny over these and other operations,” Lipien said.

CUSIB supports the ongoing efforts of BBG member Ambassador Victor Ashe to protect the pro-media freedom and human rights mission of the Voice of America and the surrogate broadcasters and their journalists, especially his call for a continuation of U.S. radio broadcasting to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

CUSIB also concurs with the remarks by BBG member Michael Meehan as stated in the BBG’s official announcement: “China’s highly competitive media market and its government’s aggressive jamming of BBG content are long-standing challenges. Beijing blocks media of many kinds and aggressively stifles free expression, especially in regions where dissent continues to arise in the open, such as Tibet. While the Board understands the reality of the current budget environment, it also perceives a pressing need for the news and information that we provide to be seen and heard across China and Tibet.”

CUSIB awaits similar action from the BBG about the fate of other broadcasting services that also face unjustified cuts and reductions, including Voice of America Spanish, Georgian, Turkish, and Greek, among others, as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) broadcasts to the Russian Federation, and how a careful review of how the BBG and its International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) spend their resources might be able to save those programs and also save money for U.S. taxpayers.

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) is an independent, nongovernmental organization which supports free flow of uncensored news from the United States to countries without free media.

For further information, please contact:
The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB)
New York, New York

Ann Noonan, co-founder and Executive Director
Tel. 646-251-6069

Ted Lipien, co-founder and Director
Tel. 415-793-1642
Email: contact@cusib.org
www.cusib.org

Iron work of Che Guevara on the Interior Ministry building, which overlooks Revolution Square in Havana, Cuba.

Members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors Strategy and Budget Committee may be concerned about the mess their executive staff has gotten them into with the FY 2013 budget proposals to eliminate Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasting to Tibet, the VOA Cantonese Service and VOA Spanish positions and broadcasts, but whether they intend to do anything about it remains to be seen. With the Broadcasting Board of Governors scheduled to meet on Friday, April 20 at the headquarters of Radio and TV Marti in Miami, Florida, the decimation of the Voice of America Spanish Service and the full blown retreat from Latin America could turn into a major political embarrassment.

As the BBG reduces its already minimal broadcasting and news and information service to Latin America, Iran has launched Spanish-language satellite TV, which will broadcast Iranian news, documentaries, and movies 24 hours a day.

BBG executives, however, have their mind set on creating English-language Global News Network (GNN), a news agency that would aggregate already existing news content from the Voice of America and the BBG’s surrogate broadcasters such as Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). They plan to pay for this project by slashing broadcasting to Tibet, China and Latin America. They also plan to decimate the Voice of America English broadcasts and eliminate or reduce several other VOA news and broadcasting services. Critics have called GNN “Global Nothing Network” and described it as redundant and lacking a target audience. The idea for GNN reportedly came from the former BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson who resigned earlier this year. Prior to his departure, BBG/IBB executives awarded a $50,000,000 audience research contract to Gallup even as they were preparing drastic cuts in broadcasting operations that the research was supposed to support.

Our sources tell us that at the April 10 meeting of the Strategy and Budget Committee Governor Victor Ashe tried to get the other committee members to recommend a reversal of the cuts in broadcasting to various countries, including China and Tibet, but he could not get a clear response from Governors Michael Meehan and Enders Wimbush. Presiding Governor Michael Lynton did not attend the April 10 meeting.

Our sources have provided us with this segment of the preliminary minutes dealing with Latin America. They suggest another bureaucratic delaying tactic.

“Latin America Strategy
 
• The Committee noted the reports of the VOA Director, the OCB representative (Mr. Irv Rubenstein) and the Director of the IBB Office of Strategy and Development (Mr. Bruce Sherman) concerning developments in BBG-sponsored Cuban and Latin American broadcasting.
 
• The Committee strongly recommends that BBG continue to provide news and information services to the Latin American region, which is an area of critical foreign policy interest to the United States and, in particular, to those Latin American countries where press freedom is restricted or under undue pressure.
 
• Noting the proposed budget cuts for the VOA Spanish Service, the Committee requests that the IBB Director work closely with the VOA and OCB Directors to develop a plan to leverage the news and reporting assets of VOA and OCB for reporting to Cuba and Latin America, using Miami as the hub for the April 2012 Board meeting.  The plan should comply with legal requirements concerning the “separate administration” of VOA and OCB.”

The BBG and IBB executive staff has proposed severe cuts in the Voice of America Spanish-language operations. Under the euphemistic title “Redefine the Spanish Service” of the Voice of America, BBG/IBB executives plan to cut the VOA Spanish Service budget by $1.257 million and to eliminate 14 positions. This proposal would effectively kill any VOA broadcasting and most of news coverage to Latin America.

“Redefine the Spanish Service [–$1.257 M]

VOA’s Spanish Service will redefine its strategic focus and operational requirements. Under this proposal it will provide ―Washington Bureau and other U.S. coverage as well as the ―VOA Direct news and information service for affiliate radio and television stations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Six journalists will work at VOA headquarters in Washington, four journalist positions will be relocated to Miami and New York, and 14 positions will be eliminated. Miami- based VOA staff will be based at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting to provide original content, provide editorial control and contacts with VOA stringers in the U.S. and the region, and identify OCB stringer reports from Latin America for use in VOA output. New York reporters will cover U.S. economic, financial, political, and social stories.”

As the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) prepares to eliminate the Voice of America brand name from many strategically important countries and entire regions, it is still planning to introduce yet another brand name to confuse even further international audiences which have no idea what the BBG stands for, literally and in terms of its mission.

The destruction of the Voice of America broadcasting brand name continues to be a real threat. This idea is pushed hard on BBG members by the Broadcasting Board of Governors and International Broadcasting Bureau executive staff.

The BBG’s Strategy and Budget Committee meeting, which took place on April 10, 2012 at BBG Headquarters, confirmed plans for the launching of a Global News Network as a key element of BBG strategy. But Governors Michael Meehan and Enders Wimbush, who co-chaired the proceedings, would not agree to drop the plan to silence Voice of America Tibetan radio broadcasts and to end all VOA Cantonese radio, television and Internet production. They still seem to believe that GNN English language global news agency is more important than broadcasting in Cantonese and Tibetan to China and Tibet.

Sources have told BBG Watch that Governor Victor Ashe, who was also in attendance, tried to get Governors Meehan and Wimbush to reverse the earlier BBG decision to kill VOA Tibetan radio, the VOA Cantonese Service and broadcasts to several other communist and authoritarian-ruled nations, including Vietnam and Laos. Ashe later told the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) that it is still unclear whether the Committee will agree with his view and recommend the reversal of China, Tibet and other cuts. CUSIB quoted Ashe as saying: “I cannot say the full committee agreed or disagreed. It is unclear. However, what I think is clear is that Congress will not allow this cut to take place.” (Governor Michael Lynton was not in attendance at the April 10 committee meeting.)

Aggregating content from various BBG broadcasting entities may be a good idea for internal exchange and cross-use where appropriate, but creating a new news agency run by the U.S. federal government seems completely nonsensical.

There are already many independent global news agencies. The strength of U.S. international broadcasting is in the Voice of America brand name, which is unique and will attract audiences because of what the name represents to the rest of the world. Its strength is also in the highly-specialized and highly-targeted output from the surrogate broadcasters such as Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). They produce country and region specific news, not global news, and have specific audiences.

The BBG strategists want the money for developing the Global News Network to come from eliminating the Voice of America radio broadcasts to Tibet, VOA Cantonese radio, TV and Internet, and from severely reducing VOA English, VOA Spanish, VOA Georgian, VOA Turkish and other VOA programs. They also plan to take money from the surrogate broadcasters by reducing their broadcasts to countries without free media.

Specialization of news production has always been the greatest strength of various USIB entities. The BBG/IBB strategists/globalists want to eliminate it to put themselves in charge. They know very little about various countries and regions. We can only imagine what the end result will be when the money and resources are taken away from the professionals who care about their countries and mission and given to this group of bureaucrats.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors already has too many brand names. Creating yet another one — a global news agency run by the U.S. federal government — makes absolutely no sense at all when there is already the Voice of America. But, of course, the BBG strategists are working hard to eliminate VOA from as many countries as possible. They should keep in mind, however, that the Voice of America brand name does not belong to them. It belongs to the American people. The U.S. Congress needs reaffirm its oversight role and prevent this group of BBG bureaucrats from destroying an institution that is vital to U.S. national security.

###

We received from our sources the following notes from the April 10 BBG Strategy and Budget Committee meeting.

Reaffirming the BBG Strategy: One Organization, Many Brands & Global News Network
 
• That the Committee confirms the plenary Board’s  October 2011 decision, which described the launching of a Global News Network as a key element of BBG strategy.  The Board’s decision states:
 

• “The Board will endeavor to harness the agency’s original reporting now spread across 59 different language services to power an unprecedented Web-based global newsroom. The Global News Network will aggregate content from the agency’s regional divisions and distribute branded news products – radio, television, website, social media/engagement, and enterprise products – for use by Voice of America, Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.”

• The Committee discussed implementation of a proposed news aggregation website … as well as comments and concerns of each of the entity heads concerning the proposed site.  

• The Committee requested to review a copy of … plan for developing a news aggregation site, including its intra-USIB and public-facing components, at the April 2012 Board meeting.  
 
• The Committee requested that the IBB Director present a prototype of the proposed aggregation website (including the widget directing BBG internet-traffic to an outward facing aggregation site) at the April 2012 Board meeting.

BBG's chief strategist Bruce Sherman at BBG Gallup audience research panel

Why is the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) trying to silence Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to Tibet when Tibetan Buddhist monks are self-immolating to shock the conscience of the world and the Chinese government is increasing its repression of the Tibetan people and their culture? Why are the Voice of America Cantonese Service and many other VOA brand-names, including VOA English and VOA Spanish, being put on the chopping block by the BBG when China and even Iran are expanding their radio and television broadcasts around the world, including Latin America?

The answer to these questions was provided recently by the BBG’s chief strategist in an important article posted on one of the BBG’s websites.  Because of its significance, we are providing a link to Mr. Bruce Sherman’s article and reposting it at the end of our commentary. He holds the position of  the Director of  the BBG Office of Strategy and Development.

In a display of unlimited confidence, Mr.  Sherman explained that his federal agency can change brand-names at will. No name or institution is safe.  Even those that have been around for more than 70 years, have Congressional mandates and are closely associated around the world with America and its support for freedom can be erased and silenced overnight.

“Where our brands resonate with audiences, we want to preserve them. Where they don’t, we have the flexibility to invent new ones. Radio Sawa (‘together’ in Arabic) helped us rebrand our efforts in the Middle East and reach millions of new listeners.” — Bruce Sherman —  The BBG: One Organization, Many Brands

This is how the Director of the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Strategy and Development described the elimination a few years back of Voice of America (VOA) Arabic broadcasts and the banning of the VOA brand-name from the Middle East by the BBG. Mr. Sherman did not elaborate further that the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ decision to kill these broadcasts and their brand-name was based on audience research showing that words like “America” and “American” were disliked in the region.

Using the same logic,  the United States should not have used the “Voice of America” name to call its radio station established during World War II to broadcast news to Nazi Germany. It should have used a more neutral one. Perhaps a name like “Radio Together with Music” would have been less offensive to most citizens of Hitler’s Germany, who after all overwhelmingly supported their leader and viewed America as an enemy until almost the end of World War II.

In his article, Mr. Sherman overlooks an important fact that the American people and the U.S. Congress have always wanted the Voice of America to provide news and hope to those who are the most silenced and the most oppressed.

These audiences are often condemned to censorship and silence not only by their governments but also by the majority of their countrymen fed on regime propaganda. And yet, these marginalized groups that the BBG wants to abandon in its pursuit of a mass audience often produce the most influential intellectual and political leaders in support of freedom.

Think of Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22 February 1943), a German student active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was executed and widely condemned by the vast majority of Germans at the time of her death. The Voice of America brand-name surely did not resonate well with those who cheered her death sentence.

Chen Guangcheng (born November 12, 1971), an illegally detained civil rights activist in the People’s Republic of China, and Liu Xiaobo, an imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate, belong to the same category of officially marginalized activists and intellectual figures for whom the Voice of America was established more than seventy years ago. They are not likely to receive news through the Internet. The VOA Mandarin and Cantonese websites are in any case effectively blocked by the Chinese cyber police, especially in prisons, labor camps and for those kept under house arrest like Chen Guangcheng and his family.

Chen Guangcheng with his family

Yet, the BBG strategists wanted to do away with the VOA Mandarin and Cantonese shortwave radio and satellite television broadcasts and to rely on Internet only. Their great idea for getting a mass online audience is to  promote English lessons with high school juvenile humor, which while being both creative and popular are ignored by the Chinese censors because they are unthreatening to the regime.

Mr. Sherman would no doubt point out that the agency planned to continue Mandarin and Cantonese radio news broadcasts on Radio Free Asia (RFA), also managed by the BBG. RFA is a “surrogate” broadcaster performing a very important function but was not created to represent the United States by providing American viewpoints. It was created to provide internal Chinese dissident viewpoints delivered by independent Chinese journalists. Two different missions, both equally important.

Still, Mr. Sherman’s commissioned research shows that  the RFA’s brand-name resonates even less well with audiences in China. Should it also be killed and replaced with something more neutral, perhaps even more neutral than VOA once the VOA radio and TV brand-name is also eliminated? The U.S. Congress needs to step in and stop this before it goes any further.

Liu Xiaobo

What is then the real reason for killing the best-known American international radio brand-name in China? The real reason — we suspect — is a bureaucratic desire to take control over U.S. international broadcasting away from the American people, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

It’s not about saving money when budgets are tight. The BBG and its bureaucratic arm — the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) — are wasting U.S. taxpayers’ money right and left.

It’s not about moving to new Internet platforms, which as everyone knows are inexpensive and often free, and which VOA and other U.S. international broadcasters have already been using and expanding their use for many years. It is about preserving and creating new bureaucratic jobs by eliminating critical international news programs.

It is about firing close to 300 journalists and program support staffers so that the BBG can give a 50 million dollar audience research contract to the Gallup Organization.

Gallup has already reported to the BBG that the majority of people in China think that their media are free. This kind of finding is hardly worth millions of dollars. But the VOA Tibetan radio service and the VOA Cantonese news services are to be eliminated to pay for this kind of research in China.

What’s the point of doing questionable research in support of disappearing programs?

Much of what Mr. Sherman writes in his article are conclusions based on similar research findings consisting of only half-truths. Mr. Sherman claims for example that millions of new listeners were reached in the Middle East with the new Radio Sawa brand-name.

It is true that millions of new listeners came to the station over the years. But what Mr. Sherman fails to explain is that the BBG is now paying millions of dollars each year to put music-heavy Sawa programs on local FM and regional AM transmitters — something it had not done for Voice of America Arabic programs. If the same millions have been spent on the production and especially local FM distribution of the old VOA Arabic broadcasts, millions of new listeners also could have been gained for a much more substantive news and information on an American-brand radio and website.

In fact, the audience research data which Sherman swears by is highly misleading and practically useless for countries like China, where people are too afraid to give honest answers to politically sensitive survey questions. Yet, on the basis of this kind of research in highly repressed nations, which may show that broadcaster “A” has 0.1% weekly rating and broadcaster “B” has only 0.04%, the BBG makes strategic decisions to kill brand-names that have been around for 70 years and represent America, its institutions and its values.

How can any sane person make such decisions on the basis of a fraction of one percent difference when the margin of error in this kind of survey can be 3 to 5 percent and more? How can a survey conducted among Tibetan refugees in Nepal be used to prove that VOA Tibetan satellite TV programs should continue but VOA Tibetan radio programs should be eliminated when everyone knows that the Chinese authorities rigorously control private ownership of satellite dishes?

“Where our brands resonate with audiences, we want to preserve them. Where they don’t, we have the flexibility to invent new ones.”

What it means is the flexibility to decide what brand-names resonate with BBG’s International Broadcasting Bureau’s officials  who want to have greater control of U.S. international broadcasting resources. They want the power to kill brand-names, to show incomplete and unreliable research data to BBG members, and to get them to approve their decisions.

Tibetans, victims of human rights abuses in China will be ignored if it means saving the IBB’s bureaucratic jobs, giving $10,000  bonuses to its top executives, allowing them to travel around the world at taxpayers’ expense, and giving them the power to distribute multi-million-dollar contracts. All this for being rated in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) government-wide employee opinion surveys as being the worst leaders and managers in the federal bureaucracy. Should the U.S. Congress give even more power to this group of bureaucrats held in such low esteem by their own employees who are experts on their own countries and regions?

If that happens, the U.S. Congress, which had created the Voice of America and gave it its Charter and its mandate, will be ignored as well.

The BBG’s own data show that there is little strategic vision in BBG’s strategic planning.  Afghanistan and the Middle East are important, but strategically China represents the greatest  and the fastest growing public diplomacy challenge for the United States. And yet,  the BBG’s per capita spending on China is 39 times less than in Afghanistan, 29 times less than in the Middle East, 18 times less than in Iran, eight times less than in Tajikistan.

A BBG member Michael Meehan pointed out recently that the Chinese spend 6.6 billion dollars a year doing what the BBG is doing. (The BBG’s annual budget is about $750 million.) If there is not enough money, which is clearly the case, the last thing BBG members should be doing is giving more money to their bureaucrats and allowing them to eliminate programs to Tibet and China. This can hardly be based on any kind of strategic thinking.

But perhaps it is be unreasonable to expect BBG and IBB bureaucrats to propose eliminating their own positions to absorb budget cuts. The bureaucrats  will always push for cutting programs and jobs of journalists and broadcasters. That’s why BBG members have a responsibility to protect these important broadcasts. And yet they have failed to exercise this duty. They have given away their powers to Presidentially-appointed IBB Director Richard Lobo, his deputy Jeff Trimble and to Director Sherman.

Among BBG members, Ambassador Victor Ashe seems to be the only one speaking out publicly about the bureaucratic waste and abuse while strategically important broadcasts are silenced for no good reason. Most of the other BBG members approve whatever the IBB executive team puts in front of them, including ending VOA radio to Tibet.

A letter addressed to Congresswoman Kay Granger (R – TX), Chairman of the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs of the House Committee on Appropriations and to Ranking Member Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D – NY) criticizes the Broadcasting Board of Governors for expanding their bureaucracy at the expense of critical overseas broadcasts and U.S. strategic interests:

The proposed reductions are driven not by a considered strategic world view, but by bureaucratic expedience and a fundamental misunderstanding of the mission of VOA. If the fiscal year 2013 proposal is enacted, the staff level for VOA will be reduced by 13.2% from the current year. In contrast, only 3.3% of the positions from the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), which provides administrative support to the BBG, will be cut.

If the fiscal year 2013 proposal is enacted the number of full time equivalent (FTE) positions for the IBB will rise from 593.2 in fiscal year 2011 to 678.2. In the same time period VOA will lose 121.2 FTE positions. The general trend of the IBB has been to grow larger while the number of language services they support is being reduced. Broadcasting should be the last thing to be cut. It makes little sense to grow the bureaucracy while cutting that which it is meant to support. The eliminations and reductions in broadcasting to Tibet, China, Laos, and Vietnam alone will cut 28 positions from VOA.

Link to the Letter

Source: Broadcasting Board of Governors FY 2013 Budget Request

BBG’s Strategic Vision and Planning Is Seriously Unbalanced

Mandarin Service

Cantonese Service

Tibetan Service

Burmese Service

Vietnamese Service

NOTE: All data are sourced from BBG 2010 Annual Language Service Review Briefing Book unless otherwise noted.

###

BBG Watch is providing a copy of Mr. Sherman’s article posted on one of the BBG websites:

“One organization, many brands” is integral to the BBG’s new strategy, Impact through Innovation, and Integration. The ability to have multiple brands offers several advantages…

More from the BBG Strategy Blog

By Bruce Sherman
BBG Office of Strategy and Development

The BBG’s major brand names are, of course, the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Alhurra TV, Radio Sawa, Radio Martí and TV Martí. There are also various sub-brands such as Radio Azadi (RFE/RL) in Afghanistan and Deewa Radio (VOA) in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Popular BBG programs — Parazit in Iran, OMG Meiyu in China, and Studio 7 in Zimbabwe — often acquire identities in their own right.

Differential branding is beneficial. It lets us position our products for specific markets and target key audience segments (women, youth, etc.). It helps us stand out in cluttered media environments and deal with challenging political realities, including anti-Americanism. All this helps boost our reach and impact — a BBG priority.

Where our brands resonate with audiences, we want to preserve them. Where they don’t, we have the flexibility to invent new ones. Radio Sawa (“together” in Arabic) helped us rebrand our efforts in the Middle East and reach millions of new listeners.

While the BBG sponsors multiple brands at the agency level, local audiences see only one or perhaps two brands in their particular markets. Research shows they usually know one from the other, and often use one more than the other — which is to say, the brands have unique audiences. Preserving those audiences is decidedly in the BBG’s interests.

Our brands, as symbols of our organizations, also reflect our statutory requirements — to do the news (local and international), represent America, and present U.S. policy. They each are established in law and have supporters in Congress. Preserving the brands thus upholds our congressional mandates.

That said, while supporting the brands, the BBG will become an increasingly unified international media network. Each brand will produce value-added content and retain editorial control. Where two brands coexist, they will complement each other so as to satisfy both audience needs and mission imperatives. The BBG will support them through integrated strategy, budgeting, research, distribution, marketing, and administrative management.

This is the “one organization, many brands” vision. The FY 2013 budget proposals to begin streamlining management and ending language service duplications are steps towards realizing this vision. So, too, is the board’s decision to combine the three grantee organizations (RFE/RL, RFA, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks), into one entity and to seek legislation to achieve definitive agency restructuring.

by Quo Vadis
 
Year after fiscal year, members of Congress in bipartisan fashion, question the  plans of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and its powerful Executive Staff to eviscerate the Voice of America. Since 1999, the Broadcasting Board of Governors has governed the units responsible for U.S. international broadcasting including the Voice of America, Radio/TV Marti and the grantee organizations:  RFE/RL, RFA (Radio Free Asia) and for the past several years, MBN (Middle East Broadcasting Network).
 
All sorts of reasons for dismantling VOA are presented.  The latest reasoning goes like this: the Chinese government jams VOA Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts. In fact, the BBG people have demonstrated to congressional aides what jamming in China does to the signal.  Ergo, the broadcasts should be shut down.  Their solution?  The Internet, leaving out the critical fact that the Chinese government has complete control of the Internet thanks to its most efficient cyber-army.  Thankfully, Congress understood these facts when it decided to negate the BBG’s attempts last year to drastically cut VOA Mandarin and Cantonese radio and TV broadcasts to China. That did not deter the BBG Executive Staff from narrowing the reduction plan, now proposing to cut the VOA Cantonese Service in FY2013.
 
Another argument presented by the BBG in its jaunts to the Congress is:  since Mandarin and Cantonese speakers can read much of the Standard/Classical Chinese script, the BBG should cease Cantonese broadcasting.  The BBG and its Executive Staff neglect to mention that in their spoken forms, the Mandarin and Cantonese languages are totally different.  Therefore, by closing VOA Cantonese as they have been proposing for years, the BBG would effectively eliminate communications with over 60 million Cantonese-language speakers in China, including the residents of Hong Kong.
 
Using that curious reasoning of the BBG and its Executive Staff regarding jamming, one wonders how world history might have changed if the present BBG had governed international broadcasting during the long years of the Cold War? What would have happened if the VOA and RFE/RL had stopped its broadcasts to the countries of Eastern Europe and the USSR when jamming was extensive?   Would the Berlin Wall have fallen?  Would Lech Walesa have created the Solidarity movement?  Would the Republic of Georgia and the Baltic countries have had the chance at independence from the Soviet Union? Would the names of Vaclav Havel and Alexander Dubcek been known to the Czechoslovak people?
 
During the Cold War, in-country monitoring of broadcasts in those areas conclusively showed that there were significant lapses in the effectiveness of the Soviet and Eastern European jammers to fully obliterate the signals (quite a common thing that happens in shortwave broadcasting). Past Directors of the VOA  during the Cold War understood the issues of radio reception and the ability of shortwave to elude jamming, especially outside the cities. They would never have proposed the cessation of U.S. broadcasts to critical areas as the BBG is doing now.  And if by chance they had, there would have been some intervention by the U.S. Information Agency which at one time had a prioritized list of countries for which U.S. broadcasts, in the interests of national security, were essential.
 
Concrete evidence since the ’89 fall of the Berlin Wall with the subsequent liberalization in countries escaping the Soviet yoke shows that listening to VOA broadcasts, in spite of attempts at signal jamming, was extensive throughout the USSR and Eastern Europe. Using the faulty logic of today’s BBG and its Executive Staff in cutting broadcasts because of jamming, U.S. international broadcasting would have lost what many have called its finest hour.
 
And then, there’s that sticky question of shortwave radio that the BBG and its Executive Staff keep saying is out-of-date and passe.  Ironically, their own research shows that over a billion people in the world tune in regularly to shortwave radio and that shortwave is necessary in countries with vast land stretches like Russia which encompasses nine time zones as well as China or Brazil.  Their own statements verify that the bulk of their present audience listens via radio.  Their conclusion?  But, of course, heave shortwave radio broadcasts and close the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in Greenville NC.  Due to opposition from BBG member Victor Ashe and intervention by North Carolina Congressman Walter B. Jones, the Greenville facility has been saved for now.
 
It is comforting to know that there are many in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, who do understand what the VOA mission is all about, including Congresswoman Betty McCollum. In her remarks at a subcommittee hearing several years ago, Congresswoman McCollum stressed the strategic importance of radio in delivering the message of America to the world.  She also pointed out that VOA is a vital part of the public diplomacy toolbox, a comment that no doubt aggravated the BBG Executive Staff who deny that any such function exists for VOA.  Broadcasting employees could only wish that her belief in the value of VOA broadcasts would be shared, in some way, by the BBG Executive Staff.
 
Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHdpodoVxUE
 
Judging by the BBG’s concerted attacks upon the Voice of America, the remarks of Congresswoman McCollum and the bipartisan opinion of a majority of the U.S. Congress regarding the importance of VOA broadcasts are alien to the BBG Executive Staff whose actions reveal their determination to throw this once-effective 70-year-old institution on to the trash heap of history.
 
 
 

BBG member Michael Meehan

BBG Watch Commentary

Speaking up at a panel discussion on media freedom, an unidentified Tibetan woman challenged the Broadcasting Board of Governors over the BBG plan to end Voice of America Tibetan radio broadcasts. The March 28 panel discussion in Washington was organized jointly by the BBG and Gallup. A moderator from Gallup repeatedly tried to silence the Tibetan woman, but she was allowed to finish her comments thanks to an intervention by BBG member Michael Meehan who was one of the panelists.

The panel discussed how the world’s populations perceive media freedom in their countries. Gallup and BBG also announced the details of their new global research project, which will cost US taxpayers 50 million dollars over the next five years.

BBG Watch applauds Governor Meehan for defending the Tibetan woman’s right of free speech as a US taxpayer who is concerned how her money is being spent to support freedom and democracy abroad.  While the Governor showed a genuine interest in the tragic human rights situation in Tibet, we disagree with his comments that Tibet is just one of many hot spots around the world that Broadcasting Board of Governors cannot possibly cover.

Tibet is controlled by China, which represents one of America’s biggest strategic challenges, especially in the area of media freedom and public diplomacy. The argument that the BBG should not respond in cases of crisis has been a favorite one of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) bureaucrats who see their positions and their bureaucratic spending threatened each time real news programs are saved or expanded. They have managed to infect BBG members with their faulty and self-serving reasoning.

In fact, if BBG members could have asked the late Vaclav Havel or Lech Walesa, they would learn that it is exactly in times of crisis that the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were needed the most and gained the largest audience and the greatest loyalty of their listeners. That loyalty and friendship toward America lasted for decades and is paying dividends for the United States to this day.

As the unidentified Tibetan woman said, to eliminate VOA radio broadcasts to Tibet at this time is not just wrong; it is outrageous.

The problem is the culture of the BBG and IBB executive staff on whom BBG members depend far too much. These highly-paid executives have lost an appreciation of whom US international broadcasting should serve and with what.

While Governor Meehan mentioned the need to broadcast to those living under authoritarian regimes, neither the BBG and IBB staff or the moderator from Gallup have shown any real concern for the those who are the most oppressed and the most opposed to tyranny. Based on what we saw at this panel, it seems unlikely that the corporate culture at Gallup is well suited to serve the needs of the BBG and American taxpayers when it comes to promoting free speech, media freedom, and US public diplomacy interests around the world.  Gallup may be a great company for commercial and political research serving commercial and political needs, but US international broadcasting was not created for commercial reasons.

You don’t cut off the Tibetan people’s lifeline at the most critical moment in one of the most strategically important countries — you expand it, even if it means laying off BBG and IBB bureaucrats.

We hope Governor Meehan will take these views into consideration. It’s the high time for BBG members to start thinking for themselves and to take charge of US international broadcasting.

TIBETAN WOMAN CHALLENGES GALLUP AND BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS – TRANSCRIPT

UNIDENTIFIED TIBETAN WOMAN:  I just wanted to make a point when it comes to research in cases like Tibet that is under China’s authoritarian rule, there is no research data that you can collect inside Tibet.

MODERATOR FROM GALLUP: Ma’am, do you have a question?

UNIDENTIFIED TIBETAN WOMAN: I do. The BBG has proposed to eliminate the Voice of America Tibetan radio. It concerns me because Voice of America radio is the only source of international news and information about America to Tibetans inside Tibet

Radio Free Asia also goes to Tibet, but their mandate is different.

MODERATOR FROM GALLUP: Ma’am, please ask a question?

UNIDENTIFIED TIBETAN WOMAN: Radio is the most common and cheapest, used by Tibetans everywhere.

President Obama recently said the Voice of America is the voice of freedom.

And, it is so.

Eliminating this voice of freedom for the Tibetans at this time, based on the research that you have collected is just outrageous.

MODERATOR FROM GALLUP: Ma’am, please state a question, otherwise we’ve got to move on. We have a lot of folks here who want to ask questions.

UNIDENTIFIED TIBETAN WOMAN: I understand. I just wanted to make a point that Tibetans and Tibetan supporters at this time are outraged when the situation inside Tibet is right now…

[Moderator from Gallup attempts to cut off the Tibetan woman's mike.]

BBG GOVERNOR MICHAEL MEEHAN: Let her finish, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED TIBETAN WOMAN: Thank you.

BBG GOVERNOR MEEHAN: Go ahead. Ask me a question. I sit on the Board. You are not going to find a bigger supporter of Tibet than me.

If you have a question, let’s have it.

UNIDENTIFIED TIBETAN WOMAN: Yes, we would like to ask that you reconsider this proposed budget for 2013 [that calls for] the Tibetan radio to be eliminated.

It [VOA radio] does provide a very vital source of life for Tibetans inside Tibet.

We’d like you to look at that.

BBG GOVERNOR MEEHAN: Excellent point. Excellent point.

Thank you for sharing that, your point of view, and it’s an excellent point.

This is one of the harder things that we as a Board have.

Because there is no way that, I would say, that the US government should spend 750 million dollars to try to cover every hot spot in the world.

The Chinese spend 6.6 billion dollars a year doing what we do.

We are just up against some really big forces.

There are seven people that work at the VOA Tibetan [radio] effort. But I would disagree with you that VOA is the only staff that covers Tibet.

We have Radio Free Asia. We have five different companies that are under US international broadcasting.

And, in a case by case basis, we have to find places where there are overlaps of people doing work.

And Tibet is a unique challenge. I understand that. I understand.

UNIDENTIFIED TIBETAN WOMAN: The mandate is different for Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. I listen to both services.

Voice of America covers international news and news related to America.

MODERATOR FROM GALLUP: Ma’am, this is not the time for a debate.

BBG GOVERNOR MEEHAN: Let me finish my point on this. If the Congress … the Congress came to us and said you’ve got to cut the whole place by ten percent, and then they cut us by five percent.

So some cuts have to be made.

80 percent of funding that goes to US international broadcasting are for people.

[At this point the Tibetan woman's mike is cut off by Gallup. Some of her comments cannot be heard clearly.]

UNIDENTIFIED TIBETAN WOMAN: Only a minute percentage of people.

BBG GOVERNOR MEEHAN: But Ma’am, if the other 99 countries that we cover came and made the same point you make, we’d be talking about five, and seven, and nine employees as well.

MODERATOR FROM GALLUP: Next question. Ma’am, we’re going to move on.

BBG GOVERNOR MEEHAN: The Board is expanding our efforts in Tibet. We’re expanding our efforts, Mam.

The continued flow of information from people in the know concerning the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and concurrently the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) is cause for grave concern about continued American strategic, public diplomacy and humanitarian interests in various countries in the world especially, countries like Tibet where wanton desecration of its people is the cultural genocidal policy of China as well as China itself, where human rights and freedoms are denied in every part of one’s existence.

For these active efforts on the part of the BBG to decimate the Voice of America (VOA) and its other offshoot broadcasting entities one is reminded of there being something rotten in the state of the BBG. It isn’t just a lack of vital knowledge or even understanding about what the VOA and the BBG’s surrogate broadcasting grantees are all about, it seems more to be a contrived effort to eliminate America’s influence and presence around the world and especially in those countries where it is the sole light in people’s lives.

It is becoming clearer by the day that in spite of the simple fact that the BBG is completely out of touch and worse, has no real interest in knowing what, who, how and why the VOA has operated so successfully for seventy years. Its strange actions would appear to be herded from some other source which has a vested interest in eliminating American influence.

There is considerable evidence provided by the Obama administration that America has many things it should apologize for but rarely mentions those which have provided millions of people with hope , inspiration and a belief in liberty, freedom and justice for all — the bedrock of America’s dreams and accomplishments.

It is of deep concern that Congress has not acted in a more rapid process to stop what the BBG is doing in its tracks, completely, not just for the short term.

Whenever there has been a consolidation of entities such as for instance what the BBG wants to do, place Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) under one umbrella — ostensibly to save money and end duplication, supposedly — it becomes very clear in short order that what was intended is an unwieldy bubble with no direction. Incapable bureaucrats with even less information upon which to make decisions take over and for all intents and purposes the fundamental reason for the whole operation is lost and done away with entirely.

This is the track that the incompetents at the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the International Broadcasting Bureau seem to be on and America will definitely regret the day that these individuals were in a position of authority to exercise such insane judgement in a world where freedom, liberty and human rights are being torn apart.

One only needs look at the horrible attacks on Jews and Christians in many parts of the world and their right to exist being driven off the map of humanity. At no other time in America’s history, except for during the Second World War, has its influence, care, generosity and hope been more necessary than now. So the question remains, and it requires a very solid response. Why is the BBG attempting to tear down what has been operating exceptionally well for over seventy years?

The namby pamby answers from the BBG, such as saving money and eliminating duplication, just don’t answer the question and in no way are even reasonable or sound. While some may believe that the Cold War is over, most know that in a different form it is just heating up in many parts of the world. It is a frightening thought to realize that Christians and Jews are being killed just for the heck of it, without a viable response by radio broadcasts from America.

Now is the time — not later, or sometime in the future, but now — for Congress to act in a direct, concise and patriotic manner to save the agency and the Voice of America from demolition by a group of know nothings, care nothings, who themselves are so self-absorbed they have no idea what is required of America in order to maintain its influence and humanity for millions around the world.

Bureaucratic power-grab

After making a good start on destroying Voice of America’s ability to fulfill its unique mission of informing the world about the United States, the next target of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and International broadcasting Bureau bureaucrat are now the surrogate broadcasters.

Sources tell BBG Watch that the power-grab by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) – International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) bureaucrats is killing morale at the grantee surrogate broadcasters: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), which otherwise have enjoyed very high morale when compared to how the BBG, IBB, and Voice of America (VOA) staffs view their own managers and their leadership qualities.

The bureaucratic power-grab is the proposal to merge all three grantee organizations under one administrative umbrella.

At the same time, BBG/IBB bureaucrats have already grabbed even greater share of resources from the Voice of America (VOA), decimating its broadcasts and staffs. If morale at the surrogate broadcasters is bad, it is ten times worse at VOA, where entire language services are being abolished and its mission of representing the Unites States undermined in a direct violation of the law.

The IBB/BBG management team is in effect abolishing VOA’s broadcasting capabilities, particularly radio, and giving itself control over VOA assets to use for their own bureaucratic purposes. If they were also to gain full control of the surrogate broadcasters, it would be a frightening prospect considering that they have been consistently rated as the worst leaders and managers among all federal government executives. Keep in mind that they are the ones who proposed to end Voice of America Tibetan radio broadcasts while Tibetan monks were self-immolating and Tibet was burning

These BBG and IBB bureaucrats have always had much more control over the Voice of America than the surrogate broadcasters. The merger proposal is designed to put them also in firm administrative control over these privately-run but publicly-funded entities.

The grantee broadcasters are each focused on a particular area of the world and run by professionals who understand special needs of their specific audiences. To the extent that they can be effective, it is due to their programming specialization and administrative independence. They were in fact specifically created by Congress to be independent and to specialize.

The merger proposal in its current form will destroy their independence and ultimately their ability to specialize. This would make them ineffective. They will no longer be run by area specialists and journalists who are in touch with their audiences but by BBG and IBB bureaucrats. And, as we said before, these bureaucrats are the worst in the entire US federal government. It would be equivalent to putting experts in cracking safes in charge of the bank.

For example, the BBG’s CFO’s office has grown by leaps and bounds in the past couple of years while Voice of America staff is being decimated and top programming positions handed over to big contractors. And yet with all those new accountants in place, the CFO still can’t pay BBG, IBB and VOA contract employees on time. One could only imagine what havoc BBG and IBB bureaucrats would cause if given administrative control over the much more efficiently-run grantee organizations.

As these bureaucrats eliminate broadcasts and other information programs, International Broadcasting Bureau offices in the Cohen building are growing out of control. Many sources describe these IBB bureaucrats as being “totally out of touch with the actual broadcasters.”

The argument that the merger proposal will save money by eliminating duplicate administrative positions is completely false. It will simply transfer assets and resources from the grantee organizations who know how to use them efficiently to support specific missions and programs that they understand and feel passionate about to incompetent and power-hungry bureaucrats who have little knowledge of specific regions and their programming needs and care little for the suffering of those who live under oppressive regimes. If they did, they would not want to eliminate VOA radio to Tibet.

They even want to give themselves the power to actively market BBG programs in the United States by repealing the Smith-Mundt Act. Placing all BBG programs, including those from surrogate broadcasters, in public domain is a great idea. To that extent, the Smith-Mundt Act should be modified. But allowing these non-specialist bureaucrats to focus on an NPR-like outreach in the United States will simply further undermine the USIB’s core international mission.

By proposing to end or drastically reduce Voice of America broadcasting to China, Russia, Tibet, Vietnam, Laos, Georgia and many other countries, proposing to decimate VOA English and Spanish programs, and to eliminate Radio Free Asia shortwave radio transmissions to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, these bureaucrats have shown over and over again their indifference to serving the information needs of core international audiences.

Sources tell BBG Watch that BBG member Susan McCue, who as a former Chief of Staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has more Congressional experience than other Board members, is working on putting together the US Innovation Act (USIA), hoping to pass all kinds of US international broadcasting legislation in one package. Ironically when the United States Information Agency (also USIA) was in charge of US international broadcasting before the BBG came into existence, it would have been inconceivable for VOA radio broadcasts to Tibet or any other nation ruled by a communist regime to be terminated.

It will be interesting to see what emerges from Susan McCue’s effort, but if the proposed legislation limits even further accountability of BBG/IBB officials and puts them in even greater control over strategic international broadcasting assets, the results would be disastrous. These officials claim that they are using audience research, eliminate duplication and save money in a period of tight budgets. Sources among experts at the surrogate broadcasters say, however, that the research techniques these bureaucrats use are flawed, that they can’t interpret correctly even those research results that are accurate, and the whole claim of saving money is false. No money is being saved. It goes to expanding their bureaucratic empire and lining the pockets of big contractors.

If the house is on fire because of a design flaw, one doesn’t go to the house architect to change the design. One calls a fire brigade. If Susan McCue is relying on advice from BBG/IBB in-house “experts” — the worst leaders and managers in the federal government according to OPM surveys — the proposed legislation is bound to increase their power while diminishing public scrutiny, undermining the efficiency of US international broadcasting operations and wasting taxpayers’ money.

A letter addressed to Congresswoman Kay Granger (R – TX), Chairman of the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs of the House Committee on Appropriations and to Ranking Member Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D – NY) criticizes the Broadcasting Board of Governors for expanding their bureaucracy at the expense of critical overseas broadcasts and U.S. strategic interests:

The proposed reductions are driven not by a considered strategic world view, but by bureaucratic expedience and a fundamental misunderstanding of the mission of VOA. If the fiscal year 2013 proposal is enacted, the staff level for VOA will be reduced by 13.2% from the current year. In contrast, only 3.3% of the positions from the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), which provides administrative support to the BBG, will be cut. If the fiscal year 2013 proposal is enacted the number of full time equivalent (FTE) positions for the IBB will rise from 593.2 in fiscal year 2011 to 678.2. In the same time period VOA will lose 121.2 FTE positions. The general trend of the IBB has been to grow larger while the number of language services they support is being reduced. Broadcasting should be the last thing to be cut. It makes little sense to grow the bureaucracy while cutting that which it is meant to support. The eliminations and reductions in broadcasting to Tibet, China, Laos, and Vietnam alone will cut 28 positions from VOA.

Link to the Letter

What the BBG needs is to reform itself, starting by sending their failed bureaucrats into early retirement, reversing their program cutting proposals, reaffirming Voice of America’s unique mission and preserving the autonomy of the grantee organizations. It would certainly be a welcome news in Tibet and in many other countries where desperate people see the Voice of America and the surrogate broadcasters as their only hope and their only news link to the free world.

I strongly urge the Broadcasting Board of Governors to reverse cuts to Voice of America Tibetan, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Lao broadcasting services.

These VOA services offer uncensored news and hope to nations ruled by communist and authoritarian regimes. It’s the least the United States can do for these oppressed nations.

People who are denied freedom need VOA radio broadcasts and America’s moral support. As great and as needed as Radio Free Asia is, it can’t offer what VOA represents to those who lack political freedoms. I say this from my own personal experience and from years of covering pro-democracy and dissident movements abroad.

Voice od America broadcasts offer not only uncensored news. They offer hope that some day these countries will experience freedom and democracy with America’s continued support for these ideals and principles.

I would like to offer the following analysis to guide some of these important decisions by BBG members who are the guardians of U.S. international broadcasting.

It would have been inconceivable during the Cold War to eliminate Voice of America broadcasts to communist-ruled nations and to say that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts would be enough. As long as these nations were ruled by communist dictators and were subject to Soviet domination, Voice of America broadcasts in their languages were preserved.

The BBG should adopt the same rule, which I would call the Baltic principle of U.S. international broadcasting.

It is the same principle that guided US diplomatic relations with certain countries annexed by the Soviet Union. The United States never recognized the forcible incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union and throughout the Cold War allowed the pre-war Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian embassies to operate in Washington.

Just as the American non-recognition of an illegal Soviet invasion and the U.S. diplomatic support for the continuity of the independence of the Baltic States, Voice of America broadcasts have the same moral, symbolic and practical meaning for the Tibetans, the Chinese and other nations that have lost their freedom.

It’s a politically sound principle that would win the BBG approval in Congress, among human rights organizations and other  groups and communities supporting U.S. international broadcasting. Right now, the Broadcasting Board of Governors is at war with its natural and strongest supporters.

The BBG operates now on the commercial audience research principle. It’s a completely wrong approach because U.S. international broadcasting was not created to be commercially-driven.

Of course the BBG can reach a much larger audience in China or any other undemocratic country if it compromises with the local regime and makes its programs politically meaningless. That’s how the commercial principle works.

But even more dangerous is the bureaucratic control of the BBG by a small group of unelected officials who deny Board members critical information and make important decisions affecting national security and public diplomacy.

These executives don’t subscribe to the moral principles of international broadcasting and U.S. foreign policy. Their only and favorite solution to budget constraints is to cut critical language programs while leaving the bureaucratic structure untouched.

BBG members should be the guardians of moral and foreign policy principles. These principles are the only ones supported by Congress and the American people.

These principles are also the only ones that have deep meaning to the oppressed people in Tibet and China. For them, VOA broadcasts are the symbol of freedom and America’s moral support. They would like to keep it that way. The Broadcasting Board of Governors must not let them down.

Ted Lipien

I also strongly support keeping Voice of America broadcasts to other nations, particularly to Latin America, as well as preserving robust VOA broadcasting in English. These broadcasts also advance principles of democracy and are the best investment in American public diplomacy. They are far more important and valuable to the United States than the jobs of the Broadcasting Board of Governors bureaucrats who push for these cuts and reductions in VOA programs.

RadioWorld was reporting on an open letter to the House Appropriations Committee sent by the independent Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB):

“We adamantly object to the proposal by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages the Voice of America, and their plans to eliminate the VOA Tibetan Radio Service, the entire VOA Cantonese Service, as well as eliminating more than 200 positions and reducing information coverage in Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Cuba, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Russian Federation, Turkey and Vietnam,” CUSIB wrote.

“The Voice of America English and Spanish services are also threatened with severe cuts in broadcast operations and staff. The Caucasus region, including Chechnya, and Central Asia are likewise targeted by the BBG’s plan for unprecedented program cuts and reductions.”

CUSIB supports the so-called “surrogate broadcasters” and their special independent role in delivering highly-targeted news to countries without free media. CUSIB does not believe, however, that surrogate broadcasters should be required to represent the United States and explain American policies to foreign audiences. According to CUSIB experts, the effectiveness of surrogate broadcasters depends largely on their editorial independence and being separate from the Voice of America and the U.S. Government.

The claim of equivalency between VOA and the so-called surrogate broadcasters, private entities which are funded by the BBG with U.S. taxpayers’ money, is, however, now being advanced not only by BBG spokespersons but also by the new Voice of America director David Ensor. He announced Tuesday that the VOA news website, voanews.com, will be adding items from the reporting of BBG’s private broadcasters: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), which includes Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV, and Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), which includes Radio and TV Marti.

This is what one VOA broadcaster said in response to Ensor’s announcement:

“Just a few weeks ago Voice of America Director David Ensor was saying that the VOA site would remain central despite all of the consolidation going on.

So, having mostly eliminated actual voices of VOA correspondents (on “radio” reports we file, even though they contain other audio material of interest to a web user) now the VOA site becomes another outlet for other BBG entities that already are recognized for their superior web operations.

Among other things this is yet another step toward de-boning VOA. Eventually, if the RIFS (Reductions in Force) happen, the VOA newsroom will be as I observed, little more than a production shop for the BBG and ultimately the GNN.” (Global News Network envisioned by former BBG chairman Walter Isaacson who resigned in January).

BBG spokeswoman Letitia King defended the BBG proposal to abolish the Voice of America Cantonese Service and to end VOA radio broadcasts to Tibet, leaving only VOA Tibetan satellite television program which can be easily received by Tibetans living in exile, for example in India, but not easily received by those living in Tibet, where the Chinese authorities prevent individuals from installing private satellite dishes.

This is what BBG spokeswoman Letitia King wrote:

“Tibet and China are crucial target audiences for BBG news and information content. But where there are two BBG broadcasters in the same language, we must seek economies.”

Anything less, she said, would be irresponsible in a time of tight federal budgets. In her response to RadioWorld, Ms. King did not address the issue of the constantly growing BBG bureaucracy, hiring new highly paid BBG officials, their $10,000 bonuses, and a new multi-year $50,000,000 contract with the Gallup Organization to conduct audience research in countries like China where getting accurate audience data is close to impossible because of fear of government repression.

More from BBG spokeswoman Letitia King:

“Both the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia have sent strong programming to Tibetan audiences. Under the FY 2013 budget request, Radio Free Asia would continue its service to Tibet in three dialects via shortwave and satellite audio while the Voice of America would focus on satellite TV and drop radio broadcasts in Tibetan. As part of this media redistribution, RFA would assume VOA’s prime radio transmission hours, ensuring that the people of Tibet continue to have access to U.S. international broadcast news. This decision was informed by field research showing that Tibetan audiences more often access VOA’s news and information via television rather than radio, and that they listen to RFA’s radio broadcasts.”

It’s worth noting that Ms. King refers to “Tibetan audiences,” which can include Tibetan exiles in India, but not specifically to Tibetans living in Tibet. She did not mention a recent National Public Radio report that Tibetan Buddhist monks in Tibet listen secretly to VOA Tibetan radio broadcasts, which the BBG wants to eliminate.

More from BBG spokeswoman Letitia King on the BBG proposal to abolish the VOA Cantonese Service:

“Here RFA would continue its exclusive Cantonese radio broadcasts to Guangdong Province, Hong Kong, Hainan Province and parts of the Guangxi Autonomous Region. VOA’s efforts to reach the increasingly important Chinese audience will focus on enhanced programming in Mandarin via shortwave radio, the Internet, mobile technologies, and direct-to-home satellite TV which does not suffer from jamming. Incidentally, because Cantonese and Mandarin are essentially the same written language, VOA will continue to reach out to Cantonese-speaking audiences through its news websites for Chinese audiences.”

The BBG keeps silent about the Beijing regime’s efforts to suppress the Cantonese language and culture and does not explain how firing VOA Cantonese journalists will allow Voice of America to reach out to Cantonese-speaking audiences.

Ms. King did not elaborate how the requirement of the VOA Charter, a Public Law passed by the U.S. Congress which mandates that the Voice of America will represent significant American viewpoints and discussions and explain U.S. policies to foreign audiences, will now be carried out by surrogate, private broadcasters.

“Thus, the BBG will continue to serve our many audiences in China through a fresh combination of BBG services in a way that meets audience needs, satisfies our requirements as defined by the U.S. Congress, and eliminates duplication to yield savings that can be used for other pressing priorities.”

Letitia King said BBG understands that proposed reductions will cause hardship for parts of the agency and its broadcasters. “In every case, the BBG will do everything possible to ease the impact of reductions on individuals through attrition, buyouts and other avenues.”

###

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 United States.

David

David Ensor
Director

Voice of America
330 Independence Ave, SW
Washington DC 20237
(202) 203.4500

After the budget announcement meeting from two weeks ago, my colleagues and I now know what our President meant when he kept saying that, “Prague would be just fine” after the merger of RFE/RL, RFA and MBN.  What he meant was that after all the reductions coming before the merger, we can hardly expect to lose more broadcast personnel and still maintain the integrity of our broadcasts.  

From what I can tell by his speech, over 80% of the people who will lose their jobs are coming from those who produce news.  This is based on the assumption that the nine management positions that will be cut were actually necessary.  

From what he said, six of these have been empty for quite some time, two were recently let go and one is retiring soon.  So are these really cuts? Or are they just words used to trying to trick us into thinking that our management will be “suffering cuts” along with the broadcasters?   Are we in Broadcasting actually expected to shoulder closer to 90% of the reductions?  

Regardless of the percentage, we are now being asked to produce the same level of content , manage social media sites and write blogs with less people.  Meanwhile the offices on the fourth floor remain fully occupied.

Now to be fair to President Korn, I am sure most of these cuts were in the works before he took the job, and he did say in the meeting that he did not agree with a lot of what was being asked of us in terms of cost savings, and that he will fight to turn back some of these cuts if he can.  If this is true, it will have been the first time that he has communicated a desire to work in the best interests of RFE/RL, as opposed to touting the BBG party line.   

He also recently sent an email telling us that if we have concerns about what is going on, please feel free to stop by and speak to him personally, an open door policy that has not been previously communicated to the staff.   The fact that President Korn’s  open door policy began the day he left Prague for a month notwithstanding, both of these changes  are positive steps, though a long time coming and perhaps too little, too late.  

One can only believe that if he had begun his tenure with the attitude that he was hired to lead us, as opposed to carrying the water for the BBG’s Strategic Plan, we would have a more balanced approach to cost savings.  I am writing this in hopes that President Korn’s actions will match is words, but only time will answer that question.

Read another commentary by Jan Palach: Message to Broadcasting Board of Governors: Yes, some of us are cowards and we are ashamed.

Broadcasting Board of Governors awards 50 million dollar research contract to Gallup while eliminating dozens of overseas broadcasts and over 200 U.S.-based jobs.

Journalists at the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Alhurra TV, Radio Sawa, and Radio and TV Marti are outraged that their parent agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), has awarded a 50 million dollar multi-year audience research contract to Gallup while approving plans for drastic cuts and reduction in broadcasting overseas and for firing over 200 reporters and support staff, the majority of them working for the Voice of America in Washington, DC. The BBG plans to eliminate completely Voice of America radio broadcasts to Tibet and to close down the VOA Cantonese Service which produces both radio and television programs to China.

The BBG awarded the five-year 50 million dollar contract to Gallup on December 6, 2011. Link to: Award Notice, International Audience Research Program (IARP), Solicitation Number: BBG50-S-11-4564-RJ, Broadcasting Board of Governors.

As they were discussing the award of the research contract to Gallup, members of the bipartisan Board were finalizing plans to end or reduce broadcasts and other information programs to Afghanistan, China, Tibet, the Russian Federation including Chechnya, Burma, Laos, Vietnam and several other countries. Most of the cuts affecting over 200 positions target journalists, broadcasters, and support personnel while sparing top BBG executives and managers whose ranks have swelled over the years as they kept eliminating program after program serving foreign audiences.

According to inside sources, not all BBG members voted to approve this contract. Senior Republican member Victor Ashe was believed to be strongly opposed to some of the terms of the Gallup contract and its high cost. Sources told BBG Watch that he fought hard to save the jobs and operations at the Edward R. Murrow Radio Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina but was outvoted in his attempts to save other programs for overseas audiences and American jobs.

Critics who acknowledge the importance of audience research objected to the contract’s exorbitant cost and pointed out that no reliable research can be conducted in the most critical countries such as China, Russia and Iran. Critics also argue that previous BBG-ordered audience surveys in these countries produced highly suspect and skewed results, which the BBG executive staff — consistently rated in official U.S. government employee opinion polls as being last in leadership and knowledge among managers of all federal agencies — then used to justify cuts in programs to China and Russia. Critics also point out that a substantial amount of money from this contract will be paid out to Gallup affiliates and contractors in China and Russia, while the BBG eliminates jobs of Americans working in the United States to bring uncensored news to these and other countries. The Gallup contract was awarded under the chairmanship of Walter Isaacson, a Democrat, who has subsequently resigned. Since the BBG has elected to make only one award, services at non-competitive pricing will be performed.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent Federal entity that is responsible for U.S.-funded non-military international broadcasting. The BBG awarded this contract through an umbrella organization called the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), which is headed by President Obama’s appointee Richard M. Lobo. Lobo and his wife have been soliciting money for the Obama reelection campaign. First Lady Michelle Obama has recently visited their home in Florida for a fundraiser event.

According to our sources, BBG and IBB executive staff apparently failed to tell BBG members that one of their previous attempts to reduce radio broadcast hours to Tibet was promptly rejected by members of Congress after a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks staged a silent protest on Capitol Hill in 2007.
Despite their dismal performance ratings, Lobo kept the old management team and approved outstanding performance bonuses of up to $10,000 for some of its key members. They are believed to be responsible for proposing to eliminate jobs of hundreds of BBG journalists over the last several years. They were also responsible for drafting specifications for the 50 million dollar audience research contract that was eventually awarded to Gallup.

While the total cost of the multi-year contract is 50 million dollars, BBG estimated that the total amount of the so-called “Task Orders” to be issued under the contract will fall within the $5M – $10M price range per year. It is anticipated that each contract will have a one year base ordering period with (4) one year option ordering periods. Link to International Audience Research Program (IARP), Solicitation Number: BBG50-S-11-4564-RJ, Broadcasting Board of Governors.

The Board is composed of nine members (currently there are only eight). Eight members (4 Democrats and 4 Republicans) are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The ninth, the Secretary of State, serves ex officio. The Secretary is represented on the Board by the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. That place on the Board is held currently by Ambassador D. Kathleen Stephens, the Acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

The independent, nongovernmental Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – www.cusib.org), which last year had opposed a previous BBG effort to end all VOA radio and TV broadcasts to China and to fire 45 journalists, is again protesting against the latest BBG proposed cuts. The BBG’s last year’s proposal for China was overwhelmingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans in House and Senate oversight committees.

After the unveiling of the BBG’s FY2013 Budget Proposal, a CUSIB spokesperson told BBG Watch that “this egregious effort to disappropriate funding from VOA will effectively undermine the purpose of the Congressionally-mandated Public Law 94-350 to inform the people in China who speak Cantonese by providing them with news broadcasts that promote freedom and democracy.
 
“This campaign against Voice of America – during PRC Vice President Xi Jinping’s week-long visit to the United States – is nothing less than another attempt to concede that little by little, the Broadcasting Board of Governors will dismantle America’s commitment to broadcast news from the United States,” a CUSIB spokesperson said.

CUSIB also pointed out that the VOA Tibetan Service was created by an Act of Congress, Public Law 101-246, signed into law on February 16, 1990 “to provide Voice of America Tibetan language programming to the people of Tibet”. The BBG’ FY2013 Budget Proposal undermines the purpose of that Federal as well, a spokesperson said.

In commenting on the 50 million dollar Gallup audience research contract, proposed program cuts and firing of over 200 BBG journalists, the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting spokesperson said:

“It is doubtful that Gallup or any company can successfully conduct a reliable audience research about Voice of America and other US Government-funded broadcasts into countries like Iran, China, Russia and Cuba.  People are too afraid to even admit that they know what these broadcasts are, much less tell a stranger that they are consumers of these news and information programs, which their governments tell them are dangerous and designed to destroy their nations. In fact, whatever audience research results Gallup reports will likely be skewed and counterproductive, i.e. they will lead the BBG to wrong conclusions about these audiences.”

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

The Broadcasting Board of Governors – International Broadcasting Bureau (BBG/IBB), known to be the worst organization in the Federal Government, added to its reputation on Monday, February 13, 2012 when it announced substantial cuts to its broadcast operations, as part of the administration’s FY2013 budget request to the Congress.
 
A total of 14 out of 43 language operations – around 33% of the Voice of America (VOA) – will be adversely affected.  Some of the services will shut down completely, some will be reduced.  Our focus is on VOA; however, the other entities controlled by the BBG/IBB (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Radio and TV Marti among them) also face cuts.  The agency claims that there will be reductions in management; but at this juncture it is a claim only, absent hard numbers yet to publicly identify the number of positions and whether or not the position are encumbered by real, live people.
 
You can be assured that the IBB bonus-managers including our “$10,000 Bonus Man” will not be affected.  They are, after all, the architects of the intentional destruction of US international broadcasting.
 
Thankfully, they are not able to take unilateral action.  Much remains in what will be a vigorous and rancorous contest of wills between the bonus-managers and the people involved with protecting US international broadcasting assets and US national interests.
 
What this proposal means is this:
 
This is a clear and unmistakable statement that US international influence is in decline.  The size and scope of the proposed cuts demonstrates that the BBG/IBB intends actions that will accelerate that decline.
 
The BBG/IBB is taking the United States out of the business of direct international broadcasting.  Its primary target is radio, the medium which still commands the largest share of the agency’s audiences – contrary to claims by the agency that people are turning away from radio.  That is pure nonsense.  It remains the primary medium through which people get useful news and information.  It is affordable.  It is accessible.
 
Sources inside the Cohen Building note that David Ensor, the VOA director, says that radio has a very secure place at VOA, that it is not dying by any means and that it won’t be killed before its time. Before its time? Many others had predicted or anticipated the end of radio. They were all wrong.
 
Unfortunately, the agency’s actions speak a whole lot louder than words, even those from Mr. Ensor who has been more candid than most senior officials in his frank assessments of agency operations.  But, it just does not work in this case.  Sustaining a 33% reduction in its primary operations is not a sign of a healthy and robust future for the agency, its employees and the core audiences that rely on VOA broadcasts.
 
If you are a VOA employee, you should feel betrayed.
 
If you are among the billions of people around the world who rely upon radio broadcasts and are without access to the Internet (the BBG/IBB medium of choice), you should feel betrayed.
 
If you are an American taxpayer, you get the trifecta: your tax dollars go to support a failed agency, with a failed strategy and a bunch of bonus-managers who line their pockets while doing their “corporate” thing and pile-driving the agency and its employees right into the ground.
 
Even if the proposed cuts are reversed by the Congress, the damage to the agency’s image and credibility is permanent.  This kind of intentional breach with the agency’s employees, the agency’s mission and global publics is beyond repair.
 
As Secretary of State Clinton rightly observed, “We are losing the information war.”  The BBG/IBB is responsible for losing this war and they are not going to acquire a sudden change in fortune with these reductions or with its sham of a “strategic plan.”
 
This is nothing less than an intentional act of self-destruction.
 
Which reminds us – forget the other load of nonsense about creating a “global news network.”  Global news networks do not abandon known audiences.  Just ask the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians.  They are going at their international broadcasting efforts full bore.
 
What the BBG/IBB intends to do is abandon radio audiences.  These audiences have and will continue to go elsewhere for news and information when abandoned by the BBG/IBB.  They have done it Russia.  And they will continue to do so if the BBG/IBB succeeds in its demolition strategy.
 
In short, the myopic bonus-managers are intentionally creating strategic vacuums, affording elements hostile to US interests to fill the void.  In the globalized environment of the 21st century, the entire world is strategic.  It’s a chess game with serious consequences.  Not manage the chess board and you become outmaneuvered, cornered and run out of options because you don’t have the assets in place to deal with known or emerging threats.
 
That is your BBG/IBB: inept and outmaneuvered by superior skill sets.  Where do those superior skill sets reside?  See above: China, Russia and Iran.
 
 
Let’s briefly examine some of the things we know the agency wants to do, since they reveal the direction of the agency under the BBG/IBB “flim flam strategic plan:”
 
They want $9-million dollars for TV to Egypt.
 
Here we go again with this “Arab Spring” thing.  Here’s the real deal:
 
The “Arab Spring” is a term of art created by Western media.  There is no such thing.  There is something else quite different.  It’s called revolution.  Revolutions tend to be bloody affairs, particularly in the Middle East.  As Senator John Kerry said last year, “It is too early to be doing a victory lap for democracy in the Middle East.”  Why?  Because, these revolutions go their own way, not necessarily the way the United States wishes they would.
 
In Egypt, the military is in charge.  The Egyptian military is not a liberal organization.  It is traditional, conservative.  It will not go quietly into the night and retreat to its barracks.  It is not about to cede power to mobs on the streets of Cairo.  The military gets it where the Western media doesn’t: this is all about power, who loses it and who keeps it.  They intend to keep it and may find themselves working closely with the Muslim Brotherhood, a well-organized fundamentalist organization that has been waiting a very long time for its moment of prominence and power.
 
This is $9-million dollars wasted because the United States has lost its resonance in the Middle East.  The BBG/IBB had ten years (2001-2011) to get its act together and garner support from the “Arab street.”  That is supposedly the purpose behind Radio Sawa and al-Hurra television.  What do the American taxpayers have to show for the millions of dollars invested in these program efforts?
 
Nothing.  
 
That window of opportunity has closed.  No one knows when it will re-open.  Arab publics remain adamant about leveling the playing field with Israel.  If you think you’ve seen bloodshed up to this point that is nothing compared to the next act in this drama; and that is the next act, after the dust settles from the latest round of groups vying for power across the Middle East, across ethnic and religious lines, among the Arab themselves and of course, the Iranians who are intent upon positioning themselves to command hegemony over the Middle East – and that means not just taking the Israelis out of the equation.  It also means establishing dominion over its Arab neighbors.  Remember, the Iranians are not Arabs.  They have a lot to gain by pulling off their intended goals, big time.  They also see this as their moment to reestablish Iran in the image of its ancient Persian empire.
 
Here’s another thing that the BBG/IBB wants:
 
They want to “elevate and expand social media.”
 
Here’s the deal with that:
 
Social chit-chat may get flash mobs, rioters and looters out in the streets, along with anarchists, pie-in-the-sky true believers and other activists.  So what?  It doesn’t mean a thing and it’s all a crock created by Western media.  You know why?
 
Because at the end of the day, social chit-chat does not equate with governance.
 
The next time you are in a plane flying into or out of Washington, DC airspace, take a look down below.  Do you see verdant grasslands stretching out for miles in all directions?  No.  You see what is referred to the megalopolis: miles and miles of urbanity.  So ask yourself some questions:
 
How does all of that work?  How is it all coordinated?  How do you synchronize the movements and needs of society?  How do you provide for the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter?  In short, how do you maintain civilization without reverting to anarchy?
 
Consider the “Occupy” movement.  There may have been some legitimate issues at the beginning of the undertaking.  But a lot of that got lost when the folks camped out in various cities around the country, including DC.  At the end of the day, what did they contribute to governance?  Not a whole lot.  With regard to DC, they generated a lot of garbage and perhaps helped increase the rodent population (carriers of the plague and other diseases).  But that’s it.  A social experience that devolved into an exercise in collecting trash and eradicating rodents.
 
What do we see from the BBG/IBB in its social media?  Some nice, attractive young woman teaching American slang to Chinese audiences.  Okay, it’s cute, it’s campy.  But at the end of the day, there are about 1.4 billion Chinese in the People’s Republic of China.  What is the contribution to governance?  Not much.  Nothing actually.
 
In things that matter, the BBG/IBB can’t deliver the goods starting with the agency’s mission as codified in the VOA Charter.  Why?  Because it exposes them for all the things they are not doing or have failed miserably in doing.
 
Instead, they try to talk in terms of “supporting freedom and democracy.”  Any organization that initiates an adverse action against 33% of its primary broadcast operations is not in any position to effectively support processes as demanding as “freedom and democracy.”  
 
The BBG/IBB is mouthing words and their actions make them nothing more than mercenary hypocrites.  Remember that “$10,000 Bonus Man” and his cohorts.
 
And forget about this notion that these guys are creating “the world’s leading global news network.”  That is more of the hypocrisy.  The BBG/IBB talks about an audience of 100 million for radio, another 100 million for television and a paltry 10 million for the Internet.  We’re talking a 210 million total out of a world population of 7 billion!  
 
What are these people bragging about?!?
 
These people are not in the business of good governance and delivering an effective mission to justify the tax dollars being used to support this agency.  They are all about putting self-interest as their top priority.  And in doing that, they are destroying the value of the agency’s mission, the work of its employees and surrendering the initiative to other nations or groups with a totally different message than that of the United States.
 
Anyone who is a part of US international broadcasting, anyone who pays for US international broadcasting and anyone who relies upon US international broadcasting should be and has the right to be outraged by the officials of the BBG/IBB responsible for these actions.
 
These characters who fancy themselves as corporatists would likely find themselves fired in the private sector for perpetrating such a fiasco.  
 
The Federalist
February 15, 2012
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sources told BBG Watch that it was not former Democratic Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Chairman Walter Isaacson but Republican member S. Enders Wimbush who can be described as the chief architect of the parts of the FY2013 BBG budget proposal which call for ending Voice of America radio broadcasts to Tibet and VOA radio and TV Cantonese broadcasts to China. Isaacson, however, supported Wimbush and his program cutting proposals. There were not enough other Republican members to oppose Wimbush and some of the Democrats who also supported the plan to end or reduce VOA broadcasts.

Wimbush used his position as chair of the BBG Strategy and Budget Committee to push for these cuts as well cuts and reductions in VOA programs to other countries ruled by communist and other authoritarian regimes. In addition to Tibet and China, the BBG FY2013 budget proposal also targets VOA program to Laos, Vietnam and Burma.

Despite having one of the worst attendance records at general board meetings, Wimbush was very active in his position on the BBG Strategy and Budget Committee and used it to get the majority of Board members to approve numerous cuts to Voice of America news and information programs.

Wimbush was also described by sources as the chief supporter of an earlier BBG proposal to eliminate all Voice of America radio and television programs in Mandarin and Cantonese. He wrote a response to a critical op-ed in The Washington Times about the BBG China plan. Wimbush called the plan to end VOA broadcasts to China a “politically smart” move. All Republicans and Democrats in House and Senate committees with oversight over the BBG budget voted last year to kill this proposal. S. ENDERS WIMBUSH’s LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE WASHINGTON TIMES Ending VOA China presence politically smart

Despite the setback and bipartisan criticism he received in Congress in 2010, Wimbush continued his efforts to eliminate or reduce Voice of America programs and managed to get enough other BBG members to support his latest plan to stop VOA from broadcasting radio to Tibet and to other communist-ruled countries.

Sources tell us that Wimbush often clashed in closed board meetings with senior Republican member Victor Ashe who opposed many of the proposed programming cuts to countries without free media. Sources also told BBG Watch that Wimbush generally opposes Ashe on transparency, accountability and employee morale issues, but on such issues Ashe sometimes gets enough support from other Republicans as well as some Democrats.

Sources describe Wimbush as extremely sensitive to any kind of criticism or disagreement with his views. One source said that at a recent board meeting, Wimbush launched a loud verbal criticism of Brian Conniff, President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN), broadcasting news and information in Arabic to the Middle East. The Board selected Conniff, who oversees the operation of the radio network Radio Sawa, as well as two television channels: Alhurra and Alhurra-Iraq, to be in charge of planning for the proposed merger of the BBG surrogate broadcasters. Wimbush, according to our sources, wanted this job to be given to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) President Steven Korn.

Sources also tell BBG Watch that Wimbush strongly defended Korn when the Board reversed some of Korn’s personnel decisions after it was revealed that Korn called some of his senior managers “old white guys” and wanted to change their position titles and promote two younger female managers whom he favors. According to our sources, some BBG members, both Republicans and Democrats, wanted to fire Korn, but Wimbush and some other Democrats were opposed to this move. In the end, the RFE/RL Board of Directors adopted a resolution condemning all forms of workplace discrimination. Korn later joked in an open BBG meeting about hiring “a cute high school intern.”

Several BBG Watch sources have also identified S. Enders Wimbush as a Broadcasting Board of Governors member who called BBG employees “cowards” for sending anonymous tips and comments to the BBG Watch website. Sources tell us that it was Wimbush who urged other BBG members to take an unspecified action to counter BBG Watch’s criticism of mismanagement and poor policy choices at the Broadcasting Board of Governors. An anonymous Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist reacted very strongly to being called a “coward” by a BBG member but admitted that because he fears retaliation by the management he is indeed afraid to speak out against disinformation and mismanagement occurring at a place whose stated mission is providing responsible discussion and open debate, and he feels ashamed.

Message to Broadcasting Board of Governors: Yes, some of us are cowards and we are ashamed

Congress is not likely to approve President Obama’s budget proposal. But if that budget were to be approved, the Voice of America would cease broadcasting radio programs to Tibet and cut or reduce programs to many other countries. Well over 200 journalists could see their jobs eliminated. Included in that number are 71 positions to be eliminated in VOA news and English programs.

Sources tell BBG Watch that these cuts were initiated by the budget committee chaired by S. Enders Wimbush. The same sources say that in engineering these cuts and pushing for getting the majority of Board members to approve them, Wimbush was assisted by the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Deputy Director Jeff Trimble and the Director of the Office of Strategy and Development Bruce Sherman.

In commenting on the BBG proposal to end VOA radio programs to Tibet and VOA radio and TV programs in Cantonese to China, one anonymous BBG journalist wrote:

“The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) budget submission requests cutting seven employees out of 22 in the Voice of America (VOA) Tibetan Service, ending all six hours of daily VOA Tibetan radio broadcasts.

This is happening on the day China’s Vice President Xi Jinping, heir apparent of the communist regime, arrives in Washington on a get-to-know-you visit.

This is happening while Tibet is burning. A day after the 23rd Tibetan monk self-immolated to protest unprecedented Chinese crackdown on their religion.

This is happening one week after CCTV, China’s state TV launched its first live daily broadcast from its brand new 36000 sq ft studio in Washington DC, the first step of China’s $7 billion media offensive in America.

What is the BBG thinking? Has the Broadcasting Board of Governors gone mad?

And, decimating VOA broadcasts to the Laos (4 out of 6 employees), Vietnam (10 out of 15 employees) and Cantonese to China (all 7 employees). Cutting America’s broadcasts to three out of five remaining communist regimes.

While planning all these cuts, the BBG promoted Bruce Sherman, the BBG strategist (or de-strategist) to SES without contest; hiring an SES director for ODDI, Office of Digital Design and Innovation; hiring a BBG communications director, another SES. All three SES positions were created as the Broadcasting Board of Governors was planning to eliminate dozens of rank and file journalists.

Who needs this Board that cannibalizes its own worker bees to feed itself?”

###

From the official BBG website:

S. Enders Wimbush is Senior Director, Foreign Policy and Civil Society at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. From 1987-93, he served as Director of Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany.

Mr. Wimbush has worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, Science Applications International Corporation, the Rand Corporation as a consultant, strategist and analyst of international security issues, and for Runzheimer International as director of communications.

Earlier Mr. Wimbush directed the Society for Central Asian Studies in Oxford, England. In addition to dozens of policy studies for both the public and private sectors, Mr. Wimbush is the author or editor of seven books, including several authoritative histories of Central Asia and the Caucasus, and many articles on international strategy and security competition in scholarly, professional and popular media.

Mr. Wimbush studied for a PhD at the University of Chicago, where he received his A.M. from the Committee on International Relations. He also holds a B.A. in History from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Mr. Wimbush serves on the BBG Strategy and Budget Committee and is Chair of the Board of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc.

Wimbush was appointed to the board on July 2, 2010 to a term expiring on August 13, 2010. By law, any member whose term has expired may serve until a successor has been appointed and qualified.
 

More here:
BBG member S. Enders Wimbush described as chief architect of program cuts to Tibet, China and other communist countries

We hear that a certain member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) has been bellowing about BBG Watch, its contributors and people commenting on the posts to the site as “cowards.”  We have a good idea who this is: someone on the board who may be something of a loose cannon and easily manipulated by the bonus-men among the senior staff.
 
If we’re going to be throwing around the “cowards” label, let’s consider a different point of view.  Perhaps a good place to start might be with the Board itself.  The BBG has abandoned much of its authority to step in and deal with a host of problems exacerbated by the bonus-men.  One starting point would be in dealing with the managers responsible for perpetuating a hostile work environment as reflected in the results of every Federal employee workforce survey since the very beginning: at or near the bottom of the rankings and dead last in the category of “leadership.”  As a group, what has the Board done?
 
Nothing.
 
No, let’s correct that.  They have approved the outrageous bonuses to members of the senior staff up to $10,000.  There you have it: the Board is rewarding the senior staff for making the agency what it is:
 
“The worst organization in the Federal Government.”
 
And it’s getting worse by the hour.
 
The Board has facilitated and enabled conduct that makes this agency a rogue operation in the Federal Government, rewarding self-promoters and presiding over a failed mission.  Remember what Secretary of State Clinton said:
 
“We are losing the information war.”
 
At this juncture, that war is lost.  It will remain so as long as the BBG supports and defends the people responsible for a “flim flam strategic plan” and supporting that plan, in part, through a toxic work environment.
 
We read a comment posted to one of the BBG Watch commentaries about the employees being at war with the BBG but some being afraid to speak up in public. One RFE/RL journalist wrote that he was a coward and felt ashamed.

On the other side, we have the career opportunists of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB).  That’s where the real fight is because they lead the do-nothing board around by the nose.  There is nothing to be ashamed of in being engaged in this fight.  The situation requires it.

The employees of the agency are the last line of defense against waste, fraud and abuse.  They are the last line of defense on behalf of the American taxpayer and the national and public interest.  Do not believe for one moment that the people on the Third Floor of the Cohen Building are concerned with any of these things.  They are not.  
 
And remember too that Federal employees have the right to go to Congress for redress of the situation.  You can demonstrate how the agency’s mission is not being met.  You can talk about how the actions and behavior of senior officials are undermining the mission.  You can talk about the alleged “strategic plan” and how it takes the agency out of the business of international broadcasting and diminishes the ability of the agency to reach the maximum audience possible across all population segments.
 
In short, you have a lot to talk about.  So keep talking and keep sourcing information to BBG Watch.  This site will do its share of the heavy lifting so that you don’t have to expose yourselves to retaliation from the agency.
 
Other comments to BBG Watch liken the behavior of senior agency officials to that represented by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.  That’s right on target, too.  On its face, there is not much that distinguishes these senior officials and their tactics from that which might be called Putin-like. The Russian Boss likes to harangue his opponents.
 
Think this an extreme characterization?  Consider this:
 
Last year, at a public forum on US international broadcasting at the Heritage Foundation, three of the senior bonus-men of up to $10,000 got up and badgered an employee representative who was a participant in the panel.  Their behavior was unprovoked.  Their behavior was willful, deliberate and intentional.  Their behavior was public.  They made it clear that they were proud of who they are and what they were doing and what the record of the agency is.  Their “performance” is memorialized in a video recording of the event and witnessed by everyone in the room.
 
Instead of elevating the discussion of the future direction of US international broadcasting, these characters decided to get down and mud wrestle the topic.  What does this make them?
 
Let’s make it very clear to Members of Congress, the administration and the taxpaying public:
 
If US Government international broadcasting has any redeeming value left – and it isn’t much at this juncture – these people have to go.  Otherwise, it’s a waste of taxpayer money.  What the Congress and the administration need to do – and do it ASAP – is turn the BBG/IBB into an advisory group.  They’ll still be around drawing salaries (an unavoidable waste of taxpayer money in this scenario), but they will be corralled, out of the picture and out of the way where they can’t do any more damage.  You can put the lot of them out in office space at the Dulles Town Center.  A place for them to fade away in deserved and earned obscurity.
 
And no more bonuses.
 
It’s time to turn the mission and the employees over to someone else, either over at State or DOD.  The current operation with the cast of characters in charge is no longer useful or effective.
 
When someone wants to talk about cowards, the discussion begins with the BBG running away from its responsibilities, failing to confront senior managers (including the bullies who intimidate) with their disastrous record and unseemly behavior and failing to take effective remedial action on any issue of consequence to the agency’s mission and the treatment of its employees.
 
The Federalist
February 7, 2012
 
 
 
 
 
 

Leon, RFE/RL insider, wrote this commentary from Prague for BBG Watch:
 
It is worth to note that RFE/RL in its polyglot broadcasts did not mention at all the scandal with Alexey Navalny’s fake e-mail interview – first proudly published and then stealthily pulled by VOA.  VOA’s debacle was broadly reported internationally, especially in Russia. It renders the BBG’s pretenses to portray the present-day RFE/RL as a “surrogate broadcaster” which mends information gaps in target countries, manifestly ridiculous. And that fact was not lost on RFE/RL staff.
 
At RFE/RL, the predominant feeling is that in crisis situations, the BBG’s mode of operations is to withhold the information from Congress, Administration, and public in order to shield its officials from personal responsibility. Otherwise, how to explain that VOA apology to Alexey Navalny and the audience was, for any practical purpose, anonymous – from some faceless “Russian Service”.  Was it a collective apology for collective blunder? Are the VOA Russian staffers dividing between themselves the responsibilities – and the salary – of Russian Service director? Why the apology was published on VOA site in Russian only, so later it had to be translated into English by the Russian news organization RIA Novosti for its report?  Why the VOA director himself did not apologize to Navalny?  After all, Navalny is not just another Russian blogger but internationally prominent opposition figure. Did BBG report on its site how the Voice of America undermines anti-Putin democratic opposition in Russia?
 
What are the personnel consequences, if any, of the VOA’s “exclusive”, which many in Russia — just check Russian blog scene — habitually interpret as some kind of conspiracy?  For it is a public knowledge (not at VOA?) that Alexey Navalny, after his detention last December, shuns mass media and interviewers.
 
Questions asked at RFE/RL — controlled and directed by the same BBG as is VOA, its “sister-broadcaster” — is not just an idle curiosity. RFE/RL old-timers recall that in September of 1992, when BBG did not yet exist and the Radio still was in Munich, its Moscow bureau submitted a report quoting verbatim Alexandr Yakovlev, an ally of Mikhail Gorbachev. Allegedly, Yakovlev criticized Gorbachev publicly and was about to turn his back on him. Yakovlev sent to RFE/RL an indignant letter: he never said anything like that and never talked to the imaginative RFE/RL reporter. The then Director of the Russian Service of Radio Svoboda (as RFE/RL is known in Russia), personally apologized to Alexandr Yakovlev on air; the reporter was fired; Yakovlev granted RFE/RL an exclusive interview. (Later, former RFE/RL reporter developed into well-known Russian nationalist who presently attacks Navalny…)

Already in Prague and under BBG, RFE/RL had more than enough “memorable” editorial troubles. Scandal at VOA dusts them off.    
 
On April 26, 2010 the avalanche of feedback letters to the one-sidedly pro-Turkish  report from Istanbul, “Why so many historians in Turkey study the issue of Armenian genocide,” was, together with the report, removed from the website of RFE/RL Russian Service. But not from the long Internet memory: “How Disgusting!”  “Ashamed of Radio Liberty,” “Shame on you! Shame and disgrace!” “Radio Liberty has long ceased to be the Radio Liberty,”  “One’s heart bleeds to hear and read such a nonsense,” “Confusing is unprofessionalism of Radio Liberty,”  etc.
 
It’s enough to substitute “VOA” for “Radio Liberty”, and analogy with recent scandal at the VOA Russian Service is impossible to overlook.  But here it also ends. The Russian Service director who at the time of ill-fated feed from Istanbul was not even in Prague, in his own name apologized to RFE/RL listeners and readers. However, in today’s parlance ascribed to the “high BBG official” (intermittently called at RFE/RL by his proper name and/or the unflattering nickname), present director of the Russian Service unmistakably belongs to those endangered  “old white guys” who missed the train to impersonal new brave world of BBG-VOA-RFE/RL.
 
Analyzing the causes of editorial unprofessionalism sweeping RFE/RL, the multilingual Armenian Daily AZG (People) wrote:  
 
“It came from indifference. And that, in its turn, stems from the general atmosphere at RFE/RL – the atmosphere of hypocrisy and cynicism … . The editors could not care less. Practically all the staff of RFE/RL language desks and services knows that they are just the rightless mercenaries hired to talk about human rights – on the air for the pay. Everyone at RFE/RL knows that the court case of Armenian Anna Karapetian v. RFE/RL is pending in the Czech Supreme court; and the lawsuit of Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan is submitted to the European Court of Human Rights. Everyone knows that international media cover these court cases regularly – but not the RFE/RL own webpages. Everyone knows that Czech parliament already twice, in connection with Karapetian’s and Pelivan’s lawsuits discussed the issue of national discrimination of RFE/RL foreign employees. Everyone knows that RFE/RL personnel policies are developed and approved by the Broadcasting Board of Governors in Washington. Everybody knows that empty words diverge with deeds, and the deeds are drifting from bad to worse.”
 
Would some parts of that analysis be also applied to VOA? In any case: How lucky is BBG that RFE/RL staff is excluded from OMP’s yearly surveys concerning employees’ work-place satisfaction.
 
 
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Leon, RFE/RL insider, wrote this commentary from Prague for BBG Watch:
 
It is worth to note that RFE/RL in its polyglot broadcasts did not mention at all the scandal with Alexey Navalny’s fake e-mail interview – first proudly published and then stealthily pulled by VOA.  VOA’s debacle was broadly reported internationally, especially in Russia. It renders the BBG’s pretenses to portray the present-day RFE/RL as a “surrogate broadcaster” which mends information gaps in target countries, manifestly ridiculous. And that fact was not lost on RFE/RL staff.
 
At RFE/RL, the predominant feeling is that in crisis situations, the BBG’s mode of operations is to withhold the information from Congress, Administration, and public in order to shield its officials from personal responsibility. Otherwise, how to explain that VOA apology to Alexey Navalny and the audience was, for any practical purpose, anonymous – from some faceless “Russian Service”.  Was it a collective apology for collective blunder? Are the VOA Russian staffers dividing between themselves the responsibilities – and the salary – of Russian Service director? Why the apology was published on VOA site in Russian only, so later it had to be translated into English by the Russian news organization RIA Novosti for its report?  Why the VOA director himself did not apologize to Navalny?  After all, Navalny is not just another Russian blogger but internationally prominent opposition figure. Did BBG report on its site how the Voice of America undermines anti-Putin democratic opposition in Russia?
 
What are the personnel consequences, if any, of the VOA’s “exclusive”, which many in Russia — just check Russian blog scene — habitually interpret as some kind of conspiracy?  For it is a public knowledge (not at VOA?) that Alexey Navalny, after his detention last December, shuns mass media and interviewers.
 
Questions asked at RFE/RL — controlled and directed by the same BBG as is VOA, its “sister-broadcaster” — is not just an idle curiosity. RFE/RL old-timers recall that in September of 1992, when BBG did not yet exist and the Radio still was in Munich, its Moscow bureau submitted a report quoting verbatim Alexandr Yakovlev, an ally of Mikhail Gorbachev. Allegedly, Yakovlev criticized Gorbachev publicly and was about to turn his back on him. Yakovlev sent to RFE/RL an indignant letter: he never said anything like that and never talked to the imaginative RFE/RL reporter. The then Director of the Russian Service of Radio Svoboda (as RFE/RL is known in Russia), personally apologized to Alexandr Yakovlev on air; the reporter was fired; Yakovlev granted RFE/RL an exclusive interview. (Later, former RFE/RL reporter developed into well-known Russian nationalist who presently attacks Navalny…)

Already in Prague and under BBG, RFE/RL had more than enough “memorable” editorial troubles. Scandal at VOA dusts them off.    
 
On April 26, 2010 the avalanche of feedback letters to the one-sidedly pro-Turkish  report from Istanbul, “Why so many historians in Turkey study the issue of Armenian genocide,” was, together with the report, removed from the website of RFE/RL Russian Service. But not from the long Internet memory: “How Disgusting!”  “Ashamed of Radio Liberty,” “Shame on you! Shame and disgrace!” “Radio Liberty has long ceased to be the Radio Liberty,”  “One’s heart bleeds to hear and read such a nonsense,” “Confusing is unprofessionalism of Radio Liberty,”  etc.
 
It’s enough to substitute “VOA” for “Radio Liberty”, and analogy with recent scandal at the VOA Russian Service is impossible to overlook.  But here it also ends. The Russian Service director who at the time of ill-fated feed from Istanbul was not even in Prague, in his own name apologized to RFE/RL listeners and readers. However, in today’s parlance ascribed to the “high BBG official” (intermittently called at RFE/RL by his proper name and/or the unflattering nickname), present director of the Russian Service unmistakably belongs to those endangered  “old white guys” who missed the train to impersonal new brave world of BBG-VOA-RFE/RL.
 
Analyzing the causes of editorial unprofessionalism sweeping RFE/RL, the multilingual Armenian Daily AZG (People) wrote:  
 
“It came from indifference. And that, in its turn, stems from the general atmosphere at RFE/RL – the atmosphere of hypocrisy and cynicism … . The editors could not care less. Practically all the staff of RFE/RL language desks and services knows that they are just the rightless mercenaries hired to talk about human rights – on the air for the pay. Everyone at RFE/RL knows that the court case of Armenian Anna Karapetian v. RFE/RL is pending in the Czech Supreme court; and the lawsuit of Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan is submitted to the European Court of Human Rights. Everyone knows that international media cover these court cases regularly – but not the RFE/RL own webpages. Everyone knows that Czech parliament already twice, in connection with Karapetian’s and Pelivan’s lawsuits discussed the issue of national discrimination of RFE/RL foreign employees. Everyone knows that RFE/RL personnel policies are developed and approved by the Broadcasting Board of Governors in Washington. Everybody knows that empty words diverge with deeds, and the deeds are drifting from bad to worse.”
 
Would some parts of that analysis be also applied to VOA? In any case: How lucky is BBG that RFE/RL staff is excluded from OMP’s yearly surveys concerning employees’ work-place satisfaction.
 
 
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Lobo means wolf (Canis lupus) in Spanish. Wolf (Lobo) is a noble name. It implies strength, intelligence, and action.

Richard Lobo is the Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB). He was appointed to his current position by President Obama. Lobo’s wife helps to raise money for the Obama reelection campaign. Richard Lobo is being talked about as a possible replacement for the Boadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Chairman Walter Isaacson who had announced his resignation on January 27. The BBG placed in Lobo’s hands as the IBB director the job of supervising and running the combined BBG and IBB operations. He can’t remember to honor an important anniversary that’s part of broadcasting history.

This brings us to our question: is Lobo really in charge of the agency? Or is it being run, or not run as the case may be, by one of the worst management teams in the federal government? Lobo kept it in place when he took over the IBB/BBG bureaucracy and even rewarded its executives with outstanding performance bonuses. He could become the CEO of the new restructured BBG proposed in the strategic plan developed by these same managers. Perhaps that’s the reason he kept them.

Isaacson’s resignation was announced on January 27. The official BBG website did not have anything about the resignation until February 2, not until after BBG Watch pointed it out as an example of total lack of engagement and interest on the part of IBB managers running this ostensibly journalistic organization.

Our advice to IBB Director Lobo

IBB Director Richard Lobo

Your management team cannot function without an alpha wolf constantly checking on what they are doing or not doing. Since you have kept them, which raises serious questions about your leadership abilities, you have to be on top of them or they will continue to undermine U.S. international broadcasting and destroy whatever support it may still have in Congress.

Keep in mind that the same team advised the BBG to end Voice of America radio and TV broadcasts to China and received a resounding bipartisan rebuke from the legislators who approve BBG’s budgets. These managers proposed to silence VOA to China on the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese communist regime. They should go.

Voice of America’s 70th Anniversary

But it gets better than that. February 1, 2011 was the 70th anniversary of the Voice of America, the IBB/BBG’s biggest and the most important broadcasting entity. And, as you could have guessed, the Broadcasting Board of Governors official website had nothing about the VOA anniversary on February 1. Again, after BBG Watch wrote about it, an item on the BBG website appeared on February 2.

We think it’s becoming clear that Director Lobo is no alpha wolf even if he is a nice “old white guy,” a term used by another top level BBG executive who does not report directly to Lobo to describe some of his own subordinates and which illustrates the appalling state of management sensitivity at the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

We think that Lobo lets his pack of wolves do whatever they want or don’t want to do. What we do know from official government-wide employee opinion surveys is that what these managers do and fail to do has resulted in an agency with one of the lowest employee morale in the entire federal government. That’s why it was such a bad idea for Director Lobo to keep them and reward them. It’s even worse to let them work unsupervised.

Even if Lobo suddenly turns into an alpha wolf, we don’t think he has a chance to reform IBB/BBG and to improve employee morale until he does something about his management team. We think it’s rather obvious that what they care about is themselves, not some broadcasting organization called the Voice of America which happens to celebrate its 70th birthday. Changing the management team at IBB/BBG would do wonders for employee morale and success of U.S. international broadcasting. As with the manager who talks about “old white guys,” sooner or later they will say something, do something, or fail to do something that will harm and embarrass the BBG.

The fact that these managers ignored an important broadcasting anniversary also proves another key point. The part time BBG members themselves are no alpha wolves. They surrendered their responsibilities to Lobo and he surrendered his responsibilities to incompetent managers. The part time Board is not working. IBB/BBG is not working. BBG journalists are paying the price. And, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton observed, “we are losing the information war.”

The Voice of America director David Ensor did mark the 70th anniversary with a speech to employees. Some of the surrogate entities keep good employee morale. That does not include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were employee morale is low due to comments like “old white guys” and discrimination against foreign-born journalists which started long time ago and continues to this day.

Going back to Director Lobo, his management team, and members of the BBG. The BBG restructuring plan was prepared by the same management team that came up with the failed China plan and ignored the VOA anniversary. Whose interests do you think they had in mind in proposing to merge the surrogate broadcasters and to de-federalize the Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti? What do you think will happen to employee morale if these managers led by Director Lobo are put in charge of reorganized U.S. international broadcasting?

Can’t pay their employees on time

We offer this example. A manager’s first responsibility is to pay his employees on time. Some of the full time contract employees at the Voice of America and the International Broadcasting Bureau have had their salary payments delayed, sometimes for several months. This is happening on Director Lobo’s watch. What do you think will happen if the power and authority of the IBB/BBG management team are enhanced under the proposed reorganization plan?

There could be one good news, however, at least for IBB/BBG managers, something they want and plan for. If they manage to de-federalize VOA, Radio and TV Marti and IBB, they will no longer be evaluated in government employee opinion surveys. They will no longer be the worst managers in the federal government. They would no longer face public scrutiny and their restructuring plan is designed to accomplish just that.

Every alpha wolf has to constantly watch his back or his authority may be challenged and he may be replaced. Director Lobo never asserted his authority. He gave it away without a fight to some of the worst managers in the federal government. He joined their ranks. No wonder that these “leaders” of a journalistic organization did not bother for days to report the BBG Chairman’s resignation and failed to note Voice of America’s 70th anniversary.

Lobo should have told the BBG members to issue a special statement on February 1. He should have written one himself but didn’t and none of his managers reminded him that it needs to be done. The independent, nonprofit Committee for U.S. international Broadcasting (CUSIB) honored VOA employees on their birthday, the Broadcasting Board of Governors didn’t. What a shame.

Be an alpha wolf

It may already be too late, but if Richard Lobo cares about his legacy as the IBB Director he needs to become an alpha wolf and act like one. The job of an alpha wolf is to take care of the pack: the rank-and-file employees, journalists and those managers who try to do their jobs well despite all odds and lack of leadership at the top.

Director Lobo has a wife who is close to Michelle Obama. Perhaps he will understand this: what would she do to him if he forgot their wedding anniversary? What would Michelle do to Barack if he forgot theirs? We hope they would do something drastic, and so should Director Lobo.

Be an alpha wolf! U.S. international broadcasting is too important to function without one.

We would also advise BBG members not to relinquish their responsibilities. Tell Director Lobo to clean house, and if he won’t do it, do it yourselves.

Show Director Lobo and your employees that you can also be alpha wolves. But whatever you do, don’t let discredited managers be in charge of the pack. You will regret it if you do.

Lobo means wolf (Canis lupus) in Spanish. Wolf (Lobo) is a noble name. It implies strength, intelligence, and action.

Richard Lobo is the Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB). He was appointed to his current position by President Obama. Lobo’s wife helps to raise money for the Obama reelection campaign. Richard Lobo is being talked about as a possible replacement for the Boadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Chairman Walter Isaacson who had announced his resignation on January 27. The BBG placed in Lobo’s hands as the IBB director the job of supervising and running the combined BBG and IBB operations. He can’t remember to honor an important anniversary that’s part of broadcasting history.

This brings us to our question: is Lobo really in charge of the agency? Or is it being run, or not run as the case may be, by one of the worst management teams in the federal government? Lobo kept it in place when he took over the IBB/BBG bureaucracy and even rewarded its executives with outstanding performance bonuses. He could become the CEO of the new restructured BBG proposed in the strategic plan developed by these same managers. Perhaps that’s the reason he kept them.

Isaacson’s resignation was announced on January 27. The official BBG website did not have anything about the resignation until February 2, not until after BBG Watch pointed it out as an example of total lack of engagement and interest on the part of IBB managers running this ostensibly journalistic organization.

Our advice to IBB Director Lobo

IBB Director Richard Lobo

Your management team cannot function without an alpha wolf constantly checking on what they are doing or not doing. Since you have kept them, which raises serious questions about your leadership abilities, you have to be on top of them or they will continue to undermine U.S. international broadcasting and destroy whatever support it may still have in Congress.

Keep in mind that the same team advised the BBG to end Voice of America radio and TV broadcasts to China and received a resounding bipartisan rebuke from the legislators who approve BBG’s budgets. These managers proposed to silence VOA to China on the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese communist regime. They should go.

Voice of America’s 70th Anniversary

But it gets better than that. February 1, 2011 was the 70th anniversary of the Voice of America, the IBB/BBG’s biggest and the most important broadcasting entity. And, as you could have guessed, the Broadcasting Board of Governors official website had nothing about the VOA anniversary on February 1. Again, after BBG Watch wrote about it, an item on the BBG website appeared on February 2.

We think it’s becoming clear that Director Lobo is no alpha wolf even if he is a nice “old white guy,” a term used by another top level BBG executive who does not report directly to Lobo to describe some of his own subordinates and which illustrates the appalling state of management sensitivity at the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

We think that Lobo lets his pack of wolves do whatever they want or don’t want to do. What we do know from official government-wide employee opinion surveys is that what these managers do and fail to do has resulted in an agency with one of the lowest employee morale in the entire federal government. That’s why it was such a bad idea for Director Lobo to keep them and reward them. It’s even worse to let them work unsupervised.

Even if Lobo suddenly turns into an alpha wolf, we don’t think he has a chance to reform IBB/BBG and to improve employee morale until he does something about his management team. We think it’s rather obvious that what they care about is themselves, not some broadcasting organization called the Voice of America which happens to celebrate its 70th birthday. Changing the management team at IBB/BBG would do wonders for employee morale and success of U.S. international broadcasting. As with the manager who talks about “old white guys,” sooner or later they will say something, do something, or fail to do something that will harm and embarrass the BBG.

The fact that these managers ignored an important broadcasting anniversary also proves another key point. The part time BBG members themselves are no alpha wolves. They surrendered their responsibilities to Lobo and he surrendered his responsibilities to incompetent managers. The part time Board is not working. IBB/BBG is not working. BBG journalists are paying the price. And, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton observed, “we are losing the information war.”

The Voice of America director David Ensor did mark the 70th anniversary with a speech to employees. Some of the surrogate entities keep good employee morale. That does not include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were employee morale is low due to comments like “old white guys” and discrimination against foreign-born journalists which started long time ago and continues to this day.

Going back to Director Lobo, his management team, and members of the BBG. The BBG restructuring plan was prepared by the same management team that came up with the failed China plan and ignored the VOA anniversary. Whose interests do you think they had in mind in proposing to merge the surrogate broadcasters and to de-federalize the Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti? What do you think will happen to employee morale if these managers led by Director Lobo are put in charge of reorganized U.S. international broadcasting?

Can’t pay their employees on time

We offer this example. A manager’s first responsibility is to pay his employees on time. Some of the full time contract employees at the Voice of America and the International Broadcasting Bureau have had their salary payments delayed, sometimes for several months. This is happening on Director Lobo’s watch. What do you think will happen if the power and authority of the IBB/BBG management team are enhanced under the proposed reorganization plan?

There could be one good news, however, at least for IBB/BBG managers, something they want and plan for. If they manage to de-federalize VOA, Radio and TV Marti and IBB, they will no longer be evaluated in government employee opinion surveys. They will no longer be the worst managers in the federal government. They would no longer face public scrutiny and their restructuring plan is designed to accomplish just that.

Every alpha wolf has to constantly watch his back or his authority may be challenged and he may be replaced. Director Lobo never asserted his authority. He gave it away without a fight to some of the worst managers in the federal government. He joined their ranks. No wonder that these “leaders” of a journalistic organization did not bother for days to report the BBG Chairman’s resignation and failed to note Voice of America’s 70th anniversary.

Lobo should have told the BBG members to issue a special statement on February 1. He should have written one himself but didn’t and none of his managers reminded him that it needs to be done. The independent, nonprofit Committee for U.S. international Broadcasting (CUSIB) honored VOA employees on their birthday, the Broadcasting Board of Governors didn’t. What a shame.

Be an alpha wolf

It may already be too late, but if Richard Lobo cares about his legacy as the IBB Director he needs to become an alpha wolf and act like one. The job of an alpha wolf is to take care of the pack: the rank-and-file employees, journalists and those managers who try to do their jobs well despite all odds and lack of leadership at the top.

Director Lobo has a wife who is close to Michelle Obama. Perhaps he will understand this: what would she do to him if he forgot their wedding anniversary? What would Michelle do to Barack if he forgot theirs? We hope they would do something drastic, and so should Director Lobo.

Be an alpha wolf! U.S. international broadcasting is too important to function without one.

We would also advise BBG members not to relinquish their responsibilities. Tell Director Lobo to clean house, and if he won’t do it, do it yourselves.

Show Director Lobo and your employees that you can also be alpha wolves. But whatever you do, don’t let discredited managers be in charge of the pack. You will regret it if you do.

A BBG Watch Commentary

Steven Korn

We welcome the first posts from Jan (a pen name), a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist working in Prague, and from Leon (also a pen name), a former RFE/RL editor. They both discuss personnel policies of RFE/RL President Steven Korn and employee morale issues. President Korn is a friend of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Chairman Walter Isaacson from their days together at CNN and author of “Old White Guys” and “Cute High School Intern” comments. While we hear that Isaacson is now putting some distance between himself and Korn, RFE/RL President is trying to weather the storm.

As a public servant, Steven Korn has definitely changed the language of how personnel policies are discussed and implemented at the BBG, a federal workplace where inappropriate comments by a senior official can have bad consequences for the official and the agency. Sources told us that in emails and memos, Korn is now highlighting his accomplishments at RFE/RL, apparently in an effort to save his reputation and his job.

Sources who saw one of his memos told us that he had informed the Board members he had saved so far $1.2 million and plans to use that money to buy phones for reporters in Russia, reporter travel, hiring freelancers, and helping RFE/RL journalists who are threatened and jailed. We suspect, however, that this is not a complete list for this slush fund and other funds available to Korn and his top advisors. Korn also informed the Board that he plans to do a lot of foreign travel himself, but — according to one source — tried to discourage BBG members from visiting Prague. They might learn a thing or two if they did. One source told us that Korn reassured BBG members that his own planned foreign travels do not amount to “a grand tour.”

Jan, who works at RFE/RL, takes issue with some Korn’s claims, especially that ones that his management decisions of the past six months enjoy “broad support” among his subordinates and that he regularly seeks counsel outside of the small group of his newly-appointed Vice Presidents.

Jan may be right. Sources who have read Korn’s “what I accomplished and where we are going memo” tell us there is absolutely nothing in it about any cost-of-living raises or better housing allowances for rank-and-file employees. The memo goes on and on, however, how Korn’s management changes have boosted morale. There is no mention in the memo of the problem of unfair treatment of third-country foreign journalists or a promise to do something about it and extend to this group of RFE/RL employees the protections of the Czech labor law.

One source found it both sad and amusing that while such employee morale issues — often reported by the Czech press (Lidove noviny: Svobodnou Evropou obhazi strasidlo – A spectre is haunting Radio Free Europe) as well as media in Russia, Armenia and in other countries to which RFE/RL broadcasts — are ignored, the memo brags about RFE/RL’s plan to support a campaign to eliminate Prague’s graffiti problem.

A journalist with many years of work in international broadcasting who saw Korn’s memo told us that its most amazing feature is the total absence of any intellectual discussion of “why and what.” What is it that RFE/RL should be doing and why? The word management appears many times, but there is no mention in Korn’s memo of “freedom,” “democracy,” “human rights,” “rule of law,” “authoritarianism,” “dictatorship,” or “political dissidents.”

Leon’s post makes the following point:

“Keep in mind that this is the radio station that was established and led by intellectual giants. Its current leadership is bad news for America, and it’s even worse news for those who expect RFE/RL to lead them in their fight for freedom.”

Jan’s post adds more evidence to previous BBG Watch warnings that BBG executives, be it in Washington or in Prague, take a very good care of themselves and their friends and favorites but are far from being generous to those who actually carry out the BBG’s mission and who had contributed to the success of U.S. international broadcasting in the past.

BBG bonuses for SES staffers, more generous housing allowances for RFE/RL senior staff, new Vice President titles, hiring friends without experience in international broadcasting to fill high paying jobs — these are all recent examples of decisions by top BBG officials.

They pay for these bonuses, new privileges and new jobs by cutting or proposing to cut critical programs: VOA to Russia and China, closing down news bureaus, denying cost-of-living raises to rank-and-file employees (RFE/RL, IBB/VOA contract employees), and treating contract employees as second class citizens (RFE/RL, IBB/VOA).

A recently published article by an anonymous RFE/RL journalist talks about copies of samizdat being secretly passed among RFE/RL employees in Prague who see themselves as victims of discrimination by the management of the American-run and publicly funded station. In fairness to Korn, he inherited this problem, but some of the managers who created perpetuated this problem are still occupying high positions at IBB/BBG.

BBG Watch was not able to confirm Jan’s claim that salary increases came with the new Vice President titles introduced by Steven Korn and what additional housing allowances were granted and to whom. Our sources did confirm, however, that Korn was justifying his personnel decisions by claiming that the only VPs RFE/RL has had recently are “old white guys.”

According to the same sources, Korn insisted that his proposed promotions are well deserved, long overdue, and that they redress a legitimate grievance at zero cost. One of Korn’s memos describes his actions as “a morale boost.” He said that he has talked with the people in all of RFE/RL’s language services and support departments. He told the Board that the management changes he made were “broadly endorsed.” He even described them as “the springboard” for almost everything he and RFE/RL are doing. That’s quite a claim.

We wonder, however, whether “a clear direction,” RFE/RL President meant to impose is taking the organization in the right direction. Korn reportedly also talked about a “cold war” among the senior staff in Prague that required him to initiate a “perestroika” — these are Korn’s own words according to our sources that have seen his memo.

It appears, however, that as a result of Korn’s “perestroika,” some “old white guys” who actually had contributed to the success of the real perestroika in Russia and elsewhere, and therefore to the success of RFE/RL, are out or have had their titles and positions changed. They are being replaced by managers with no or little experience in transnational journalism, not unlike Mr. Korn himself, and perhaps quite soon by a “cute high school intern” or two.

The message seems clear: perestroika-era journalists who speak a foreign language or two and have been around for a while, those who may still know how to deal with the likes of Mr. Putin and company, the “old white guys” — need not apply. If they are still at RFE/RL, they’re lucky if they can hold on to their jobs with diminished titles and authority.

Sources tell us that after learning about the “old white guys” comment, BBG members reversed some of Korn’s personnel changes and adopted a resolution condemning workplace discrimination. Some, however, still defended Korn and even pushed for him to be considered for the person in charge of implementing the proposed merger of the BBG’s surrogate broadcasters.

Korn’s strongest supporters on the Board, according to our sources, are Republicans Enders Wimbush and Dennis Mulhaupt, and Susan McCue, a Democrat. We don’t suggest, however, that these BBG members condone workplace discrimination.

As one source told us, when the issue of Korn’s future came up, one BBG member, who may have been Michael Meehan, apparently asked the question whether the BBG has enough money to cover the “legal liability.”

Having been led astray earlier by BBG, IBB and VOA executives, Meehan, a Democrat, has turned out to be of late a surprisingly keen spotter of waste and poor management at the BBG along with senior Republican member Victor Ashe. Sources tells us, however, that Ashe’s fellow Republicans, Wimbush and Mulhaupt, frequently oppose Ashe’s initiatives aimed at fighting mismanagement, improving employee morale, and increasing transparency and public scrutiny.

When Steven Korn’s future came up for discussion, the majority of BBG members — a source tells us — agreed that some damage control is necessary but could not agree whether Korn should be asked to leave. The job of overseeing the merger, however, ultimately went not to Korn but to Brian Conniff, President of the BBG’s Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN), under a compromise apparently worked out between BBG Chairman Isaacson and Victor Ashe.

We all love you

by Jan (pen name of a current RFE/RL journalist)

I am very amused by the comment in your 19 January post “Broadcasting Board of Governors released video with gender-insensitive comment“, where President Steve Korn, is quoted as telling BBG members that his management changes have been “broadly endorsed” by the RFE/RL staff.  I am wondering how he would know, since he sits in his office, speaking only to his senior staff.  

These senior employees support him of course, because he has given them higher salaries (while regular employees have not even received a cost of living raise in two years), and changed the housing allowance so that senior managers get housing allowances at the discretion of the President.  I would also agree with the changes that made my salary payments and benefits significantly higher.

As for how the regular employees view the recent personnel moves, Mister Korn should ask around.  This is what I hear in the halls regarding the new appointed Vice-Presidents:

People wonder how a person with no journalism experience is once again in charge.  Even more amusing is that they got rid of the “Old White Guys”  who were hired to fix the problems that came up the last time this executive was placed in charge under a previous RFE/RL president.

The Chief of Staff is also a Vice President, which sounds odd to anyone who has covered governments or the military.  Since nobody really knows what this position entails, there are not many negatives comments heard in the building.

As for the one new person brought in to be yet another Vice President, nobody really knows him except that we have heard he is a friend of Steve Korn.  We did get a copy of his CV when he was hired, and he did spend a short period as his only work in broadcasting.  He never worked outside the United States of America, and does not seem to have worked with an organization that has international employees, even though he has the oversight function for personnel policies.  Nobody believes he is the best person for the job. We suspect he was brought on board because Steve Korn wanted a friend with him in Prague.

It would be nice if President Korn were to expand his interactions to include employees who actually work directly on our Broadcast (or should I say Content), and find a way to assist them in providing news to the target audience instead of closing news bureaus in Eurasia so that he and his senior staff could make more money and live in nicer houses.   Why should a single executive with no kids be eligible for a new title and housing allowance, when we have broadcasters with several children being asked to do with the same low monthly payments? Based on what I read on this website, I see that this is really emulating action by the BBG, showing that management is more important that quality output.

“No jeans for you RFE/RL ladies”

A commentary sent to BBG Watch by Leon (pen name), a former RFE/RL editor, writer and reporter.

To quote from an article by Leonid Panov, “American Radio Free Europe Fights in Courts against Armenian journalist. And Scores against America,” AZG Daily,  Dec 6, 2011: “Take Steven Korn, new president of the Radio. He’s already half a year in Prague and changed nothing. Political feeling — zero. Doesn’t speak a single foreign language. Could not find Balkans on the map, I was told,’ says Snjezana Pelivan.” [Pelivan is one of the two former foreign-born female RFE/RL employees who are suing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Broadcasting Board of Governors for unlawful discrimination.]

In that respect, Korn’s plans for foreign travels may contribute to his qualifications. I don’t know for sure whether Korn speaks any language other than English and whether it’s literally true that he could not find the Balkans on the map, but I’m quite sure he does not know any language or has in-depth knowledge of any country to which RFE/RL directs its programs.
 
And something else coming from insiders. One of the first broadly discussed and ridiculed improvements that Korn apparently intended to introduce, was the ban on women wearing jeans at work. Regardless of how true this rumor is, he does have a gusto for ladies’ look as we saw from his “cute high school intern” outburst at the Broadcasting Board of Governors meeting. He also referred to some of the talented RFE/RL broadcasters who have spent decades fighting communism and were now fighting authoritarianism in Russia and elsewhere as “old white guys.” Some of them are now gone.

At Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, where there are still quite a few accomplished writers, journalists, and other highly qualified professionals, I’m told that he is not a respected figure. (His Russian nickname at RFE/RL is not highly complimentary.) Hence, his penchant for surrounding himself with those matching his own level.

I don’t want to dwell here on one of his new Vice-Presidents but try to find on the Internet anything written by her. And (according to Korn) everyone at RFE/RL approves her promotion to oversee editorial content. Really?

Keep in mind that this is the radio station that was established and led by intellectual giants. Its current leadership is bad news for America, and it’s even worse news for those who expect RFE/RL to lead them in their fight for freedom.

                                            +420 603 317 078

E-mail: roitmanl@volny.cz

16 January 2012

Addressees– List enclosed:

Administration

Senate

House of Representatives

Information Copies – List enclosed:

BBG

RFE/RL

U.S. Ambassador, Prague,

NGOs, U.S.A.

Media U.S., Czech, Foreign

At Broadcasting Board of Governors and Radio Free Europe/Liberty – Public Diplomacy is Public Scandal at Public Expense

Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is the largest and highly visible institution of American public diplomacy abroad. In its noble official mission the Radio proclaims:

“To empower people in their struggle against violations of human rights,” “to promote democratic values and institutions,” “strengthen civil societies by projecting democratic values,” “provide a model for local media.”

RFE/RL’s yearly budget provided by Congress via the supervising Federal agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), exceeds 90 million dollars.  As a tool of American public diplomacy, RFE/RL has a simple overreaching goal: to enhance positive image of our country internationally. It is the same goal which Chinese public diplomacy, expensive and successful, has for China, or the Russian one, expanding and hapless, has for Russia.

RFE/RL broadcasts in 28 languages to 21 countries. The impact of RFE/RL’s public diplomacy on international public opinion is reflected by multilingual foreign media for which RFE/RL should “provide a model”. In this case, it turns monolingual:  

“hypocrisy”, “betrayal of ideals”, “violation of human rights”, “lawlessness”, “double standards”, “moral disaster”, “fraud”, “cynicism”, “Guantanamo in Prague”, “public idiocy instead of public diplomacy”, and so on.

Short list of the ongoing international publications is enclosed. In reality, that list, due to the exponential effect of Internet, is endless. By the time you read this letter, it will be even longer.

Over thirty years, prior to my retirement in 2005 as the Radio’s senior commentator, I worked for RFE/RL in New York, Munich, and Prague. During the cold war, RFE/RL was instrumental in combating communist lies and disdain for human rights. What is wrong with RFE/RL at present? Why U.S. public dollars are wasted so detrimentally to American image overseas?

The answer is bewildering, even hard to believe. In Czech courts, the American Radio fights for the right to apply communist law of 1963 written to allow Soviet enterprises to use Soviet laws

in subjugated Czechoslovakia. One of the overlooked relics of communist past, that law still remains on books in the post-communist Czech Republic. However, out of moral and political considerations, not a single American company, not a single foreign enterprise has ever made use of that law. In that, RFE/RL is unique.

The cynical irony of that unflattering uniqueness was not lost on international media. Nationally circulated Czech daily editorialized:

”Prague headquarters of RFE/RL, which pretends to be a messenger of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, behaves as an employer in such a way as if the principles it heralds are relevant “just” for the whole planet but not for what is going on inside that estimable organization itself.”

On December 6, 2011 multilingual Armenian newspaper AZG (People), Yerevan, wrote:

“For RFE/RL with its proudly proclaimed mission, the battlefield for public trust and positive American image abroad should be not in foreign courts but in foreign public opinion. In fact, RFE/RL has lost the court battles from the outset, just by entering the courtroom — on moral and political grounds.”

This year, January 2, The Croatian Times, Zagreb, reported:

“Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan officially requests the government of Croatia to support her legal claim against the Czech Republic in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. BBG, which controls and directs all American non-military broadcasters abroad, “makes all major policy determinations governing the operations of RFE/RL” and “provides worldwide personnel management policies, programs, and services.” All foreign journalists, producers, and other specialists employed by RFE/RL in Prague, are provided with uniform work contracts based on American labour laws inapplicable to foreigners outside the United States. Presently, the case of Armenian journalist, mother of three minor children Anna Karapetian, similar to Pelivan’s lawsuit, is again in the Czech Supreme court. It is the sixth time that her claim against RFE/RL will be handled by Czech judges. The case of Snjezana Pelivan has been heard four times. The Czech government… does not dare to interfere with the powerful Broadcasting Board of Governors in Washington and to request an end to violation of Czech legislative sovereignty.”
 
Accompanied by indignant media coverage, internationalization of the scandal widens on daily basis. On January 12, authoritative Prague newspaper Lidove noviny in an article titled “A spectre (ghost) is haunting ‘Free Europe’ ” quoted Snjezana Pelivan:
“Americans spit on this country openly and smile nicely. And Prague wipes itself dry and keeps smiling, too.”
Next day, January 13, that article was translated and republished by popular Russian web-portal, InoSMI. Reaction of Russian readers attests the achievements of public diplomacy performed by RFE/RL – its messenger, tool, and embodiment:
“Such is the real situation of journalists in ‘democratic’ countries,” “Americans spit not only on Czechs,” ”The human rights promoters! Their shity democracy in action, so to speak,” “Indeed, USA turned the democracy and employment rights into some kind of a bedlam,” “Nowhere and never the master was on equal footing with the slave”…
 
That reaction convincingly explains why in present day Russia RFE/RL occupies virtually untraceable 106th position among online broadcasters. Its share of the audience in Moscow is miserable 0 .07%, 52nd place. In Sankt-Petersburg, in some of the most important age categories it is marked by * — as statistically negligent. In Siberian Krasnoyarsk, in the
polling “My beloved Radio”, RFE/RL (” Radio Svoboda” in Russian usage) does not appear at all. It is not to be found also in 2011 rating table for Kiev, Ukraine. American RFE/RL had lost its moral standing and the audience, too.
 
One reads in recently published BBG’s yearly “Performance and Accountability Report”:
“We are proud to report the achievements of the BBG during FY 2011 in furthering our mission as well as wisely and effectively using the resources entrusted to us by the Administration, Congress, and the public.”
To be sure, in BBG report the Pelivan’s and Karapetian’s court cases and international reaction to them are not mentioned. Who is being taken for a ride – the Administration, Congress, and American public? Personally the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton serving on BBG and RFE/RL’s Board of Directors ex officio?
 
The latest yearly survey of 37 federal agencies released last October by Office of Personnel Management, again places BBG at the bottom of the list. Senator Tom Coburn called BBG “the most worthless organization in the federal government.”  Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, held last April the hearings titled “Is America’s Overseas Broadcasting Undermining Our National Interest and the Fight against Tyrannical Regimes?” That question was rhetoric. The answer is evident.
 
When BBG spits on your common sense and your intelligence, just as it spits on RFE/RL’s friendly host country, the Czech Republic, the attitude similar to that taken by the Czech government, would not serve American interests.
 
Shameful for America lawsuits in foreign courts should be stopped immediately by peaceful resolutions. Key to curtailing the ongoing court cases and the resulting international media coverage — anti-American but, unfortunately, fair — is in Washington. In White House, State Department, the Congress.  
 
That means: in your hands.
 
It is not up to me to suggest your course of actions.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
 
Lev Roitman
 
Enclosures: As stated    

 
 
Abbreviated List of international publications
(in Czech, Serbo-Croatian, English, Russian, Armenian, etc.)
condemning RFE/RL discriminative policies practiced in the Czech Republic

“Snjezana Pelivan asks Croatian government to support her legal claim in Strasbourg,”
“’Prague winter’ for USA’s Radio Free Europe/Liberty,”
“A Spectre Haunts ‘Free Europe’ ,”
“American Radio Free Europe violates equal rights of its foreign employees in Prague,”

“U.S.-Funded Radio Free Europe Invokes Communist Law to Violate the Will of Congress,”

“Two Women Fighting to Uphold America’s Principles at America’s Freedom Radio,”

“American RFE/RL Fights in Courts against Armenian Journalist. And Scores Against America,”

“From RFE/RL: Immorality as a Matter of Policy,”

“Czech Court Rules Against RFE/RL in Suit by Dismissed Armenian Employee,”

“In handcuffs of ‘Liberty’,”

“Czech Court to American Radio Free Europe: No Use for U.S. Laws in the Czech Republic. Hillary Clinton Will Not Be Asked to Testify,”

“Czech Court Rules RFE/RL Cannot Discriminate Against Its Own Foreign Journalists,”

“Radio Liberty Betrays Its Ideals,”

“Czech Supreme Court Rules Against Radio Free Europe. Karapetian’s Case Returned for New Consideration”,

“It’s the Morality, Stupid,”

“Radio Free Europe – Task for Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg,”

“Radio Free Europe – Guantanamo in Prague,”

“Armenian journalist appeals to Obama to Protect Rights of Foreign Journalists at U.S. Government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,”  

“Equality With Precondition. Practice of Free Europe Contradicts Its Ideals,”

“U.S. Attorney General is Asked to Investigate Fraud at RFE/RL,”

“Doomsday of Radio Liberty. From Double Standards to Double Morals?”

“A Sense of Betrayal,”

“Czech Politician Accuses U.S. of Discrimination Against Foreign Journalists,”

“On Air in Legal Vacuum,”

“Czech MP Writes to U.S. Counterparts Over Work Conditions in RFE/RL,”

”New Administration Must Undo RFE/RL Anti-Diplomacy Abroad,”

“BBG, RFE/RL: Bring Public Diplomats Instead of Public Bureaucrats,”

“Don’t Feed Kremlin’s Public Diplomacy With U.S. Public Hypocrisy,”

“Public Disaster Instead of Public Diplomacy,”

“Cases of Karapetian and Pelivan as Morality Check for Obama Administration. Radio Free Europe to Face European Court of Human Rights,”

“Czech MP Questions Pelivan Case,”

“Czech Sovereignty Ends at RFE/RL,”

“At Radio Free Europe/Liberty, Bulk of Discriminated Employees is Muslims. Hillary Clinton Serves on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Board of Directors,”

“Free Europe With Its Own Laws in Colonial Czech Republic?”  

“From Human Rights Show to Human Rights Court,”

“Prague Spring Leads to Strasbourg,”

”News Flashes From Radio Free/Radio Liberty. The Face of America Abroad,”

“Czech senator angry about Croat’s lawsuit”…  

Addressees:

U.S. Administration

Barack Obama

Joseph R. Biden

Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton

Honorable Ann Stock

Congress – House, Senate

Honorable Harry Reid

Honorable John Boehner

Honorable Mitch McConnell

Honorable Bill Delahunt

Honorable Brad Sherman

Honorable Benjamin L. Cardin

Honorable Steny H. Hoyer

Honorable Daniel K. Inouye

Honorable Trent Franks

Honorable Tom Coburn

Honorable Jon Kyl

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Honorable Ileana Ros-Lethinen

Honorable Dana Rohrabacher

Honorable Connie Mack

Honorable Howard L. Berman

Honorable Christopher H. Smith

Honorable Jeff Fortenberry

Honorable Donald M. Payne

Honorable  Karen Bass

Honorable Ted Poe

Honorable Russ Carnahan

Honorable Dan Burton

Honorable Tim Griffin

Honorable Gregory W. Meeks

Honorable Eliot L. Engel

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Honorable John F. Kerry

Honorable Richard G. Lugar

Honorable Barbara Boxer

Honorable Robert Menendez

Honorable Benjamin L. Cardin

Honorable Robert P. Casey Jr.

Honorable Jim Webb

Honorable Jeanne Shaheen

Honorable  Christopher Coons

Honorable  Richard J. Durbin

Honorable Bob Corker

Honorable Johnny Isakson

Honorable James E. Risch

Honorable Jim DeMint

Honorable John Barrasso

Honorable Roger F. Wicker

Honorable James M. Inhofe

Honorable Tom Udall

Honorable Mike Lee

Honorable Marco Rubio

Information Copies:

BBG

Mr. Walter Isaacson

Ms. Dana Perino

Ms. Susan McCue

Mr. Victor H. Ashe

Mr. Michael Lynton

Mr. Michael P. Meehan

Mr. Dennis Mulhaupt

Mr. Enders Wimbush

Mr. Jeffrey N. Trimble

RFE/RL

Mr. Steven Korn

U.S. Embassy, Prague

Honorable Norman L. Eisen

NGOs, U.S.

Selected Human Rights Organizations

BBG Watch

FreeMediaOnline

Selected Journalistic Organizations

Media

U.S., Czech, Foreign

Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Chairman Walter Isaacson speaking on January 13, 2012 about the BBG reorganization plan said that he has “changed his mind.” In the battle for public control and oversight of U.S. international broadcasting, Isaacson has modified his plan to remove U.S. government-funded broadcasting entities from public domain due to strong criticism from human rights groups, media freedom advocates, and BBG’s Victor Ashe. Isaacson apparently compromised with Ashe on some of the provisions of the plan, which the critics say could have led to CNN-ization of the Voice of America. Isaacson is a former CNN executive and author of a highly successful biography of Steve Jobs.

BBG Watch sources point out, however, that the battle for public ownership, control, and oversight of U.S. international broadcasting is far from over, with some BBG members and their executive staff still determined to de-federalize and cannibalize the Voice of America broadcasting resources and establish centralized bureaucratic controls over the surrogate broadcasters. The official BBG announcement, see below, does not describe any of the compromises and the modifications in Isaacson’s initial plan discussed during the January 13 BBG meeting.

###

Official BBG Announcement

BBG Calls for Agency Restructuring

Washington, D.C., January 18, 2012 – The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) announced its intention to restructure U.S. international broadcasting. It will seek legislation that would include establishing a Chief Executive Officer to manage the enterprise. In addition, the Board called for a plan to consolidate the agency’s three non-federal broadcast networks: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

“The Board is ready to strengthen U.S. international broadcasting in part by freeing up resources locked up in inefficient and duplicative administrative structures and reinvesting in programming,” said BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson. “This is a historic agreement by the Board to streamline international broadcasting into one great organization focused on quality journalism with many brands and many divisions but unified as one organization.”

In a resolution passed at its January 13 meeting in Washington, the Board announced its intention to restructure international broadcasting in accordance with its recently released 2012-2016 Strategic Plan. The Board outlined proposed reforms and its intent to develop a draft legislative package to be called the International Broadcasting Innovation Act of 2012 (the “IBIA”). It would establish a CEO who would report to the Board and provide day-to-day executive leadership. In addition the proposed package calls for a new organization that would reflect the optimal mix of federal and non-federal assets in support of international broadcasting; repeals the domestic dissemination ban in the Smith-Mundt Act; and renames the agency to reflect the mission of a unified structure. The restructuring package would be subject to appropriate administration approval and Congressional consideration.

“While there is a compelling case for streamlining the BBG’s complex structure and leveraging the highly professional newsgathering activities of our independent broadcast services, any reform plan will retain and celebrate the individual and historic brands and their journalistic mission,” said Isaacson in summarizing the Board’s recommendations. “We look forward to working with internal and external stakeholders and experts as well as with the Administration and Congress on these proposals.”

During its strategic review process, the Board engaged the services of management consultant Deloitte and external counsel Baker and Mackenzie to gain a detailed understanding of the costs, benefits and legal issues involved. The resulting studies indicated a compelling case and potential substantial savings over five years from eliminating duplicative management and administrative functions and affirmed the legal feasibility of a merger. Further details of the Board’s Record of Decisions and previous discussions can be found below:

Record of Decisions January 13, 2012

2011 Grantee Consolidation Assessment (Redacted)

Broadcasting Board of Governors Grantee Merger Assessment, executive summary

Minutes of November 18, 2011 BBG Meeting

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency, supervising all U.S. government-supported, civilian international broadcasting, whose mission is inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. BBG broadcasts reach an audience of 187 million in 100 countries. BBG networks include the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa), Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Marti).
For more information, please call the BBG’s Office of Public Affairs at 202-203-4400 or e-mail publicaffairs@bbg.gov.

In the letter, CUSIB’s co-founders Ann Noonan and Ted Lipien pointed out that CUSIB has been adamantly opposed to the BBG’s plan to end Voice of America radio and TV broadcasts in Cantonese and Mandarin to China. They expressed relief that the BBG has discarded this plan. The BBG was forced to abandon its plan due to a strong bipartisan opposition to it in Congress.

The letter also warns against efforts to undermine independence and specialization of the BBG-managed surrogate broadcasters, which include Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV. CUSIB also opposes BBG plans to de-federalize the Voice of America as leading to weakening its role of representing the voice of the American public to audiences abroad and to limiting public and Congressional oversight of VOA broadcasts.

CUSIB also calls for placing all of U.S. international broadcasting content in public domain, including programming from the surrogate broadcasters which is currently copyrighted despite being funded in full by American taxpayers. CUSIB is opposed to granting the BBG authority to actively distribute its programs in the United States but supports some modifications to the Smith-Mundt Act to clarify that all U.S. international broadcasting content is easily available to anyone in the United States who wants to use it. CUSIB is concerned, however, that active BBG involvement in marketing its programs in the United States would seriously undermine its mission abroad.

CUSIB also urged the BBG to improve its treatment of foreign-born journalists, particularly those employed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the Czech Republic, and called attention to the unfair treatment of contract employees at the Voice of America and the International Broadcasting Bureau in the United States.

CUSIB’s executive director Ann Noonan has been long active in human rights organizations. Ted Lipien is a former acting associate director of the Voice of America who now runs Free Media Online, a media freedom NGO. CUSIB’s Advisory Board includes journalists, human rights activists, media freedom advocates, and former U.S. government officials.

###

Open ‘Thank You’ Letter to Broadcasting Board of Governors

January 17, 2011

Dear Chairman Isaacson and Board Members:

We would like to thank the Broadcasting Board of Governors, especially Chairman Isaacson and Ambassador Ashe, for extending their invitation to allow our Executive Director to attend Friday’s Board Meeting as your guest. As members of a non-governmental organization that supports media freedom and U.S. international broadcasting, we are grateful that the Board is open to consider the views of those of us involved in the pro-democracy, free press, women’s rights, religious freedom and human rights movements here and abroad. In the great spirit of transparency, thank you.

On behalf of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting, we applaud your decision to discard plans to end Voice of America’s Cantonese and Mandarin radio and TV broadcasts. The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting was adamantly opposed to this plan.

We believe in and support the distinct and special missions of both VOA and surrogate broadcasters. We hope that you will carefully consider any future proposal that might impact on the unique role of VOA’s radio and television broadcasts as a powerful voice of the American people and our elected and non-elected representatives and spokesmen. We also hope that the independence of surrogate broadcasting will be preserved. De-federalization of the Voice of America would weaken its pro-human rights impact abroad and make it less representative of the views and values of American citizens. Centralization of management controls over the surrogate broadcasters could hamper their ability to specialize in human rights reporting and divert resources from those who are the most knowledgeable about the countries and regions to which they broadcast. Please consider these issues carefully.

Any reorganization proposals you may be putting forward should not diminish in any way full public ownership, control, and effective oversight over U.S. international broadcasting. Americans and their elective representatives need to have even greater input than now into how American policies, values and opinions are presented abroad. We are concerned that the BBG reorganization plan may limit transparency and accountability.

In support of transparency and openness, the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting advocates for public ownership of all content produced by publicly funded U.S. international broadcasters. We believe strongly that all such content, not just from VOA but also from the surrogate broadcasters, should be in public domain. We urge you to make this change as soon as possible with regard to the surrogate broadcasters. Their output is currently copyrighted even though it is entirely paid for by American taxpayers.

We support efforts to clarify the Smith-Mundt Act to state that anyone in the United States, as well as abroad, is free to use this content free of charge and to make sure that it is made available to those who may want it regardless of where they live.

We are strongly opposed, however, to any active marketing of such content by the Agency within the United States. We believe that this would seriously distract you from your primary mission of providing news to audiences overseas.

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting supports BBG journalists and other employees whose hard work and dedication help countless millions of people receive uncensored news. We urge you to address the issue of unequal treatment of foreign workers at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who are denied by a decision of the BBG some of the protections of the Czech labor law. This issue is now before the European Court of Human Rights. We are also concerned that a large number of contract employees at the Voice of America and the International Broadcasting Bureau are denied basic employment benefits and protections.

We would like to invite each of you to visit our website, www.CUSIB.org, and read the letter from one of the world’s top China watchers, Dr. Willy Lam, who wrote about the importance of VOA broadcasts. Please also watch the video we have posted that was recorded by volunteers of Women’s Rights in China at considerable risk to their own lives. This video shows how critical these broadcasts are to the most vulnerable, the most oppressed, and the poorest in the world. Please do not forget about them and about the Internet censorship they face – even as you rightfully try to expand your reach using new media.

It was an honor for our Executive Director to meet the Board Members who attended Friday’s meeting, and we will remain hopeful that you will welcome us to attend your next meeting.

Sincerely,

Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting
Ann Noonan, Executive Director
Ted Lipien, Director
www.cusib.org
contact@cusib.org

Cute High School Intern

Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) officials have gotten so used to running their small federal agency like their own private country club that they still frequently forget that at least some of their meetings can now be viewed online.

While the video from the last BBG meeting was streamed live, the on demand link to the video has not worked since then.

Last Friday, the American public got a taste of the new corporate culture emerging at the agency in charge of U.S. international broadcasting even prior to the implementation of the current restructuring plan to remove the BBG as much as possible from the government and public sphere.

While the American people might not begrudge a little bit of humor in public meetings, because of its history of discrimination against various groups of employees, the BBG is not exactly the place where joking about young women seems appropriate.

At the BBG meeting on Janurary 13, Radio and TV Marti which broadcast to Cuba and are managed by the BBG, showed a short video of their recent broadcasting achievements. The video was narrated by a young female intern.

After the presentation of the video, which apparently impressed everyone in the room, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President Steven Korn said that he was planning to hire a cute high school intern to narrate his organization’s next promotional video. People laughed.

While the remark at the BBG meeting was greeted by most in the room as funny, some of those present, perhaps including BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson himself, might have felt just a little bit uncomfortable. Recently hired BBG officials, many of whom happen to be former CNN employees, are known to be prone to making socially awkward comments. We’re not talking here about Isaacson and VOA director David Ensor. But some of the others are apparently not as familiar with the etiquette of working for a public institution.

Old White Guys

As we have reported earlier, one top BBG official wrote not too long ago about “old white guys” in discussing his personnel decisions. BBG Watch sources identified the person as a former CNN associate of Chairman Isaacson. Anonymous sources also told us that some BBG members wanted to have the official fired but the majority decided to let him stay after first reversing some of his personnel actions and reaffirming their commitment to opposing discrimination.

BBG Watch wonders who it might have been.

First Amendment at the Broadcasting Board of Governors

In light of our disclosures of this and other scandals, it’s not surprising that some BBG members and members of their executive staff don’t like BBG Watch.

We have received a credible report that a presidentially-appointed member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors has urged other BBG members to take an unspecified action against BBG Watch for publishing anonymous posts and comments which this member found highly objectionable. Our sources did not report on the nature of the action sought by the BBG member.

There are also no reports that BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson or any other BBG member responded positively to this request. Our sources tell us that the BBG member was particularly incensed that BBG Watch has anonymous sources within the agency. Credible sources told us that this particular BBG member called us “cowards.” (Or was it Prime Minister Putin speaking about his political opponents in Russia? We’re not absolutely sure.)

Another source speculated that some BBG members can be more easily influenced than others by BBG bureaucrats who want to create panic to divert attention from their own mistakes.

Anonymous Speech

We take very seriously any report that a high level U.S. Government official questions the right of free speech, including anonymous speech, or any implication that our media activities may be countered by government action. We have already taken additional measures to protect the BBG Watch website, including creating mirror sites.

We also want to assure all our readers and contributors that we will not be intimidated and plan to continue our investigative reporting and commentary in the same manner as before.

The irony of a Broadcasting Board of Governors member questioning the right of using anonymous sources and anonymous speech to expose bad judgement mismanagement on the part of U.S. government officials is that the BBG’s stated mission is “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

The BBG website also states that U.S. international broadcasting serves “as a trustworthy source of news and as an example of a free, professional press in countries that lack independent media.”

The BBG website also states that “BBG broadcasters engage with audiences and promote dialogue through interactive programs and social networking.”

Questioning the First Amendment protections of free speech would not be good public diplomacy for an agency that is still part of the U.S. foreign policy establishment and is also a journalistic institution.

This particular BBG member perhaps also does not realize that much of the social media content on the BBG websites is in fact anonymous and the BBG has no idea who originates most of the comments. The BBG is in fact engaging in promoting anonymous criticism of autocratic foreign governments by investing heavily in Internet censorship circumvention technologies. In fact, the U.S. Congress gave the BBG $10 million for the project to enable anonymous Internet users overcome cyber censorship in countries like China.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that “anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment.” A much-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

Culture of Fear versus Transparency

BBG Watch anonymous contributors do not particularly like using anonymous sources, but reporting from and about a federal agency where top officials freely use phrases such as “old white guys,” “cute high school interns,” and “cowards,” leaves little room for maneuver. We are satisfied that BBG Watch reporting has already produced important reforms at the BBG.

We are also pleased that BBG Chairman Isaacson and senior Republican member Victor Ashe are supportive of greater transparency within the BBG as exemplified by their efforts to expand public access to BBG meetings. We hope that other BBG members will follow their example if they don’t already. But the culture of fear at the BBG is still extremely strong despite Governor Ashe’s efforts to improve employee morale.

About BBG Watch

BBG Watch is an independent website run by former and current BBG employees and other volunteers. It is sponsored by Free Media Online, a media freedom nonprofit NGO registered as a 501(c)3 public institution. BBG Watch reporting has contributed to a number of reforms at the BBG and saving jobs of journalists specializing in human rights reporting.

We have criticized the BBG decision to end Voice of America broadcasting to China, which was subsequently blocked through bipartisan action in Congress. We have also reported on discrimination against foreign journalists at the BBG-managed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and exploitation of Voice of America contract employees, including long delays in the payment of their salaries. After our reports were published, some of the contractors received their long-delayed payments.