In a Washington Times Op-Ed, a Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting member Ted Lipien warned about a pro-Putin bias in the Voice of America Russian programs. Lipien reported that a highly respected independent journalist in Russia hired by the Broadcasting Board of Governors to evaluate the VOA Russian website concluded last year that it has a pro-Kremlin bias and downplays human rights reporting. BBG executives apparently failed to share the results of this study with BBG members.

On January 31, the Voice of America posted on its Russian website an alleged interview with a prominent Russian anti-corruption lawyer, anti-Putin opposition leader and blogger Alexei Navalny but had to remove it and apologize after Navalny said that the interview was “100 percent fake.” Navalny, who is viewed as an enemy by the Kremlin and has been a target of disinformation campaigns by Prime Minister Putin’s supporters, accused the Voice of America of “going nuts” and suggested that all those working for the VOA Russian Service should be let go.

BBG Watch website reported that despite issuing an apology, some staffers who were responsible for posting the fake interview have been telling VOA and BBG management that Navalny did give them an interview through an exchange of emails and then lied about it. BBG Watch reported that these staffers are recent arrivals from Russia who were hired as poorly paid contractors to replace experienced journalists who had been retired or pushed out because they were critical of Putin and may have lacked new media skills.

Asked by BBG Watch for a comment, Lipien said that in his long career with the Voice of America he did not recall a single incident where VOA would air a fake interview with a major anti-communist figure like Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa, or Vaclav Havel. “Had we done so due to some kind of secret police provocation, of which there were many, we would certainly not accuse these brave men of lying,” Lipien said.

The fact that this incident happened and that some VOA Russian Service staffers are still engaged in a whispering campaign of accusing Andrei Navalny of lying, as reported by BBG Watch, is extremely disturbing, Lipien said. Voice of America director should have called Alexei Navalny and issued a personal apology, which should have been posted on VOA websites in Russian and English, Lipien suggested. The fact that the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported on the fake interview incident in both Russian and English, but the VOA English news website completely ignored the story, points to serious problems with Voice of America journalism under the guidance of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. In many ways, it is now much worse than it was when VOA was still part of the United States Information Agency but VOA journalists knew how to use the VOA Charter to demand that controversial stories be covered, Lipien said. BBG Watch has been reporting that BBG

Go here to see the original:
Washington Times Op-Ed warns about pro-Putin bias in Voice of America Russian programs

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

Shortly after the imposition of martial law, VOA Polish broadcasts were expanded from two and a half to seven hours daily. Ä few weeks later, Voice of America aired the audio for the special television program “Let Poland Be Poland,” which was produced by the United States International Communications Agency (USICA). The agency, ran by President Reagan’s close friend Charles Z. Wick, was earlier known as the United Information Agency (USIA). Later, its name was changed back to USIA. At that time, the Voice of America was one of the elements of USICA.

The 90-minute program included statements of support from Henry Fonda, Charlton Heston, Glenda Jackson, Kirk Douglas, Paul McCarthney, Bob Hope, President Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, who performed the Polish folk song, “Ever Homeward” in both English and Polish, Czeslaw Milosz, Helmut Schmidt, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and others famous political leaders and artists. In total, 16 heads of state and government leaders made statements in support of Poland and of Solidarity.

Frank Sinatra singing “Ever Homeward” in “Let Poland Be Poland.” Link

A better recording of the song can be found in this video.

A scholar of U.S. public diplomacy, Paul Rockower, wrote that the program, “Let Poland be Poland,” was unique in its scope for multiple reasons (Link):

The Voice of America was not directly involved in the production of “Let Poland Be Poland,” but the then deputy chief of the VOA Polish Service and later its chief, Ted Lipien, was responsible for getting Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner for literature Czeslaw Milosz to participate in the television program.

The Voice of America broadcast radio programs in Polish from 1942 until 2000.

This is an excerpt (in Polish) from the book by Jarosław Jędrzejczak about the history of the Polish Service of the Voice of America, which covers the period of the martial law in Poland. The book is expected to be published in 2012.

Radio stanu wojennego

Fragment książki Jarosława Jędrzejczaka o Sekcji Polskiej Głosu Ameryki. Wydanie książki jest spodziewane w 2012.

W grudniu 1981 roku po ogłoszeniu w Polsce stanu wojennego rozszerzono program z 2,5 godzin do 7 godzin na dobę. Na specjalnych etatach Białego Domu zatrudniono dodatkowo w Polskiej Sekcji 10 osób. Większość z nich wywodziła się z najnowszej, solidarnościowej emigracji. Audycja poranna nadawana była codziennie początkowo od 6.30 do 7.45 a następnie od 6.00 do 8.00. Blok wieczornych audycji zaczynał się o 20.00 i kończył o pierwszej po północy.

W owym okresie wielonakładowy amerykański tygodnik U.S. News and World Report okładkę wydania z 11 stycznia 1982 roku zatytułował „Wielka wojna propagandowa”. W artykule pod tym samym tytułem pisał:

Kryzys w Polsce intensyfikuje to, co przeradza się w zmasowaną globalną walkę propagandową między Stanami Zjednoczonymi i Związkiem Radzieckim o serca i umysły milionów ludzi na świecie.

Bezpośrednio po narzuceniu Polsce stanu wojennego w grudniu 1981 roku Marek Święcicki wystartował z codzienną godzinną audycją „Echa wydarzeń dnia Głosu Ameryki”. Razem z powtórką pojawiały się dwa programy o 20 i 22 czasu środkowoeuropejskiego. Sam autor audycji w swoich wspomnieniach napisał:

Sądząc z wielu listów i opinii ustnych odegrała ona niewątpliwą rolę w podtrzymywaniu na duchu społeczeństwa polskiego w mrocznym okresie zwielokrotnionej przemocy komunistycznej.

W 1981 roku w przemówieniu telewizyjnym i radiowym do narodu z okazji świąt Bożego Narodzenia ówczesny prezydent Stanów Zjednoczonych Ronald Reagan olbrzymią większość czasu poświęcił Polsce. Zachęcił wtedy Amerykanów by tak jak on w oknie Białego Domu, postawili w wigilię Bożego Narodzenia w oknach swych domów i mieszkań palącą się świeczkę na znak solidarności z cierpiącym narodem polskim.

Tego dnia paląca się świeczka stała również w oknie apartamentu papieskiego w Watykanie. Później z inicjatywy prezydenta Reagana w telewizji zorganizowano wielki koncert pod tytułem zapożyczonym z piosenki Jana Pietrzaka „Żeby Polska była Polską”. Obszerne fragmenty koncertu ukazały się na antenie Głosu Ameryki.

Poszerzenie czasu emisji polskiego programu na falach VOA spowodowało, iż stare, mniej atrakcyjne w formie audycje zostały zastąpione nowymi pojawiającymi się sukcesywnie. Jednocześnie wraz z nowymi produkcjami przed mikrofonami zaistnieli ich autorzy rozpoczynający prace w VOA. Wówczas między innymi rozbrzmiały w eterze: „Przegląd wydarzeń tygodnia”, „Nashville – muzyka country” Róży Nowotarskiej, „Video, komputer”, „Z mikrofonem przez historię” Marka Święcickiego, „Notatnik rolniczy” Zdzisława Mikulskiego, „Teatr w Ameryce” w opracowaniu Sylwii Daneel, „Wydarzenia i ludzie”, „Świat książek” Jarosława Andersa, „Ameryka w przekroju” w opracowaniu Ireny Broni Radwańskiej, „Motorama” Wojtka Minicza, „Polonia”, „Przegląd pism emigracyjnych” Tadeusza Walendowskiego, „Czwartkowe spotkania z poezją i prozą” Nowotarskiej, „Americana”, „Amerykańskie opinie”, „Przegląd filmowy” Zwanieckiego, „Top 10 lista przebojów” Wojtka Żórniaka, „Z Ameryką na co dzień” oraz „Świat muzyczny Willisa Conovera” prowadzony przez Renatę Lipińską.

Do niedzielnego programu o 21.00 włączono transmisję Mszy Świętej w języku polskim. Było to zasługą ówczesnego szefa Sekcji Polskiej Feliksa Bronieckiego.

Według informacji Marka Walickiego Msze Święte w okresie stanu wojennego były rejestrowane w kościele polskiej Misji w Silver Spring pod Waszyngtonem. Do kościoła VOA wysyłał technika, który nagrywał nabożeństwo z polskim kazaniem. W niedzielnej audycji Mszę Świętą jedynie odtwarzano z taśmy magnetofonowej.

W waszyngtońskim studio znaleźli swoje miejsce, przybyli prosto z Polski, ludzie różnych profesji. Byli wśród nich między innymi: iberysta Piotr Niklewicz, muzyk i muzykolog Mirosław Kondracki, profesor filologii angielskiej Zdzisław Mikulski, krytyk literacki Jarosław Anders, lektor języka angielskiego Waldemar Chlebowski, lektorka radiowa Małgorzata Gerlicz, dziennikarz Radia Polonia Piotr Mroczyk, filmowiec Tadeusz Walendowski, bibliotekarz Witold Sułkowski, finansistka Helena Skotowska i jej kolega po fachu Andrzej Zwaniecki, dziennikarka Radia Wrocław Iwona Skoczylas, radiowe małżeństwo anglistka Anna i informatyk Marek Zalewscy, filolog języka angielskiego Marek Rudzki, dziennikarz TVP Bogdan Wojciechowski .

W 1982 roku rozpoczyna współpracę z Głosem Ameryki Jan Grużewski. Grużewski pełni nieetatową funkcję paryskiego korespondenta VOA. Był autorem przeglądów prasy francuskiej i zagranicznej. Jak wspomina Marek Walicki „Był on – poza Zofią Korbońską – jednym z niewielu bliskich mi powstańczych warszawiaków”.

W drugiej połowie lat osiemdziesiątych pojawia się audycja nosząca tytuł „Bez montażu”, pierwsza współtworzona przez słuchaczy, z którymi telefonicznie na antenie rozmawiali prowadzący program dziennikarze z Sekcji Polskiej Głosu Ameryki między innymi Bogdan Marison, Wojtek Żórniak, Waldemar Chlebowski i Janusz Hewell. Obok słuchaczy przed radiowym mikrofonem VOA występują najwybitniejsi przedstawiciele polskiej opozycji politycznej.

Według danych The East European Audience and Opinion Research, w 1984 roku w Polsce tygodniowy wskaźnik audytoriów zachodnich stacji przedstawiał się następująco: RWE – 66%, Głos Ameryki – 48%, BBC –33% i DLF – 9%. Wskazywano jednocześnie, iż najlepsze godziny emisji audycji to 22-23. W związku z powyższym główne programy informacyjne polskojęzycznych stacji ukazywały się właśnie w tym czasie. RWE – 22.10 – Fakty, wydarzenia, opinie; Głos Ameryki – 22.10 – Echa wydarzeń dnia, BBC – 21.40 -Reflektorem po świecie.

W latach 1985 –1987 w centralnej redakcji VOA pracował wywodzący się z Polskiego Radia, były dziennikarz Rozgłośni Polskiej Radia Wolna Europa Marek Łatyński. Łatyński w 1987 roku powrócił do RWE, gdzie do 1989 roku sprawował funkcję dyrektora sekcji polskiej RWE. We wspomnieniowej książce „Ogród Angielski 1” Łatyński o pracy w Głosie Ameryki napisał:

Robiłem programy o wydarzeniach we wschodniej Europie i w ZSRR dla działu centralnego Głosu Ameryki, a więc po angielsku. Sam język nie był dla mnie główną trudnością: mówiłem i pisałem po angielsku od dziecka. Trudności polegały na innych dziennikarskich konwencjach, które sprowadzały się do czystej i dość suchej relacji o wydarzeniach i ukrywaniu własnego poglądu, a nie interpretowaniu ich na podstawie własnej znajomości rzeczy, jak w Wolnej Europie, a także na przystosowaniu się do nowego otoczenia w pracy.

W dziejach Sekcji Polskiej VOA nie brakowało też, specjalnych programów nadawanych w dodatkowym czasie antenowym. Dobrym przykładem są audycje emitowane podczas wizyt papieża Jana Pawła II w Polsce i w Ameryce. 11 października 1979 roku Marek Walicki otrzymał podziękowanie za wkład pracy i profesjonalną obsługę papieskiej wizyty w USA. Od 1980 roku jednym z współtwórców radiowych transmisji pielgrzymek Ojca Świętego był jezuita Stefan Filipowicz. Z perspektywy minionych lat ojciec Filipowicz w liście do mnie tak wspomina okres swojej radiowej działalności w VOA:

Pracowałem w VOA prawie 8 lat, informując Polskę o różnych przejawach życia Kościoła w USA i na świecie. Nadto komentowałem uroczystości papieskie, jak pasterki czy na przykład całą drugą wizytę Jana Pawła II w kraju, kiedy to władze komunistyczne nie dały nam łączy telefonicznych i korzystaliśmy z bieżącego komentarza Radia Watykańskiego, wyciszając głos mojego kolegi z Watykanu, ojca Floriana Pełki, i w to miejsce wkładając mój komentarz. Było to jedno z trudniejszych przedsięwzięć. Wsłuchiwałem się w głośnik, a kiedy wyczułem, że ojciec Pełka wciąga powietrze, by się włączyć z komentarzem, bezbłędnie wchodziłem ja z moim własnym. (… ) W moich archiwach zostawiłem jedynie tematy kilkuset audycji nadawanych w tym pionierskim okresie.

Praca ojca Filipowicza i radiowców z Polskiej Sekcji relacjonujących drugą pielgrzymkę Jana Pawała II do Polski w czerwcu 1983 roku została dostrzeżona przez dyrekcję USIA. 20 czerwca 1983 roku Sekcja Polska otrzymuje specjalną pochwałę Amerykańskiej Agencji Informacyjnej za radiową obsługę papieskiej wizyty w ojczystym kraju.

W lutym 1982 roku Sekcja Polska z rąk naczelnego dyrektora Jamesa Conklinga, otrzymała Wielką Nagrodę Głosu Ameryki – A Superior Honor Award za wyjątkową służbę, wysoki poziom zawodowy i pełne oddanie w przygotowywaniu i opracowywaniu programów dla objętej stanem wojennym Polski. Było to największe wyróżnienie, jakie mogło spotkać polskich radiowców z VOA. W wydanym z tej okazji pamiątkowym dyplomie wymieniono nazwiska szesnastu stałych pracowników Polskiej Sekcji. W kolejności alfabetycznej, w oryginalnej angielskiej pisowni na dyplomie znalazły się następujące osoby: Feliks Broniecki, Wacław Bniński, Irene Broni, Sylvia Daneel, Henryk Grynberg, Jan Herburt-Hewell, Ewa Jaxa-Debicka, Rose Kobylinski, Tadeusz Lipien, Boyden Marison, Richard Mossin, Elizabeth Speidel, Roma Starczewska-Murray, Marek Swiecicki, Marek Walicki i Zbigniew Wierzbicki.

Dalsze zmiany w polskim programie możliwe były już dzięki niezwykłym zdolnością najmłodszego wśród kierowników sekcji językowych VOA Tadeusza Lipienia, który zastąpił przechodzącego na emeryturę Feliksa Bronieckiego. W 1982 roku, gdy obejmował stanowisko szefa Sekcji Polskiej Lipień miał 27 lat. Nowy szef ukończył wcześniej studia na wydziale spraw międzynarodowych Uniwersytetu George Washington w Waszyngtonie.

W owym okresie dzielnie pomagał mu pełniący obowiązki zastępcy kierownika sekcji Marek Walicki, który słuchaczom zachodnich stacji bliżej znany był pod swoimi radiowymi pseudonimami jako Jan Korsak z VOA lub wcześniej jako Jan Łada z fal Rozgłośni Polskiej Radia Wolna Europa. Walicki obok pracy administracyjnej przygotowywał audycje popularyzujące ogólnie rozumianą naukę oraz najnowsze wynalazki amerykańskie głównie techniczne i medyczne.

Prosto z Londynu ściągnięty zostaje do Waszyngtonu Piotr Mroczyk, który wcześniej związany był z Telewizją Polską. Po rozstaniu z Ameryką Mroczyk kieruje pracami Rozgłośni Polskiej Radia Wolna Europa. Był jej ostatnim dyrektorem, a następnie szefem istniejącego trzy lata w Warszawie Radia Wolna Europa Inc., które swoją działalnością nawiązywało do istniejącego przez czterdzieści dwa lata w Monachium Radia Free Europe.

Korespondentem nowojorskim, a później także pracownikiem centrali w Waszyngtonie był wówczas Sławomir Suss. Po odejściu z VOA kontynuował radiową pracę w RWE w Monachium.

W 1987 roku dyrekcja VOA wyróżnia Marka P. Krzyżańskiego i Bogusława Jerke za audycję poświęconą Nagrodzie Praw Człowieka im. Roberta F. Kennedy. Program został wyemitowany w czwartym kwartale 1986 roku.

W latach osiemdziesiątych Głosu Ameryki słuchali niemal wszyscy, a niektórzy świadectwo tego zamieścili w swoich publikacjach. Ojciec Jacek Salij w książce „Nadzieja poddawana próbom” w treść swoich rozważań wplata wątek związany z odbiorem audycji radiowych z Waszyngtonu.

Tak się złożyło, że w latach 1988-1989, kiedy chciałem wysłuchać wieczornego dziennika, najczęściej włączałem „Głos Ameryki”. Uderzyło mnie, że tak wiele mówiła ta radiostacja o prezydencie Reaganie i że skończyło się to dosłownie z dnia na dzień, z chwilą, kiedy przestał być prezydentem. Odtąd tamte dzienniki niezwykle wiele miejsca zaczęły poświęcać nowemu prezydentowi. Zatem osoba prezydenta była przedmiotem tak ogromnego zainteresowania nie ze względu na nią samą, ale ze względu na swój urząd, dzięki któremu każdy kolejny prezydent symbolizuje jedność państwa i jakoś całkiem realnie ją kształtuje. ( … )

W listopadzie 1985 roku Zespół Analiz Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnętrznych PRL opracował dokument „Kierunki propagandy dywersyjnych rozgłośni polskojęzycznych”. Wspomniany dokument znajduje się w zbiorach Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej. Urzędnicy MSW analizie poddali audycje pięciu polskojęzycznych redakcji: Radia Wolna Europa, Głosu Ameryki, BBC, Deuchlandfunku i Radia France Internationale, które łącznie w ciągu doby emitowały 37 godzin i 45 minut programu. W owym okresie RWE nadawało 22-godzinny program, VOA 7-godzinny, BBC 4-godzinny, DLF 3,45 godzinny i RFI 1-godzinny. Autorzy dokumentu jako główny cel programów omawianych rozgłośni podają „oczernianie i zdyskredytowanie ideologii socjalistycznej i wszystkich sił społecznych i politycznych realizujących przemiany socjalistyczne w Polsce”. Charakteryzując Głos Ameryki lat osiemdziesiątych autorzy opracowania pisali:

Głos Ameryki pełni niejako funkcje rozgłośni autorytatywnie interpretującej wydarzenia polityczne w świecie. Wydaje się więc, że audycje tej rozgłośni przeznaczone są dla słuchaczy interesujących się polityką, bez specjalnego ukierunkowania na grupy zawodowe, czy słuchaczy o określonym poziomie wykształcenia.

W 1992 roku przy okazji realizacji filmu dokumentalnego „Głos z Ameryki” Jan Nowak Jeziorański były dyrektor Rozgłośni Polskiej Radia Wolna Europa udzielając wywiadu Beacie Postnikoff powiedział:

Nie było między nami właściwie współzawodnictwa aczkolwiek nasi koledzy z Głosu Ameryki zazdrościli nam znacznie większych środków, całodziennych programów, a przede wszystkim swobody redakcyjnej. Bo jednak Głos Ameryki jest część amerykańskiego aparatu państwowego. Podczas kiedy myśmy byli nie tylko jako organizacja bardzo autonomiczni, ale polska załoga redakcyjna miała właściwie zupełną swobodę i inicjatywę. Myśmy mieli prawo mówić jak Polacy do Polaków z naszego punktu widzenia. Podczas kiedy Głos Ameryki jest niejako projekcją Stanów Zjednoczonych. Może to nie jest koniecznie ograniczone tylko do punktu widzenia rządowego, ale Polska w tych audycjach ma się ukazywać tylko w kontekście ogólnym, amerykańskim. No więc na przykład rola i działalność Polonii Amerykańskiej, bo to jest częścią obrazu amerykańskiego. W moim przekonaniu obie te radiostacje miały swoje charakterystyczne właściwości. Każda inne, które niejako wzajemnie się uzupełniały.

Kiedy byłem pytany przez Amerykanów czy wobec dużego sukcesu, jaki Wolna Europa odniosła w Polsce, Głos Ameryki jest w ogóle potrzebny? Odpowiadałem zawsze – absolutnie tak, bo to jest dla nas tarcza, która nas osłania przed używaniem nas jako instrumentu na co dzień rządu amerykańskiego. Dopóki istnieje Głos Ameryki mamy spokój. Gdyby Głos Ameryki przestał istnieć wówczas znaleźlibyśmy się pod wielkim naciskiem organizacji rządowych żeby przedstawiać ich punkt widzenia.

Rząd Amerykański no powiedzmy może nie wtrącał się na co dzień, ale jednak są, muszę powiedzieć stałe tendencje i Głos Ameryki jest bardzo przygnieciony przez państwową służbę i państwową biurokrację… Ale mimo to jak twierdzę robi dobrą robotę.

The BBG manages VOA, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and other U.S. government-funded broadcasters.

Reggie Littlejohn said that countless women and children in China are victims of forced abortions and human trafficking under the one child policy. She also talked about human rights activists like Chen Guangcheng who are imprisoned and persecuted by the Chinese government.

Ted Lipien spoke about the importance of the work of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia journalists who bring uncensored news to the people in China.

Timothy Shamble noted that the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union did not eliminate totalitarian and authoritarian ideologies in countries like Russia and China or the need for assisting the victims of human rights abuses with radio and television broadcasts from the United States.

The Victims of Communism Memorial was dedicated by President George W. Bush on June 12, 2007. The dedication ceremony featured the unveiling of the “Goddess of Democracy,” a bronze replica of a statue erected by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China in the spring of 1989. Many world leaders visit the memorial site to pay their respects and lay wreaths. It is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and New Jersey Avenue, NW on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

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. CUSIB opposed the Broadcasting Board of Governors plans to end Voice of America radio and television programs to China. These programs were saved thanks to an amendment introduced by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. The amendment received wide bipartisan support.

On December 6, 2011, Congressman Rohrabacher hosted a reception on Capitol Hill to mark the 70th anniversary of VOA broadcasting to China. The Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, attended the reception and recorded a special video message about the importance of VOA news broadcasts for the people in China.

The BBG manages VOA, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and other U.S. government-funded broadcasters.

Reggie Littlejohn said that countless women and children in China are victims of forced abortions and human trafficking under the one child policy. She also talked about human rights activists like Chen Guangcheng who are imprisoned and persecuted by the Chinese government.

Ted Lipien spoke about the importance of the work of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia journalists who bring uncensored news to the people in China.

Timothy Shamble noted that the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union did not eliminate totalitarian and authoritarian ideologies in countries like Russia and China or the need for assisting the victims of human rights abuses with radio and television broadcasts from the United States.

The Victims of Communism Memorial was dedicated by President George W. Bush on June 12, 2007. The dedication ceremony featured the unveiling of the “Goddess of Democracy,” a bronze replica of a statue erected by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China in the spring of 1989. Many world leaders visit the memorial site to pay their respects and lay wreaths. It is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and New Jersey Avenue, NW on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

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. CUSIB opposed the Broadcasting Board of Governors plans to end Voice of America radio and television programs to China. These programs were saved thanks to an amendment introduced by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. The amendment received wide bipartisan support.

On December 6, 2011, Congressman Rohrabacher hosted a reception on Capitol Hill to mark the 70th anniversary of VOA broadcasting to China. The Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, attended the reception and recorded a special video message about the importance of VOA news broadcasts for the people in China.
Read the original:
CUSIB members honor victims of human rights abuses in China, stress importance of VOA and RFA broadcasts

Ted Lipien at 9:45 AM October 24, 2011

Suppose The Los Angeles Times were banned by the U.S. government that became repressive, some of your reporters imprisoned or exiled — would you still publish an editorial in your clandestine online edition — if you managed to create one — that phone messages from Canada providing news about human rights abuses in the U.S. were in themselves abusive? I don’t think so.

One can argue whether sending phone text messages is the best way of delivering U.S. news to Cuba, but to say that the U.S. should do nothing to provide uncensored news and instead allow more investments to help the repressive Cuban government is irresponsible. Someone has to stand up for human rights. I remember hearing the same arguments about stopping U.S. news broadcasts and helping communist governments in Eastern Europe so they could reform themselves faster. They did not. People like Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel would tell you that Voice of America and Radio Free Europe broadcasts were crucial to winning the struggle against the communist regimes.

Sincerely,

Ted Lipien

Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – cusib.org)

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) is a nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization working to strengthen free flow of uncensored news from the United States to countries with restricted and developing media environments. CUSIB supports journalism in defense of media freedom and human rights and works closely with the executive branch, Congress, and media to promote effective multi-channel delivery of news and information to overcome press censorship.

RFE/RL analyst Charles Dameron took issue with another of Putin’s claims in the same interview. Putin said that NTV’s Vladimir Kulistikov’s move to state television from Radio Svoboda is evidence of Russia’s liberalization. Kulistikov was one of the reporters asking questions.

The RFE/RL analyst pointed out that dozens of journalists in Russia have been killed during Mr. Putin’s rule because they offended the authorities.

Ted Lipien said that there was a clear purpose to Vladimir Putin’s comments linking Radio Svoboda to spying on the USSR during the Cold War. Such comments, Lipien said, are designed to intimidate both journalists and Radio Svoboda’s potential audience in Russia, in addition to reassuring Prime Minister’s Putin’s nationalistic supporters.

Read more on CUSIB:

Follow this link to BBG Watch:
Putin goes after Radio Svoboda on Russian TV — CUSIB

BBG member Dana Perino noticed and The Washington Post wrote about it (funny how these stories appear in U.S. media before each BBG board meeting). It is one many great successes of the Voice of America China Branch.

From the BBG press release:

The 24-year-old host of “OMG Meiyu,” a trendy, cross cultural English teaching feature produced by Voice of America’s Mandarin Service, has become an overnight sensation in China, where viewers are flocking to social media sites to see her idiomatic lesson called “Yucky Gunk.”

More than 2 million people have now clicked on Jessica Beinecke’s quirky videos, which teach Chinese speakers about common English expressions used by young Americans. “Yucky Gunk,” one “OMG Meiyu” feature (in Mandarin “meiyu” means American English), has been viewed more than 1.4 million times.

Yes, BBG members (I’m not even bothering to mention the executive staff), journalists working at VOA already produce great web content for young and old audiences in China. Jessica Beinecke is fantastic. But don’t be confused. Her videos are allowed on the Chinese Internet because they cause no great harm.

Of course, such programs should continue, but your executive staff’s idea that 45 VOA Chinese Branch journalists should be fired to do more of such programs is both ridiculous and aims for quite a different goal than what they say.

Keep in mind that VOA and U.S. international broadcasting were not established to do nothing else but to teach English or provide programs about health. That’s not what VOA was doing during WWII and during the Cold War. Believe me, in this budget crisis, this is not what American taxpayers and the U.S. Congress will tolerate.

Don’t get me wrong. Americans and their representatives in Congress are not stupid. They understand the value of community building and community service radio and TV programming, such as Willis Conover’s jazz programs during the Cold War and Jessica Beinecke’s English teaching videos. But they will fund them only in the context of a well-designed strategy to provide news, American commentary, and hope to victims of repressive regimes. This is what the mission of U.S. international broadcasting has always been all about.

Seriously, you can’t say that VOA will be doing soft programming for China that the Chinese regime might allow on the Internet while Radio Free Asia will be doing hard news reporting on shortwave. First of all, the Voice of America is the voice of America for audiences abroad, and America vis-a-vis China is not only about teaching English and being inoffensive to the Chinese rulers. As good and as needed as RFA surrogate programs are, don’t forget that VOA is far better known and respected in China. (Even your own research shows that.)

Do listen to Chinese human rights activists, human rights organizations, and many others who have told you that victims of the Chinese regime and those who want democratic reforms in their countries do listen to VOA on shortwave and watch its news programs on satellite TV. Influential members of Congress with many years of experience in foreign affairs have told you the same thing and voted to block the program cutting plan for China that your staff came up with shortly before the outbreak of the Jasmine revolution.

Instead of listening to your advisors who have never experienced life under communism, do listen instead to the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. During a five-minute reprieve from the usual Internet isolation imposed on her, Liu Xia wrote a friend that she is “miserable.”

“Can’t go out. My whole family are hostages,” Liu Xia wrote, as The Washington Post’s Keith B. Richburg reported last month. “I don’t know how I managed to get online,” she also wrote. “Don’t go online. Otherwise my whole family is in danger.”

Read what Ms. Jing Zhang, a former Chinese political prisoner and current president of Women’s Rights in China wrote for Free Media Online:

Earlier this year, I interviewed a victim of botched sterilization operations mandated by the government’s birth planning policy, which resulted in a crippling disability. This woman from a rural area insisted that her name could not be publicized on “foreign radio”, otherwise local officials would never stop persecuting her. I was puzzled and asked what she meant by “foreign radio”. “Voice of America and that Radio something Asia,” she told me.

An unemployed woman from a large southern Chinese city told me that she tried to learn to use the Internet. But she could not afford computer repairs and did not know how to protected it from viruses. So she decided to learn about the outside world through radio, which was both simple and inexpensive. Her regular listening schedule included VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio France Internationale, and Deutsche Welle.

There is no doubt that Voice of America’s broadcasts in Chinese still enjoy a vast and loyal audience in China. At the same time as the Chinese government is trampling human rights, tightening Internet controls and blocking Western information and the values of human rights and political freedom, it is also actively expanding the propaganda apparatus abroad.

Jing Zhang suffered five years in prison for her belief in freedom and democracy. I think she knows more about Westen media use in China and what kind of programming is needed than your executive staff. Read more.

We’ll try to make it very simple. Your marketing strategy completely ignores the essential mission of U.S. international broadcasting — providing uncensored news, ideas and hope to those living under oppressive regimes.

We know it is tempting to go for an easy solution to building up a mass audience. You can always do it if you make your programs so innocuous that regimes in China, Ethiopia, Russia and elsewhere will welcome them on their national networks and stop filtering them from the Internet.

One of you Board members said that “almost no one” in China listens to VOA on shortwave. It may be true that the numbers are not large, although far larger than you think. What is important is who listens and to what.

Had anybody in the West heard of Lech Walesa before the 1980 strikes in Poland and the creation of the Solidarity labor union? He was the kind of person your current marketing strategy completely ignores. Slightly older, without higher level of education, non-English speaker, and without access to the latest communications technology. The same is true for hundreds of millions of people in China. It may take years or decades, but Lech Walesas of China will sooner or later thank you for not letting them down. Believe me, when I was in charge of VOA’s Polish Service there were those who said that we should make our programs less offensive to the communist regime. Good thing we didn’t.

This brings me to my final point and “OMG Meiyu” — a program that deserves great praise and continued support. But this program and many other things that the VOA Chinese Branch has been doing for years expose the falseness of the claims of your executives that VOA programming for China is somewhat deficient and that 45 journalists who specialize in human rights need to go so that your staff can hire more private consultants and contractors while also beefing up the number of their own administrative positions. Nobody should be fooled. This is not about improving the VOA China Branch but about making it ineffective as a U.S. international broadcaster in China while preserving the future of RFA. That’s how bureaucrats think and act.

The irony in this whole charade is that Radio Free Asia should not need this kind of help. If it does its job right and provides really hard-hitting surrogate news and commentary, it will also have an audience in China — perhaps small but in the long run quite influential. Keep in mind that previous board members and their executives concluded that Radio Liberty programs to Russia were too hostile.

Final word of advice. Stick to hard news, maintain the human rights focus and stop obsessing about winning the approval of undemocratic regimes. They won’t let you on their airwaves and their Internet networks unless you give up on your original mission. Don’t do it.

By the way, congratulations on your latest statement in defense of press freedom in various countries. It is the strongest one ever in years. Ignore your marketing advisors, stick with this kind of approach, read the BBG Watch Hot Tub Blog (they’ve done a great job), and you won’t go wrong.

 Sourced from: BBG Watch

The latest charges of censorship at the Voice of America and the Broadcasting Board of Governors first surfaced in investigative reports by exiled Ethiopian journalist Abebe Gellaw who was recently a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution in California. He publishes the Ethiopian American news website Addis Voice. His website and many others are banned in Ethiopia.

Addis Voice reported that BBG and VOA officials have tried to silence and punish Voice of America journalist David Arnold, the chief of the Horn to Africa Service, for disclosing the Ethiopian regime’s demands for censoring VOA broadcasts made in Addis Ababa during a recent meeting with visiting BBG members. Since his exile from Ethiopia, Mr. Gellaw’s articles and interviews have been published in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Guardian, and the Far East Review.

In June 2011, three BBG members appointed by President Obama went to Ethiopia where they met with officials of the Ethiopian regime to discuss their complaints of anti-regime bias in VOA news programs. According to reports in Ethiopian American media, BBG members were presented a list of Ethiopian dissidents, political exiles and foreign critics whom the regime wants to ban from Voice of America radio broadcasts, apparently as a condition for lifting the local jamming of these programs. The names were included in a document describing the objections of the Ethiopian regime to VOA news reports. Addis Voice obtained the document and made it available online.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and other media freedom organizations have accused the Ethiopian regimeof Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, in power since 1991, of imprisoning journalists, jamming Voice of America and other foreign broadcasts, and blocking many foreign and independent news websites.

Ethiopian American media reported that BBG officials, who apparently wanted to keep the content of their negotiations in Addis Ababa secret, suspended the chief of the Voice of America Horn of Africa Service David Arnold from his position after he had informed his VOA colleagues about the Ethiopian regime’s demands. BBG officials accused Mr. Arnold, a highly-regarded journalist with decades of reporting experience, of engaging in misinformation but later allowed him to return to work after Ethiopian American media reports brought about a storm of criticism and raised charges of censorship. According to reports in the Ethiopian American media, it is not clear, however, whether he will keep his old job and be safe from further harassment by BBG members and their executive staff.

Phone calls, faxes and emails protesting censorship of the Voice of America news, the dismissal of VOA journalist David Arnold, and the BBG’s plan to end VOA radio and TV broadcasts to China and to fire journalists specializing in human rights reporting can be directed to the following institutions:

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman; Howard L. Berman, Ranking Member

U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, John F. Kerry, Chairman; Richard G. Lugar, Ranking Member

Committee to Protect Journalistsinfo@cpj.org

Reporters Without Bordersclc@rsf.org

Index on Censorshipenquiries@indexoncensorship.org

Mr. Arnold was part of a delegation headed by three Broadcasting Board of Governors members — Susan McCue, Dana Perino, and Michael P. Meehan.

A VOA report on the visit, which included information disclosed by Mr. Arnold, was removed from the VOA website, reportedly soon after Ethiopian officials complained about it to the BBG staff. Subsequently, VOA executives also banned news coverage from a meeting of Ethiopian political exiles which was held in Washington, D.C. area, suggesting that the BBG mission to Ethiopia continues to have an impact on the bureaucrats who are eager to please BBG members and their executive staff.

Abebe Gellaw reported that the controversy over censorship at the Voice of America took a bizarre twist last week when the Director of Africa Division forbade staffers from taking notes at a meeting she held with employees of the Horn of Africa Service. The manager in charge of VOA programs to Africa told staff to do more people-oriented programming and cut down on the number of stories focused on political affairs.

Free Media Online president Ted Lipien

“Most BBG members, nominated because of their political loyalty and private sector experience, do not know how to deal with enemies of press freedom and are all too eager to listen to dictators’ complaints against independent journalists without realizing the negative impact of their actions on victims of political repression,” Lipien said.

BBG member Michael P. Meehan

Voice of America sources have told Free Media Online that attempts to punish VOA journalists by BBG members and their staff have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among the media professionals employed by the U.S. government-funded organizations run by the BBG.

“The BBG’s attempts to discipline Mr. Arnold for doing his job as a journalist is even more outrageous in light of the fact that in 2005 the Ethiopian regime charged five journalists working for the VOA Amharic Service with treason and threatened them with the death penalty,” Lipien said. The charges were later withdrawn after pressure from the U.S. government and human rights NGOs.

“The BBG should be in business of supporting media freedom, not secretly negotiating with suppressors of free press in countries like Ethiopia, Russia, and China, and censoring and punishing its own journalists. The goal of U.S. public diplomacy ought to be reaching out to the victims of political repression abroad, not trying to improve relations with dictatorial regimes. The job of dealing with dictators should be left to professional State Department diplomats, who are hopefully both tough and experienced. The idea that political operatives and private businessmen from the U.S. can somehow persuade dictators to soften their grip on the media had been tried by naive individuals numerous times when the Soviet Union still existed and had always failed while making the life of dissidents and independent journalists more difficult and more dangerous,” Lipien said.

“Sending not one but three BBG members to Ethiopia with a large entourage to negotiate with enemies of press freedom was counterproductive and a tremendous waste of taxpayers’ money,” Lipien added. “It made the enemies of press freedom feel good and took away hope from the victims of human rights abuses and the journalists who try to defend them. If it were otherwise, BBG members and executives would not have resorted to censorship and intimidation against their own journalists.”

Lipien suggested that the BBG represents now a greater danger to journalistic independence at the Voice of America than State Department diplomats ever did when VOA was part of the now-defunct United States Information Agency (USIA). This is highly ironic — according to him — because one of the reasons the U.S. Congress created the BBG was to establish a better firewall between VOA journalists and administration officials. “While I worked as a journalist at VOA, lower-level State Department and USIA officials sometimes tried to influence our reporting but these attempts were relatively rare and we were able to ignore most of them before they escalated into a real fight. The BBG, on the other hand, has a much greater direct power over VOA journalists, as Mr. Arnold has found out, and is far less accountable. State Department diplomats were also more aware that it is illegal to interfere with journalistic independence of Voice of America reporters — something that some of the BBG members, some of their executive staffers, and some VOA managers don’t seem to understand, as strange as it may be,” Free Media Online president said.

Lipien also said that compounding the problem is the incompetence of the entrenched BBG executive staff, which feeds the eagerness of BBG members, derived from their private sector experience, to make deals with dictators to establish local program placement in the hope of increasing audience ratings. This is a failed strategy, which the BBG staff also uses to justify eliminating VOA radio and TV broadcasts to countries like China and Russia when their local program efforts inevitably fail, Lipien observed. He listed as examples of the most spectacular failures of the BBG executive staff giving airtime to Holocaust deniers, ending VOA radio programs to Russia just 12 days before the Russian military attack on the Republic of Georgia, their refusal to resume these programs, planning to end VOA radio and TV broadcasts to China on the anniversary of the establishment of the communist regime in Beijing, and their decision to send BBG members to negotiate with dictators who only stay in power because of their repression of free media.

In a move that is likely to endanger human rights activists, the BBG executive staff has been advocating Internet-only VOA news delivery to China despite Beijing’s effective Internet censorship and its ability to discover identities of individuals trying to access Western news websites. BBG bureaucrats with links to private sector contractors have been making promises of piercing China’s Internet firewall and yet have been unable to protect Voice of America’s own websites from successful attacks by hackers, most likely from China and Russia.

The Ethiopian American organizers of the protest rally against the Broadcasting Board of Governors are warning that the BBG wants to turn the Voice of America into the Voice of China. The rally is scheduled for 9 AM, Monday, July 25, in front of the Voice of America building at 330 Independence Avenue, S.W. in Washington, D.C. just below the Capital Hill. Free Media Online is asking members of Congress to investigate the charges of censorship by BBG members and to protect Voice of America journalist David Arnold and his colleagues from further reprisals.

This public diplomacy misstep is one of many since President Obama took office and points to a total lack of leadership and planning within the White House and the State Department. Most recently, the White House failed to issue a traditional presidential proclamation for Easter, even though President Obama signed similar proclamations for Muslim and Jewish holidays. Other public diplomacy blunders included President Obama making the announcement of withdrawing U.S. missile defense shield from Poland on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland and his decision to go golfing on the day of the funeral for Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski who was killed in a plane crash in Russia.

Early in his term,  President Obama declined the Polish government’s invitation to attend the 70th anniversary observances of the outbreak of  World War II which started with the attacks on Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The low-level of the U.S. delegation to that event was widely criticized and the delegation was slightly upgraded at the last moment.   President Obama also failed to attend the 10th anniversary observances of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The White House tried to justify these absences by the President’s busy schedule, but critics of President Obama point out that he takes more frequent vacations than other U.S. presidents.

Snapshot of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See Website on the day of Pope John Paul II's Beatification, May 1, 2011.

The lack of public diplomacy planning at the State Department prior to the beatification of Pope John Paul II  was evident from the websites of U.S. embassies in Rome and at the Vatican, both of which on May 1 had no text, photos or videos relating to the beatification ceremony for Pope John Paul II. Judith A. McHale is the current Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose job is to help lead America’s engagement with the people of the world. She has failed to prevent numerous embarrassing public diplomacy omissions and mistakes by the Obama Administration.

U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe have by and large ignored the recent 100th anniversary of President Reagan’s birth as an occasion for public diplomacy events that could highlight his contribution along with Pope John Paul II to bringing about the fall of communism in the region. Many embassies chose instead during that time to focus on promoting hip-hop music events as part of the State Department’s cultural diplomacy program.

The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw had a number of posts on its Facebook Page about Pope John Paul II and U.S. presidents whom he had met, including photos of the Polish pope with President Reagan and President Clinton. But the Embassy’s official website had nothing about the pope and his numerous visits to the United States.

President Ronald Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Faribanks, Alaska, 1984.

Other recent U.S. presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, were far more successful in managing their public diplomacy abroad, U.S. relations with the Vatican, and their relations with American Catholic voters. Ronald Reagan had a particularly close relationship with Pope John Paul II and consulted with him regularly on how to help the Solidarity human rights movement in Poland.

U.S. Ambassador to Malta Douglas Kmiec

The Obama Administration may have also offended some American Catholics by their treatment of the U.S. Ambassador to Malta Doug Kmiec, a conservative Catholic supporter of President Obama who recently offered to resign after State Department officials accused him of spending too much time promoting his religious views. Ambassador Kmiec is highly respected in Malta, where Catholicism is the official religion.

Related posts:

1. “Hunger for God and Love” – Interview with Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Future Pope John Paul II
2. Who is the leader of the Free World? – Reagan, Bush, Obama – lessons in public diplomacy in response to anti-democracy crackdown in Belarus
3. Wojtyła’s Women: How Women, History and Polish Traditions Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church
4. Pope John Paul II’s 1979 Visit to the U.S. – VOA Video
5. Subversive U.S. Public Diplomacy Theme – Ronald Reagan

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

Sign a petition on http://voashortwave.org

Join Save Voice of America Radio to China Group on Facebook

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and Voice of America Director Dan Austin have told Congress that their plan to end VOA radio broadcasts to China in Mandarin and Cantonese as of October 1, 2011, which — by the way — is the national holiday of the Chinese Communist Party, will allow them to improve and expand Internet and new media presence for VOA in China.

The VOA Chinese Branch journalist in this video exposes the misleading nature of this argument. As she correctly points out, the VOA Chinese Branch already has a vibrant multimedia presence in China. The problem is that the Chinese government censors and blocks VOA websites and is likely to do it even more effectively in the future. BBG and VOA executives will also not admit that their decision to end VOA radio to Russia in 2008, which — by the way — happened just 12 days before the Russian military attack on the Republic of Georgia, has resulted in over 80% drop in audience reach for VOA in Russia between 2007 and the end of 2009. The promised audience gains from the Internet in Russia did not materialize.

The BBG and the VOA director have a profound misunderstanding of what VOA audience in China is, what it should be, and how to reach it.

Their audience are not young, rich Chinese who go on shopping tripts to the U.S. and can access the Internet outside of China or buy a subscription to Newsweek. Their audience are the Chinese whose basic rights are being violated, those under house arrest, 750 million Chinese without Internet access. Yet, these BBG and VOA executives think they know better and want to fire 40 plus experienced VOA Chinese Branch journalists who specialize in human rights reporting and replace them with contractors who supposedly know how to produce slick content for the Internet.

But, as we know, the Internet is censored in China and can be blocked completely if the Chinese authorities decide to do it at the most convenient time for them and the worst time for pro-democracy activists and for the United States.

BBG and VOA executives could learn something from the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. During a five-minute reprieve from the usual Internet isolation imposed on her, Liu Xia wrote a friend that she is “miserable.”

“Can’t go out. My whole family are hostages,” Liu Xia wrote, as The Washington Post’s Keith B. Richburg reported last month. “I don’t know how I managed to get online,” she also wrote. “Don’t go online. Otherwise my whole family is in danger.”

The BBG and VOA executives could also learn something from Freedom House: “”In July, police in Xinjiang forcibly suppressed a peaceful demonstration in Urumqi by Uighurs, sparking an outbreak of violence between Uighurs and Han Chinese. The authorities responded with mass arrests and an almost complete shutdown of internet access, international phone service, and text messaging in the region that remained in effect for several months.”

BBG and VOA executives could also learn something from VOA reporters. From a VOA reporter Heda Bayron: “Freedom of expression in China is already severely curtailed. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and many foreign broadcasters, like the Voice of America, are blocked, as are many foreign news Web sites.”

For more information see Save Voice of America Radio to China Group on Facebook.

View Voice of America Journalists Protest Ending of VOA Radio to China, Part Five

View Part Four

View Part Three

View Part Two

View Part One

All Americans, including members of Congress, who support free press and human rights, should watch this disturbing but highly informative video about the Obama administration’s plan to end Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to China on Oct. 1, 2011, which happens to be the national holiday of the Communist regime in Beijing.

These videos show a group of remarkable journalists from the Voice of America Mandarin and Cantonese radio, TV, and Internet services directing pointed questions to VOA Director Dan Austin and making persuasive arguments against the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) decision to end all on-the-air radio news broadcasting in their languages to China.

It’s now up to the U.S. Congress to save VOA from the BBG’s effort to destroy the Voice of America as a broadcasting organization. VOA radio broadcasts to Russia had already been terminated by the BBG in 2008, resulting in an over 80% drop in audience reach.

The BBG and Voice of America Director Austin makes a claim that Internet-only program delivery strategy prepares VOA for the future by targeting new media and a younger audience when in fact BBG’s own research shows that it has been a failure in Russia and is not likely to reach a vast new audience.

VOA Chinese Service journalists point out that the BBG with the support of VOA Director Austin are terminating VOA radio broadcasts that have a larger audience in China and higher name recognition than Radio Free Asia (RFA) and BBC. The BBG plans to give VOA shortwave frequencies to RFA. One cannot be but impressed with professionalism and expert knowledge of these journalists when they point out to Director Austin that 750 million of Chinese have no Internet access and that the regime in Beijing can block and censor Internet access for those who have it. Director Austin keeps repeating that the strategy will bring a new audience when in fact — as the members of his Chinese services point out — they already have extensive Internet presence. They also pointed out to him and it was obvious from his answers that neither he nor the BBG has a plan to deal with any future blocking of the Internet in China.

Director Austin insisted that the Chinese government is unlikely to block the Internet completely, but as one of the VOA Chinese Branch journalist pointed out, he saw his friends being killed next to him in 1989 on the Tienanmen Square and has no doubt that the Chinese government is fully capable of doing everything possible to prevent the free flow of information if its authoritarian rule is threatened. He also pointed out that while shortwave radio transmissions can be jammed in some limited areas, it is the only way of securely communicating with the Chinese people.

###

From Free Media Online.org

“We believe that members of Congress and the American public are being grossly mislead by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) officials who oversee the Voice of America (VOA) and want to terminate all on-the-air uncensored news radio broadcasts to China on October 1, 2011, which happens to be the national holiday of the Chinese Communist Party. Time after time, BBG officials have shown their inability to understand market research in closed societies and failed to grasp the desperation of people living under authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

Their earlier decision to cut VOA radio broadcasts to Russia has resulted in over 80% drop in audience reach, and they have shown their inability to expand Internet audience there, just as they could not protect VOA websites from a successful Iranian cyber attack last week.

Members of Congress and American taxpayers should demand from BBG officials to explain why they want to eliminate radio broadcasts by the Voice of America, which has more listeners in China than Radio Free Asia and BBC; why they want to ignore 750 million Chinese; and what they plan to do during any future Tiananmen event in China when the regime in Beijing will completely block or censor the Internet at the most convenient time for them and the most inconvenient time for the U.S. government and pro-democracy supporters in China,” said Free Media Online president Ted Lipien.

Ted Lipien is a former BBG manager and (until 2006) former acting associate director of the Voice of America.

All Americans, including members of Congress, should watch this disturbing but highly informative video.  It shows a group of remarkable journalists from the Voice of America Mandarin and Cantonese radio, TV, and Internet services directing pointed questions to VOA Director Dan Austin and making persuasive arguments against  the BBG decision to end all on-the-air radio news broadcasting in their languages to China. 

Journalists from Voice of America Question Decision to Stop VOA Mandarin and Cantonese Radio Broadcasts to China

FreeMediaOnline.orgPart Three: BBG’s Internet Only Strategy Loses Audience and Fails in Russia — Read Part One: No Apology for Failure — Read Part Two: Special Report: Sound of Hope Plans to Increase Shortwave Radio to China while Voice of America Retreats

Inside-the-Beltway parochialism and arrogance toward the needs of their audience have continued to define the management style of BBG and VOA executives. The agency’s rank-and-file employees — including among others the staff of the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) — know it all too well. In government-wide employee surveys, the Broadcasting Board of Governors has been consistently rated as one of the worst-managed among all federal agencies. Yet the same BBG executives keep their jobs year after year. They now advise new BBG members, selected by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate, on how to best manage U.S. international broadcasting. Deprived of good outside expert advice in a very complex and specialized field of international broadcasting and public diplomacy, the new BBG members rely on the same group of BBG managers. Inside sources have told Free Media Online that even the new Republican members of the BBG went along with the staff’s recommendations to cut VOA radio broadcasts to China.

What members of Congress and U.S. taxpayers should know and be concerned about is that the very same BBG executives who have failed to protect the Voice of America websites, not once but twice from being hacked and shut down for hours and days, are now proposing to eliminate completely all on-the-air VOA radio broadcasts to China and to reduce Radio Free Asia shortwave radio programs as well. Nearly three years ago, at the height of Mr. Putin’s attack on independent media, they had ignored warnings from members of Congress and human rights activists and terminated all on-the-air VOA radio broadcasts to Russia. It happened just 12 days before the Russian military staged an attack on the territory of the Republic of Georgia. The same officials had also proposed earlier to reduce radio broadcasts to Tibet. Fortunately in this case, the Congress stepped in to save these critical programs after hearing from Tibetan human rights activists and observing sit-in protests by Buddhist monks on Capital Hill.

The results of the BBG radio pullback in Russia have been disastrous on many levels, including establishing a bad anti-human rights precedent, diminished audience reach, and diminished impact. In October 2007, VOA’s weekly reach in Russia was 1.7 percent, both through radio and TV, but mostly through radio. RFE/RL’s weekly reach stood at that time 0.9 percent. What did BBG bureaucrats do? They got together with some of the former members of the BBG, confused enough of the other former members, and denied radio program delivery to a U.S. broadcaster who had a larger radio audience in Russia.

Even after Russian troops entered the territory of the Republic of Georgia 12 days later, BBG executives kept rejecting urgent requests from VOA journalists to allow them to resume radio broadcasts to Russia and the war zone in Georgia. In fact, they also planned to end VOA radio broadcasts to Georgia, but the war put these plans on a temporary hold.

Their reaction then, as it has been as now after the Iranian cyber attack, is very telling about what these bureaucrats care more about: their audience or their bureaucratic games. Only after Free Media Online and other free media advocates had exposed their manipulations in Russia, one former Republican BBG member Blanquita Cullum eventually managed to persuade enough of her colleagues to allow the VOA Russian Service to resume a limited 30-minute radio news broadcast Monday through Friday. This drastically shortened VOA broadcast to Russia still generates far much larger audience than the Internet. RFE/RL managed to hold on to its audience in Russia through radio despite Mr. Putin’s relentless attacks on independent and foreign media.

But overall, U.S. international broadcasting audience reach in Russia has declined significantly after July 2008. This happened not because of Mr. Putin, who had already done his damage and did not have to do more, but because of what a group of entrenched BBG executives decided to do to make the Voice of America less effective in Russia. Now they want to do the same thing to the Voice of America in China.

Members of Congress and U.S. taxpayers may be wondering why a group of bureaucrats within the BBG and some of its members would want to make U.S. international broadcasting as a whole less robust in countries like Russia and China and less threatening to the local regimes. The answer is not easily apparent, but it is well known to those who have worked at the BBG and know the organization from within.

Surrogate broadcasters, who had generally performed much better than the Voice of America during the Cold War, in some cases are not doing as well now in the Middle East and elsewhere, where the Cold War surrogate broadcasting model was not appropriate to begin with or is no longer appropriate. They are, however, still needed in some countries and do extremely well in some of them. But instead of supporting both surrogate and VOA broadcasting — since each has a slightly different mission — through efficient management, or even better by reforming the entire bureaucracy and combining some of these services to save taxpayers’ money — these clever bureaucrats found an easy way to protect the jobs of their friends, associates, and private contractors. Making the Voice of America less effective as a radio broadcaster protects the future of some of the surrogate radios, even if it make no fiscal sense and the overall audience reach and impact are sacrificed in the process.

What happened to VOA audience reach in Russia as a result of the BBG decisions that are now being proposed for China? It declined by over 80 percent, just as Free Media Online had warned in 2008.

The dramatic drop in audience reach and effectiveness can be seen and calculated using the BBG’s own sponsored research. While the BBG audience data from countries ruled by authoritarian regimes is not reliable, for the purposes of this analysis only, it shows an unmistakable trend. Here is how percentage drops are calculated from the BBG data. VOA’s audience reach in Russia in October 2007 was 1.7%. According to the BBG’s latest available data, VOA’s weekly reach in Russia for both radio and Internet is only 0.3%. Subtract 0.3 from 1.7 and you get 1.4 drop. Then you want to find out 1.4 is what percent of 1.7, so divide: 1.4 / 1.7 = 0.82. As a result of the BBG’s decision to cut VOA radio to Russia, VOA’s weekly reach declined by roughly 82%.

Members of Congress should take note that instead of paying the salaries of American citizens and residents — all highly experienced journalists, specializing in human rights reporting — BBG officials eliminated their jobs and used some of the savings to pay advertising agencies in Russia to promote use of VOA websites. As we can see from the BBG’s own data, this approach did not work. It’s likely that some of these agencies are controlled by the Russian security agencies, just as some of the research companies that the BBG is using in countries like Russia and China are probably closely monitored and manipulated by the secret police. I would venture a guess that they can produce any audience research results for the BBG that their security services would request.

Figures obtained from international broadcasting surveys done in countries like Russia and China should not be taken at face value. The actual radio reach in these countries is most likely higher than the BBG data suggests — although not nearly as high as it was in Poland during the Cold War — but there is no reason to doubt that the drop in audience reach, as suggested by the BBG data, is real. The unprecedented drop in audience reach in Russia cannot be denied, even if the numbers of radio listeners are higher than what the BBG is reporting.

We have also pointed out that if the BBG had completely ignored our protests and not restored a limited VOA radio broadcast to Russia, the percentage drop in audience reach would have been even more devastating. VOA’s weekly Internet reach in Russia is only 0.1%. Subtract 0.1 from 1.7 and you get 1.6 drop. Divide 1.6 /1.7 = 0.94. If the BBG executives had it their way and there was no outside pressure that forced them to make a limited concession, VOA would have experienced a 94% decline in audience reach in Russia.

Voice of America

The same executives have now managed to convince new BBG members to make the same mistake in China.

Americans for U. S. International Broadcasting Petition Save Voice of America Shortwave

Americans for U.S. International Broadcasting, a group of current and former VOA and BBG employees and free media advocates, have started a petition drive to convince Congress to reject the BBG’s and the Obama Administration’s proposals for eliminating shortwave radio broadcasts to China.

Excerpts from other sections of “U.S. International Broadcasting in Crisis“

• The article cites political reasons (autocratic rule, censorship, hacking and blocking of the Internet, no free press to defend rights of citizens) and market research data (750 million without Internet access, extensive use of shortwave by China National Radio, ability to reach 230 million migrant population) used by Sound of Hope Radio to justify its decision on expanding shortwave radio while VOA and BBC are moving in the opposite direction.
• “We believe that members of Congress and the American public are being grossly mislead by BBG officials who time after time have shown their inability to understand market research in closed societies and the desperation of people living under authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Their decision to cut VOA radio broadcasts to Russia has resulted in over 80% drop in audience reach and they have shown their inability to expand Internet audience just as they could not protect VOA websites from a successful Iranian cyber attack last week. Members of Congress and American taxpayers should demand from BBG officials to explain why they want to eliminate radio broadcasts by the Voice of America, which has more listeners in China than Radio Free Asia and BBC; why they want to ignore 750 million Chinese; and what they plan to do during any future Tiananmen event in China when the regime in Beijing will completely block or censor the Internet at the most convenient time for them and the most inconvenient time for the U.S. government and pro-democracy supporters in China,” said Free Media Online president Ted Lipien. He was a former BBG manager and until 2006 former acting associate director of the Voice of America.
• In their confused messages to members of Congress, BBG officials often contradict themselves. While arguning in favor of eliminating VOA radio to China, they point out that only [sic] 22 out of 8635 respondents reported having ever listened to VOA, while 7 had ever listened to RFA or BBC. Well, 22 is three times more than 7. Does his proves that the Congress should by all means eliminate the radio broadcast, which according to even BBG-sponsored research, has an audience that is three times larger? We don’t think so.
• BBG executives don’t have the slightest idea how many people in nations ruled by undemocratic regimes listen to U.S. news broadcasts on shortwave. Even their own researchers point out that “these audience figures are based on surveys conducted in politically repressive environments that are generally hostile to international broadcasting. Because individuals in these countries are discouraged or even prohibited by their governments from listening to U.S. international broadcasts, actual audience numbers may be higher.”
• They tell members of Congress that keeping shortwave broadcasts to China imposes significant opportunity costs on U.S. strategic interests because the continued investment in SW depletes resources that could be invested more effective media platforms and technologies that are the choice of most Chinese citizens.
  The problem with this line of reasoning is that the current team of BBG officials has not been able to take advantage of these opportunities because they don’t know how and because the potential for expanding their Internet audience is extremely small no matter how much taxpayers’ money they plan to spend on advertising in China and Russia, which is what they do. They could not increase their Internet reach it in Russia and they will not be able to do it in China. Their Internet audience in Russia is still and will continue to be at “trace” level, as it will be in China, no matter how much money they intend to spend. They just fail to point this out to members of Congress.
• According to BBG officials, the expected savings from the proposed radio cuts will be about $8 million (about $4.9 million in personnel costs and $3.2 million in transmission costs). The real beneficiaries will no longer be Chinese-speaking human rights journalists in the United States, who will be laid off, but private contractors, including advertising agencies in China The real damage will be the loss of the ability to demonstrate continued U.S. commitment to human rights and the loss of a platform for pro-democracy supporters in China, a platform that cannot be easily blocked or silenced.
• The argument that the Chinese government would want the U.S. to continue shortwave broadcasts because they are supposedly ineffective and a waste of money is completely false. BBG officials fail to understand the desperation of those who seek information and the psychology of authoritarian governments who live in fear of being deposed with the help of outside radio, TV, and Internet. If these arguments were true, the Chinese government would not bother to jam VOA and RFA shortwave broadcasts. Tibetan monks would not have protested on Capital Hill against cuts in shortwave broadcasts to Tibet, which had been proposed earlier by the same BBG bureaucrats who are now pushing for cuts in radio broadcasting to China and who outsourced the hosting of VOA websites to outside contractors.
• The Chinese government has demonstrated its ability to block the Internet at the time most convenient for them. It does not take a genius to figure out that it will be the most inconvenient and dangerous time for the United States and for pro-democracy supporters in China. The BBG executives, who could not protect VOA websites from a cyber attack by Iranian Islamists, want the United States to take this risk.
• Depriving the Voice of America of shortwave radio capability in China is especially misquided since VOA has a bigger brand recognition among the Chinese population, and in a crisis, they are far more likely to turn to VOA for news from the United States just as they now listen more frequently to VOA radio. There is no good reason why both VOA and RFA should not keep all of their program delivery options open and to share both Internet and shortwave delivery resources. There is no advantage to only one broadcaster using radio. There is certainly no advantage to denying radio program delivery to the one broadcaster who now has a larger radio audience.

###

February 28, 2011

Open Letter to Members of House Appropriations Committee

Dear Members of Congress:

This letter is to request your strong support to restore the budget for Voice of America Cantonese Service and Voice of America Mandarin Service in the FY 2012 Budget.

We object to the proposal by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which serves to manage Voice of America (VOA), to eliminate the entire VOA Cantonese Service, as well as eliminate the positions of more than half of the VOA Mandarin Service staff members.

This egregious effort to disappropriate funding from VOA will effectively eliminate the purpose of the Congressionally mandated Public Law 94-350 to the people in China who speak Cantonese and Mandarin to be provided with news broadcasts that promote freedom and democracy.

This target against Voice of America – right on the heels of PRC President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to the United States – is nothing less than a concession that will dismantle America’s commitment to broadcast news from the United States. During the same time of this funding cutback, the PRC intends to spend more than a billion dollars to enhance their propaganda goals in the United States.

This campaign against Voice of America comes during the PRC’s media crackdown on stories against Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo. It comes during a time when PRC’s media has blocked news about uprisings in Egypt and Libya. It comes during a PRC crackdown against any stories shared about the blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, and all prisoners of conscience in China.

We implore you to restore the FY 2012 Budget funding for the Voice of America’s Mandarin and Cantonese Services so Voice of America can continue to fulfill its mandate to provide a balanced and comprehensive view of significant American thought and institutions; and to clearly present the policies of the United States to the people of China.

Respectfully,
Harry Wu, Laogai Research Foundation
Justin Yu, Chinese The Chinese Chamber of Commerce in New York
Ann Lau, Visual Artists Guild
Ann Noonan, Free Church for China
Bob Fu, China Aid
Anna Cheung, Alliance for Hong Kong Chinese in the US
Peggy Chane, Visual Artists Guild
Doris Chan, Visual Artists Guild
Reggie Littlejohn, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers
Ganden Thurman, Tibet House
Jeremy Taylor, Free Burma Alliance
Ethan Gutmann. Recipient Tiananmem Spirit Award
Joe Brown, Pasadena NAACP
Jonathan Cao, Chinese Coalition for Citizens’ Rights
Juntao Wang, National Committee Democratic Party of China
Robert A. Senser, Human Rights for Workers
Jing Zhang, Women’s Rights in China

###

FreeMediaOnline.org Part One — No Apology for Failure

Like everyone else in the free media advocacy community, I was appalled by the Iranian Cyber Army’s attack last week on VOA websites. The staging of the attack did not come as a surprise. The Iranian Islamists, security services of China and Russia, and other enemies of free media around the world are engaging in cyber attacks and harass independent media all the time. The appalling thing about the Monday attack was not that it was launched but that it was allowed to succeed and lasted several hours.

Instead of the VOA website, site visitors saw an Iranian flag, a gun, and an anti-American message, as captured in the image above. Even more appalling was the cavalier attitude with which officials of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a U.S. federal agency which manages the Voice of America, responded to the attack. It was a typical cover-my-behind reaction and an attempt to minimize its significance and impact around the world. Just imagine if CNN, ABC, or Fox News went completely silent for several hours or even days. If  BBG officials have their way, this is what will happen in China to the Voice of America. It had already happened to VOA in Russia for at least two days in 2009. There was no apology from the BBG to the American people on whose behalf the Voice of America distributes news and communicates with the rest of the world.

The BBG and VOA response to last week’s cyber attack (see the press releases below) showed how little these officials care about their audience and their own employees. It also raised serious questions about their judgment and their ability to manage government resources. Above all, it exposed once again the folly of their latest proposal to Congress to eliminate Voice of America radio to China in favor of news and information delivery based solely on — you guessed it — their new Internet platforms. They claim they would design, manage, and protect them from cyber attacks. And — as they also claim — they would make the Chinese government’s attempts to filter or block the Internet ineffective. Really? I don’t think so.

Instead of apologizing to Internet users and Voice of America journalists for failing to prevent the attack, BBG and VOA executives tried to minimize their responsibility and in character with their management style attempted shift the blame to an outside contractor. They acted as if they were not the ones authorized by Congress and paid by American taxpayers to protect critical U.S. government communications assets from such attacks. The cyber attack was not their fault, BBG and VOA bureaucrats implied in their press releases.

These highly-paid civil servants were quick to point out that the attack happened at Network Solutions, a private contractor, which — by the way — they themselves chose to host their websites. But the fact that they selected and trusted a private contractor was conveniently omitted. Thanks to BBG and VOA executives trying to protect their behinds, now every hacker in the world knows where VOA websites are hosted. If the White House, State Department, or Pentagon websites were out of commission for five hours or two days and pointing to an Islamist propaganda flash video, one would expect that some officials would be fired or replaced. But don’t expect this to happen at the BBG unless the new Board members get their act together and start seeking advice outside of their current executive staff.

The cyber attack could have been easily anticipated and prevented by taking some basic precautions and through more responsible emergency planning. We at Free Media Online could have told them that Network Solutions servers are not secure enough for critical U.S. government online operations. Our own websites have been hacked twice at Network Solutions in the past year. In the aftermath of these attacks, we received almost no customer service and had to repair the damage on our own. That’s what happens if critical operations are outsourced to private contractors.

The ultimate irony is that the same officials who could not protect VOA websites from an attack by Iranian Islamists are now lobbying Congress to give them about $50 million to develop ways of preventing the Chinese government from censoring the Internet, which BBG officials describe as anti-Internet contravention strategies. Good luck with that if the same BBG management team is put in charge of this money, which the Congress had originally given to the State Department. It will be yet another hoax perpetrated on American taxpayers.

This, by the way, is not the first successful cyber attack on the Voice of America. In 2009, hackers shut down VOA websites for more than two days. This happened during President Obama’s first official visit to Russia. At that time, BBG and VOA officials also tried to minimize the damage and managed to avoid taking any responsibility for their carelessness and mismanagement.

Americans for U. S. International Broadcasting Petition Save Voice of America Shortwave

Americans for U.S. International Broadcasting, a group of current and former VOA and BBG employees and free media advocates, have started a petition drive to convince Congress to reject the BBG’s and the Obama Administration’s proposals for eliminating shortwave radio broadcasts to China.
Excerpts from other sections of “U.S. International Broadcasting in Crisis”

• What happened to VOA audience reach in Russia as a result of the BBG decisions that are now being proposed for China? It declined by over 80 percent, just as Free Media Online had warned in 2008 that it would happen.


Voice of America

• The same executives have now managed to convince new BBG members to make the same mistake in China.
• In their confused messages to members of Congress, BBG officials often contradict themselves. While arguning in favor of eliminating VOA radio to China, they point out that only [sic] 22 out of 8635 respondents reported having ever listened to VOA, while 7 had ever listened to RFA or BBC. Well, 22 is three times more than 7. Does his proves that the Congress should by all means eliminate the radio broadcast, which according to even BBG-sponsored research, has an audience that is three times larger? We don’t think so.
• BBG executives don’t have the slightest idea how many people in nations ruled by undemocratic regimes listen to U.S. news broadcasts on shortwave. Even their own researchers point out that “these audience figures are based on surveys conducted in politically repressive environments that are generally hostile to international broadcasting. Because individuals in these countries are discouraged or even prohibited by their governments from listening to U.S. international broadcasts, actual audience numbers may be higher.”
• They tell members of Congress that keeping shortwave broadcasts to China imposes significant opportunity costs on U.S. strategic interests because the continued investment in SW depletes resources that could be invested more effective media platforms and technologies that are the choice of most Chinese citizens.
  The problem with this line of reasoning is that the current team of BBG officials has not been able to take advantage of these opportunities because they don’t know how and because the potential for expanding their Internet audience is extremely small no matter how much taxpayers’ money they plan to spend on advertising in China and Russia, which is what they do. They could not increase their Internet reach it in Russia and they will not be able to do it in China. Their Internet audience in Russia is still and will continue to be at “trace” level, as it will be in China, no matter how much money they intend to spend. They just fail to point this out to members of Congress.
• According to BBG officials, the expected savings from the proposed radio cuts will be about $8 million (about $4.9 million in personnel costs and $3.2 million in transmission costs). The real beneficiaries will no longer be Chinese-speaking human rights journalists in the United States, who will be laid off, but private contractors, including advertising agencies in China The real damage will be the loss of the ability to demonstrate continued U.S. commitment to human rights and the loss of a platform for pro-democracy supporters in China, a platform that cannot be easily blocked or silenced.
• The argument that the Chinese government would want the U.S. to continue shortwave broadcasts because they are supposedly ineffective and a waste of money is completely false. BBG officials fail to understand the desperation of those who seek information and the psychology of authoritarian governments who live in fear of being deposed with the help of outside radio, TV, and Internet. If these arguments were true, the Chinese government would not bother to jam VOA and RFA shortwave broadcasts. Tibetan monks would not have protested on Capital Hill against cuts in shortwave broadcasts to Tibet, which had been proposed earlier by the same BBG bureaucrats who are now pushing for cuts in radio broadcasting to China and who outsourced the hosting of VOA websites to outside contractors.
• The Chinese government has demonstrated its ability to block the Internet at the time most convenient for them. It does not take a genius to figure out that it will be the most inconvenient and dangerous time for the United States and for pro-democracy supporters in China. The BBG executives, who could not protect VOA websites from a cyber attack by Iranian Islamists, want the United States to take this risk.
• Depriving the Voice of America of shortwave radio capability in China is especially misquided since VOA has a bigger brand recognition among the Chinese population, and in a crisis, they are far more likely to turn to VOA for news from the United States just as they now listen more frequently to VOA radio. There is no good reason why both VOA and RFA should not keep all of their program delivery options open and to share both Internet and shortwave delivery resources. There is no advantage to only one broadcaster using radio. There is certainly no advantage to denying radio program delivery to the one broadcaster who now has a larger radio audience.

###

February 28, 2011
 
Open Letter to Members of House Appropriations Committee
 
Dear Members of Congress:
 
This letter is to request your strong support to restore the budget for Voice of America Cantonese Service and Voice of America Mandarin Service in the FY 2012 Budget.

We object to the proposal by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which serves to manage Voice of America (VOA), to eliminate the entire VOA Cantonese Service, as well as eliminate the positions of more than half of the VOA Mandarin Service staff members.
 
This egregious effort to disappropriate funding from VOA will effectively eliminate the purpose of the Congressionally mandated Public Law 94-350 to the people in China who speak Cantonese and Mandarin to be provided with news broadcasts that promote freedom and democracy.
 
This target against Voice of America – right on the heels of PRC President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to the United States – is nothing less than a concession that will dismantle America’s commitment to broadcast news from the United States.  During the same time of this funding cutback, the PRC intends to spend more than a billion dollars to enhance their propaganda goals in the United States.
 
This campaign against Voice of America comes during the PRC’s media crackdown on stories against Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo. It comes during a time when PRC’s media has blocked news about uprisings in Egypt and Libya.  It comes during a PRC crackdown against any stories shared about the blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, and all prisoners of conscience in China.
 
We implore you to restore the FY 2012 Budget funding for the Voice of America’s Mandarin and Cantonese Services so Voice of America can continue to fulfill its mandate to provide a balanced and comprehensive view of significant American thought and institutions; and to clearly present the policies of the United States to the people of China.
 
Respectfully,
Harry Wu, Laogai Research Foundation
Justin Yu, Chinese The Chinese Chamber of Commerce in New York
Ann Lau, Visual Artists Guild
Ann Noonan, Free Church for China
Bob Fu, China Aid
Anna Cheung, Alliance for Hong Kong Chinese in the US
Peggy Chane, Visual Artists Guild
Doris Chan, Visual Artists Guild
Reggie Littlejohn, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers
Ganden Thurman, Tibet House
Jeremy Taylor, Free Burma Alliance
Ethan Gutmann. Recipient Tiananmem Spirit Award
Joe Brown, Pasadena NAACP
Jonathan Cao, Chinese Coalition for Citizens’ Rights
Juntao Wang, National Committee Democratic Party of China
Robert A. Senser, Human Rights for Workers
Jing Zhang, Women’s Rights in China
 
###
 
BBG PRESS RELEASE

Iranian Cyber Army Claims Credit for Cyber Attack on VOA and Interference of U.S. International Broadcasting Increases

February 23,2011 | Washington, DC

Note: This press release is updated to include reports of the Iranian Cyber Army taking responsibility for the hacking and news of an attack on the RFE telephone system.

The Iranian Cyber Army has taken credit for a cyber attack on the Voice of America, according to reports by Iranian state media outlets Press TV and Fars News Service. VOA suffered a web Domain Name System (DNS) attack, while VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) and RFE Radio Farda programs have faced increased satellite signal interference, and RFE faced a “denial of service attack” on its telephone systems in an effort to keep Iranians from contacting Radio Farda.

As popular protests unfold across the Middle East and audiences for U.S. international broadcasting surge, efforts to interfere with the networks have increased.

“Our broadcasters are at the forefront of reporting the most tumultuous events we have seen unfold since 1989,” said Walter Isaacson, chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which oversees all U.S. international broadcasting including the Alhurra TV, VOA and RFE. “It is a testament to their vital role that they are subject to the work of hackers and signal interference.”

On Monday, February 21, an unknown party hacked the Voice of America’s primary domain name (VOANews.com), and other related domains, redirecting visitors to a website claiming to be run by a group called the “Iranian Cyber Army.” Yesterday, Iran’s Press TV reported a statement by Ali Saeedi Shahroodi, an official with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claiming, “The hacking of a VOA homepage by the Iranian Cyber Army … shows the power and capability of the Corps (IRGC) in the cyber arena.” Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency also credited the Iranian Cyber Army, in a February 22 report, explaining that the attack was in response to VOA’s reporting on events in Iran.

The attack did not affect internal systems or servers, nor was any data lost or compromised. The BBG is working with appropriate authorities to investigate further.

“There’s a saying that a hit dog hollers – that can be applied to whoever tried to cut off access to VOA News by attacking the domain provider on Monday. The fact that the sites were redirected to the Iranian Cyber Army certainly raises an eyebrow or two,” said Dana Perino, a member of the BBG. “Technology is chipping away at the stranglehold on free and fair information inside Iran. VOA and RFE are strongly committed to providing the news at it happens in a variety of ways so that every Iranian that can get access to the free media can benefit from our journalists’ reporting.”

Last week RFE’s Radio Farda faced a variation of a “denial of service” attack on its phone lines with a flood of automated calls aiming to clog its answering machines. Calls played just over one minute of a looped recording of speeches and sermons in Persian before hanging up.

Since February 13, there has been intermittent but frequent interference of VOA PNN and Radio Farda satellite signals with programming in Persian for audiences in Iran.

As of the morning of February 21, there has been a continuous service interruption on one satellite channel carrying VOA’s PNN. PNN is carried on three other satellite paths as well as online, including its popular TV satire, “Parazit.” Millions of the show’s fans use proxy servers to access the program through social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. Similarly, Radio Farda’s website has seen an approximate 50 percent increase in web traffic over the past two weeks.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency, supervising all U.S. government-supported, civilian international broadcasting, whose mission is to promote freedom and democracy and to enhance understanding through multimedia communication of accurate, objective, and balanced news, information, and other programming about America and the world to audiences overseas. BBG broadcasts reach an audience of 165 million in 100 countries. BBG broadcasting organizations 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).

###

VOA PRESS RELEASE

Press Release
Hacking and Signal Interference of U.S. International Broadcasting

Washington, D.C. — February 22, 2011 — As popular protests unfold across the Middle East, U.S. international broadcasting faces increased satellite signal interference and a web Domain Name System (DNS) attack.

“Our broadcasters are at the forefront of reporting the most tumultuous events we have seen unfold since 1989,” said Walter Isaacson, Chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which oversees all U.S. international broadcasting including the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE). “It is a testament to their vital role that they are subject to the work of hackers and signal interference.”

On Monday, February 21, an unknown party hacked the Voice of America’s primary domain name (VOANews.com), along with numerous related domains registered with Network Solutions. Web users were directed to a website claiming to be run by a group called the “Iranian Cyber Army.”

“There’s a saying that a hit dog hollers – that can be applied to whoever tried to cut off access to VOA News by attacking the domain provider on Monday. The fact that the sites were redirected to the Iranian Cyber Army certainly raises an eyebrow or two,” said Dana Perino member of the BBG. “Technology is chipping away at the stranglehold on free and fair information inside Iran. VOA News is strongly committed to providing the news as it happens in a variety of ways so that every Iranian that can get access to the free media can benefit from our journalists’ reporting.”

This was a Domain Name System (DNS) attack redirecting the VOANews.com website. This was not a breach of internal systems or servers. No data was lost or compromised as a result of this event. An investigation is underway to determine who is responsible.

Since February 13, there has been intermittent but frequent interference of VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) and RFE’s Radio Farda satellite signals with programming in Persian for audiences in Iran.

As of the morning of February 21, there has been a continuous service interruption on one satellite channel carrying VOA’s PNN. PNN is carried on three other satellite paths as well as online including a popular TV satire, Parazit. Millions of the show’s fans use proxy servers to access the program through social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. In the last month, Facebook recorded more than 20 million impressions on Parazit’s page.

A few days before the Islamist cyber attack on the Voice of America websites, Blanquita Cullum, a conservative radio host and former member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), criticized the Obama Administration for planning to drastically reduce American radio news programs to China in favor of Internet-only news delivery to China by the Voice of America. Ms. Cullum wrote in an op-ed published by The Washington Times that by terminating long-distance shortwave transmissions, the government agency in charge of U.S. international news broadcasts is ignoring the digital divide between richer and poorer regions of the world and dismissing efforts by authoritarian regimes to censor the Internet. She charged that the BBG appears more intent on communicating with rulers rather than with the ordinary people who can’t afford or are denied access to the Internet.

Voice of America Chinese Service

The radio broadcasts set for termination are produced by the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia (RFA). They are funded by Congressional appropriations and overseen by the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors, a nominally independent federal agency which is consistently rated in official government-wide employee surveys as one of the worst-managed within the U.S. government. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is in charge of all U.S. civilian international news broadcasting, including the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Martí, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television.

Conservative radio host and former Broadcasting Board of Governors member Blanquita Cullum has been critical of the BBG's decision to reduce U.S.-funded radio broadcasts to China and other countries without free media.

In her Washington Times commentary, Obama bows to Chinese dictators, Blanquita Cullum, who had served on the Broadcasting Board of Governors during the George W. Bush Administration, has accused the current Board members and the Obama Administration of planning to cut off outside news to people still oppressed by communism. According to her and other critics of the planned termination of U.S. government-funded radio broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese, the President’s budget request of $767 million for the BBG for Fiscal Year 2012, represents a “strategic disintegration plan” – marking America’s exit as a bona fide force in international broadcasting.

The current BBG has nine members, all of whom have been appointed by President Obama. The Board also has the executive staff, whose top managers have been responsible for a number of financial scandals and journalistic blunders. While the BBG members were replaced after the new administration took office, the executive staff remained. They are the initiators and planners of the previous and the latest series of radio programming cuts in U.S. international broadcasting.

The current BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson is the former Chairman and CEO of CNN and former editor of Time Magazine. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton serves as an ex officio member of the BBG. The Board also has Republican members, including Dana Perino, the former White House Press Secretary to President George W. Bush, and Victor H. Ashe, the former U.S. Ambassador to Poland during the George W. Bush Administration. They were all nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate.

Blanquita Cullum, the only former BBG member recognized in the Congressional Record for being “a champion of the mission of U.S. international broadcasting,” argues in her op-ed column in The Washington Times that the BBG’s over-reliance on delivering news from the United States to countries without free media, using the Internet rather than a mix of radio, Internet and satellite TV, is both misguided and dangerous. She points out that “it is easier and cheaper for despots to shut down the Internet than it is to jam radio,” and accuses the BBG of “ignoring the digital divide – the gap between those who have effective Internet access and those who don’t.” According to AHumanRight.org, an NGO which strives to expand free access to news and information around the world, 7 out of 10 people do not have Internet access. AHumanRight.org estimates that almost 5 billion people lack Internet access.

Blanquita Cullum had been a strong critic of the BBG executive staff while she was still serving as a Board member and managed to prevent some but not all of the previously proposed broadcasting cuts. Other BBG members and their staff wanted to use savings from some of these programming cuts to hire their friends as public relations consultants for the BBG. Her fight against mismanagement at the BBG was recognized by Senator Tom Coburn, Republican from Oklahoma, in a statement placed in The Congressional Record.

“Chief among her concerns,” Senator Coburn wrote, “has been for the continuation of U.S. international radio broadcasts, the form of communication which to this day remains the most readily accessible and cost-effective means of communication for billions of oppressed people living in poverty.”

Senator Coburn has been a consistent critic of the way the BBG manages its broadcasting operations and spends public funds.
He has publicized examples of VOA broadcasts to Iran which, he charges, undermine U.S. policy and give a platform for anti-American propaganda. He has also charged that U.S. broadcasts in Arabic on Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television have also given “uninterrupted and unchallenged platforms to terrorists and other enemies of the U.S. and our allies.”

One of the most blatant examples of editorial mismanagement at the BGG, exposed with the help of Free Media Online, was the airing of statements by Holocaust deniers by Alhurra Television.

While the BBG members approve strategic plans and budget submissions to Congress, the recommendations for program cuts come from the permanent BBG executive staff. They were responsible in the past for proposing to reduce radio broadcasts to Tibet, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia. They have also been accused of failing to maintain editorial standards, which led to such journalistic blunders as the airing of statements by Holocaust deniers on the BBG-managed Alhurra Television for the Middle East. They also failed to prevent major financial scandals at the BBG-managed broadcasting entities.

In one of their most controversial moves in recent years, the BBG executive staff had sold the previous BBG members on the idea of eliminating VOA radio broadcasts to Russia. In her commentary in The Washington Times, Ms. Cullum pointed out that after the BBG had ended VOA Russian radio programming in 2008 just several days before Russian military forces invaded the Republic of Georgia, subsequent survey data indicated that sole reliance upon a VOA Russian website resulted in a wholesale disintegration of its audience base. Ms. Cullum had opposed these programming cuts when she was still a member of the BBG.

Americans for U. S. International Broadcasting Petition Save Voice of America Shortwave

Americans for U.S. International Broadcasting, a group of current and former VOA and BBG employees and free media advocates, have started a petition drive to convince Congress to reject the BBG’s and the Obama Administration’s proposals for eliminating shortwave radio broadcasts to China.

Senator Richard Lugar

Some members of Congress and their staff are also concerned about media censorship in China and the Chinese government’s efforts to control Internet access in their country. Senator Richard Lugar, Republican from Indiana, issued a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report — “Another U.S. Deficit – China and America – Public Diplomacy in the Age of the Internet”– which details China’s initiatives to censor the Internet while expanding its influence in the world. The report was prepared under the direction of Senior Professional Staff Member Paul Foldi, who visited the region.

ANOTHER U.S. DEFICIT
—CHINA AND AMERICA—
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE
AGE OF THE INTERNET
A REPORT
TO THE MEMBERS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
FEBRUARY 15, 2011

XinhuaNews, the official press agency of the Chinese government, will soon be allowed to open a multi-floored office in Times Square and already broadcasts from an AM transmitter in Texas. By contrast, Beijing limits the Voice of America to a single, two-person office there, blocks the opening of a VOA bureau in Shanghai. Furthermore, China forces both VOA and Radio Free Asia to beam in on Short Wave radio from distant locations well outside its borders. China also routinely jams these transmissions as well as blocks both VOA’s and RFA’s Internet sites. Meanwhile, Congress has provided tens of millions of dollars to assist in Internet freedom issues including Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology, but little of that money has been allocated by the State Department in spite of clear bipartisan support.

VOA insiders told Free Media Online that the BBG executives who make decisions to eliminate radio broadcasts have no experience of living under communism and do not understand the psychology of authoritarian rulers and those who suffer under oppressive regimes.

The Taipei Times reports that the morale of the Voice of America Chinese Service journalists is at its all-time low.

According to sources at VOA, who spoke with The Taipei Times on the condition of protecting their anonymity, the work environment had turned sour as pressure from management led to on-air hosts self-censoring themselves.

One instance involved the invitation of World Uyghur Congress leader Rebeiya Kadeer for a show, which resulted in the show’s host being slapped on the wrist afterward for failing to invite a Chinese official to provide the other side of the story.

“The Chinese propaganda is already available for all to listen to,” the source said, adding that VOA did not need to serve as a platform for the views of the Chinese Communist Party and in many cases VOA served as one of the few means for minorities to voice their message out.

The source also said it was highly unlikely that Chinese officials invited to participate on a VOA show would have agreed to do so.

Eventually, employees discovered that the pressure from management, which on certain occasions resulted in self- censorship, was the direct result of a sustained campaign of complaints from Chinese diplomats.

“[Yielding to their pressure, and now shutting us down] sends the wrong strategic message to Beijing,” a source said, adding that regardless of whether Congress passed the budget cuts or not, “this should serve as a warning to management at VOA not to give up on human rights in China.”

The Voice of America Chinese Service journalist may very well be right that the BBG has been succumbing to the pressure from Chinese diplomats who complain to the State Department.

Chairman Walter Isaacson made news last October by naming China’s and Russia’s official media as America’s “enemies,” alongside state media in Iran and Venezuela, but he quickly disavowed his comments, most likely after being rebuked by high-ranking officials of the Obama Administration, either at the State Department or at the White House. He used such strong language while calling for more money for the BBG to combat foreign propaganda.

Mr. Isaacson criticized the state media in China and Russia at the 60th anniversary celebration for Radio Free Europe (RFE), which he credited with contributing to the end of the Cold War. [A transcript of the speech is available here.] When questioned by The Cable, a FOREIGN POLICY (FP) blog about his “enemies” comment, Isaacson apologized for the remark, while saying that the “enemies” he was referring to were in Afghanistan, not the several countries he mentioned.

“I of course did not mean to refer to, nor do I consider, that Russia, China, and the other countries or news services are enemies of the U.S., and I’m sorry if I gave that impression,” he told The Cable. The BBG has also published a statement of clarification on its website.

The incident showed that not even the BBG Chairman is protected from censorship by autocratic regimes. Their diplomats are putting pressure on the State Department, which under the Obama Administration seems far more willing to carry their message of censorship to the BBG Chairman and to get him to comply with their demands.

Ted Lipien, former Voice of America acting associate director and VOA journalist during several Democratic and Republican administration, said that President Obama’s refusal to meet prior to his official visit to Beijing with the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has send a strong message to human rights activists and government censors alike in China and other countries ruled by authoritarian regimes. According to Lipien, the tone set by the Obama Administration has also contributed to self-censorship and unbalanced reporting at the Voice of America and other broadcasting entities managed by the BBG. An analysis conducted by Free Media Online showed that the Voice of America has violated its Congressional mandate in reporting on the ongoing debate in Congress about the new START treaty with Russia on arms reductions by heavily promoting the pro-treaty statements by the Obama Administration officials and almost completely ignoring serious objections to the proposed treaty raised by Republican lawmakers.

The Voice of America reporting on the U.S. debate about the proposed START treaty would make the Voice of Russia radio and Russia Today television proud, said Ted Lipien who now heads Free Media Online, a California-based NGO which supports free and independent media and reporting worldwide.

In 2008, Free Media Online launched GovoritAmerika.US, a Russian-language website which aggregates U.S. government and non-government media reports. The website was created in response to the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ decision to cancel VOA Russian radio broadcasts, an action taken just 12 days before the Russian military attack on the Republic of Georgia. Free Media Online has been highly critical of the BBG’s management of  U.S. international broadcasting, terminations of radio broadcasts, and over-reliance on the Internet without being able to protect its websites from cyber attacks.

Links to sign a petition to save U.S. news radio broadcasts to China.

The U.S. Consulate General in Krakow, Poland, sent its Public Affairs Officer Benjamin Ousley Naseman to a conference “Ronald Reagan’s Crusade for Freedom” (Krucjata Wolnosci Ronalda Reagana) at the Jagiellonian University. The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn, Estonia, helped to kick off a Ronald Reagan Film Festival, with opening remarks from Chargé d’Affaires Robert Gilchrist. In addition, the Embassy is bringing to Tallinn noted Reagan expert Dr. Lee Edwards, who will be the keynote speaker at a February 14 seminar organized by the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute and held in cooperation with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, titled “Ronald Reagan 100: President Reagan’s Legacy and Estonian-U.S. Relations.”

But the vast majority of America diplomats treated Reagan’s 100 birthday as if it were a plague. The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland — a country on which Ronald Reagan had focused more during his presidency than on any other nation in East-Central Europe — had Internet postings on World War II American photojournalist in Poland Julien Brian and the Holocaust Remembrance Day — both good public diplomacy themes but not really very relevant to the current state of U.S.-Polish relations. The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw was also promoting American hip-hop culture at what was described as “the biggest break dance event Rock The Floor featuring American b-boys Abstrak from New York as a judge,” but the embassy website homepage had nothing on Ronald Reagan’s support for the Solidarity movement and Poland’s independence. Why the U.S. embassy should be involved in pushing the style of American music and culture — known for its obscene, offensive, and misogynistic lyrics and behavior — in a mostly Catholic and fairly conservative country like Poland, is frankly beyond me. I think the Poles have much higher expectations of American culture and would benefit more from other examples — American music more appropriate for promoting goodwill toward Americans and appreciation for their cultural achievements.

The U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee Feinstein, an Obama appointee and one of Hillary Clinton’s former associates, did not mention the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth in his Ambassador’s Blog postings. There was also nothing on Ronald Reagan on the U.S. Embassy Warsaw Facebook Page. The U.S. Embassy Warsaw official Blog has not been updated in months. At least, Ambassador Feinstein did not object to the U.S. Consulate in Krakow participating in a Ronald Reagan birth anniversary observance. Krakow was a center of anti-communist resistance in Poland and remains a center of conservative thought. I don’t know to what extent the U.S. Consulate in Krakow was involved in organizing the Reagan-related conference or whether it simply responded to a local initiative, but at least the staff had the courage to send a speaker and post something about the event on their website. This is more than most U.S. diplomatic posts in the region have done.

The list of U.S. diplomatic posts in East-Central Europe which have completely ignored the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth is quite long, if one does not count automatic brief postings on a few embassy websites of a single America.gov article, which was written at the State Department in Washington. Not even the U.S. Embassy in Minsk, Belarus — a country still run by a post-communist dictator — bothered to mark the Reagan anniversary. The Minsk Embassy website prominently features an article on “New English Teaching Methodologies.” The embassy website does not even provide a link on its homepage to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which had posted recordings of former U.S. President George Bush and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice(not President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton because they did not participate) reading the names of President Lukashenka’s political prisoners.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiev, Ukraine had a posting on the upcoming visit of Mary Wilson of The Supremes and “The Story of The Supremes Exhibit” — certainly, a better example of American culture than hip-hop — but again nothing on Ronald Reagan. Keep in mind that all of these are U.S. public diplomacy events subsidized in some way by U.S. taxpayers.

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana, Albania, features on its website a link to the State Department website page “Dreams for My Mother, Dreams for My Daughter” on empowering women and girls as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, but again nothing about Ronald Reagan. (I wonder how this public diplomacy theme in support of women’s rights squares with sponsoring hip-hop events by U.S. diplomatic posts. Mr. Obama likes hip-hop, but would Hillary Clinton approve spending U.S. taxpayers’ money on promoting musical culture described as “ignorant, misogynistic, casually criminal and often violent” ? )The U.S. Embassy in Prague, the Czech Republic, promoted the screening of Kings Row(1942), starring Ronald Reagan, along with other Hollywood films, but failed to note that last Sunday was the 100 anniversary of Reagan’s birth. The U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia, at least highlighted the America.gov article President Ronald Reagan: A Legacy of Freedom in Europe, but like most U.S. embassies it did not sponsor any Reagan-related special events and its website‘s main “Spotlight” was “Haiti After One Year.” I was particularly amazed that the U.S. embassies in Latvia (U.S. Embassy Riga) and Lithuania (U.S. Embassy Vilnius) — the two countries, in addition to Estonia, most exposed to pressure from Russia — completely ignored the anniversary. But, of course, the vast majority of U.S. diplomatic posts in the region did as well. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow had nothing on Ronald Reagan on its homepage, and neither did the official Blog of U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle. The U.S. Embassy Moscow Facebook Page, however, did have a link to the website of the Voice of America Russian Service, which — to its credit — prepared a number of special programs and interviews to mark the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. (VOA Russian Service had interviewed former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.) We should all be grateful that the Voice of America is not under the direct control of the White House or the State Department, but VOA’s bipartisan managing body, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), had terminated VOA Russian radio broadcasts in July 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia. Only a very tiny segment of the Russian public looks these days at the VOA Russian website. The U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg– a city considered much more liberal than Moscow — had nothing on its website on Ronald Reagan. Ironically, the Consulate had posted a large banner publicizing its sponsorship of “Film Noir: The Other Side of Hollywood,” described as “Russia’s first-ever festival dedicated to film noir and the other side of Hollywood.” There was no mention of Ronald Reagan.

On the other hand, as reported by the Wall Street Journal “(Reagan Belongs to the World –
Countries in Eastern Europe join the celebration, in recognition of Reagan’s role in their liberation from communism“), the East Europeans themselves understood perfectly the significance of the Ronald Reagan’s 100 birthday anniversary. They have a far better sense of history than most U.S. diplomats in the region.

President Ronald Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks, Alaska, 1984.

In Poland, a special website devoted to the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday urged the Poles to sign an online thank-you card to honor the memory of the former U.S. president. A special Catholic mass was celebrated in Krakow to honor both Reagan and Pope John Paul, his partner in bringing about the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. NGOs, government bodies, and private citizens throughout the region organized numerous other events to celebrate Ronald Reagan’s legacy, thus putting U.S. diplomats, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale, and the rest of the State Department to shame.

I would argue that almost nothing was done by U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe for this important anniversary because U.S. public diplomacy has become the domain of self-serving bureaucrats working within a broken, non-functioning system at the State Department. The current public diplomacy infrastructure had replaced the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), which was abolished during the Clinton administration. At least, American diplomats working for USIA enjoyed some measure of independence from the State Department’s political appointees, ambassadors and career political officers, and thus were able to take a longer view of American foreign policy interests. Even then, during the Cold War, I found that many career diplomats, including some USIA officers with whom I had worked at the Voice of America (VOA), did not have a very high opinion of Ronald Reagan. One USIA officer described Ronald Reagan as a raving lunatic after his “Evil Empire” speech, and, even while Ronald Reagan was at the White House, State Department political officers at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw attempted — unsuccessfully — to stop the Voice of America Polish Service from interviewing Solidarity leader Lech Walesa after he had been released from a communist prison.

Still, at least then, there were other Foreign Service Officers with whom I had professional contacts, who understood the importance of independent journalism and public diplomacy in support of human rights. Two of them became later U.S. ambassadors to Poland. While there were some differences between Democratic and Republican administrations, there was a general agreement on what represents good public diplomacy. Anyone who now thinks that there is such a thing as bipartisan public diplomacy designed to further long-term U.S. interests around the world regardless of who sits in the White House would have to conclude after watching the latest snubbing by American diplomats of the legacy of a former U.S. president — one who is particularly revered in Eastern Europe — that this idealistic assumption is no longer true. Most career State Department officials these days think first and foremost about who calls the shots at their embassies and in Washington, their performance evaluations, their next assignment, and their considerable perks. Keeping each one of these senior Foreign Service Officers abroad costs U.S. taxpayers at least $250,000 a year.

The State Department’s public diplomacy infrastructure has become highly bureaucratized and politicized. If we had a Republican president or even a less ideological Democratic president like Bill Clinton, I would bet that all or most U.S. diplomatic posts in Central and Eastern Europe would not miss Ronald Reagan’s birthday as an opportunity for a public diplomacy event or a special posting for their website. Even though most Foreign Service Officers probably don’t think much of Ronald Reagan, they would undoubtedly do something to mark the occasion with the different kind of leadership from the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But Barack Obama made it clear that he wants a “reset” with Russia and does not care much for public encouragement of human rights and pro-democracy movements a la Ronald Reagan. Only very few among the current generation of U.S. diplomats would dare to go against the tone set by the President and supported by the Secretary of State, even if she is not as keen as her boss on talking nicely to anti-American dictators.

A conspiracy theorist might think American diplomats gave the whole issue a lot of professional thought but ultimately concluded that calling attention to Ronald Reagan would cause the East Europeans to draw uncomfortable comparisons between President Reagan and President Obama. In my view, that was not the case.

One could even understand if not excuse this kind of thinking — giving priority to short-term foreign policy goals of a particular U.S. administration over long-term national interests. I’m afraid, however, that the truth is more prosaic. Having worked with American diplomats for over 30 years, I can say with some confidence that for most of them, if they were worried at all, they were worried primarily about their careers. Marking Ronald Reagan’s birthday with any kind of embassy-sponsored special events would be career-risky. It would look bad to their political bosses in the State Department and to the White House. For the vast majority, their decisions had nothing to do with what would be good for public diplomacy, long-term U.S. interests in the region, and expectations from the American taxpayers who pay their salaries. We no longer have many Foreign Service Officers of the same caliber as Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane or Public Affairs Specialist John H. Brown. Ambassador Bliss Lane resigned during the Truman Administration in protest against the continuation of FDR’s policy with regard to Poland. John H. Brown resigned in protest against George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Each represented the kind of diplomat who would not be afraid to risk his career to do what he thought was good for the United States.

In terms of effective public diplomacy themes in East-Central Europe, one could not ask for a better one than the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birthday. For the East Europeans, Ronald Reagan not only contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped the “Captive Nations” achieve full sovereignty and independence. Reagan also represents the final break in U.S. foreign policy from the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who, in the words of the words of Ambassador Bliss Lane, had “sold down the river” Poland and other East European nations at Tehran and Yalta to Josef Stalin.

What the East Europeans see now is a partial return to Roosevelt-style diplomacy in their region. Just as Roosevelt had been fooled by Stalin, Obama has shown FDR-like naivety in dealing with Vladimir Putin and his ex-KGB team that now owns Russia and runs it. Celebrating Ronald Reagan’s legacy at U.S. diplomatic posts in East-Central Europe would have send a signal to the government leaders, the media and the general public that not all U.S. presidents can be fooled by autocratic leaders and not every U.S. president is ready to abandon important political and military commitments to America’s allies to suit his particular personal worldview. For showing that most Americans would not tolerate a betrayal of U.S. allies, the Reagan anniversary offered a highly useful public diplomacy opportunity in East-Central Europe.

But U.S. public diplomacy has indeed become an expensive farce. Consider this fact: among dozens or perhaps even hundreds of highly-paid U.S. diplomats and other State Department officials who knew in advance that President Obama was going to announce his controversial decision to cancel President Bush’s missile defense commitments to the Polish government, apparently not a single one tried to warn the White House that making the announcement on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland would be a highly embarrassing public diplomacy disaster. They also allowed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to embarrass herself with the Russian mistranslation of the “Reset Button,” and the “reset” idea itself was, in the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, “childish” as a public relations stunt.

There is no longer bipartisan consensus of what U.S. public diplomacy ought to be and no strategic plan of action. Hundreds of U.S. Public Affairs Officers abroad and public diplomacy specialists at the State Department have been unwilling or unable to save the Obama administration from other highly embarrassing public relations missteps in the foreign policy arena. Why even bother to have the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs if promoting hip-hop music takes precedence in Eastern Europe over Ronald Reagan’s legacy of support for freedom and human rights and his contribution to ending the Cold War and the freeing of the region from Soviet domination. The United States and the Free World no longer have a leader willing to lead the struggle for democracy and human rights, and therefore it has no public diplomacy to support this long-standing U.S. foreign policy goal. Ronald Reagan was such as leader. Sadly, President Obama is not.

Here is another stunning example of a completely one-sided report by VOA on U.S.-Russian relations. There is not a single sentence in this report about Congressional or any other U.S. domestic or international criticism of President Obama’s approach to managing relations with the Kremlin.

In my entire career with VOA spanning more than two decades, I’ve never seen such government PR being presented as thought-provoking, objective and balanced news and information. Not a word about critical comments by Senator John McCain, Senator George Voinovich, Senator Jim DeMint, or Senator Mitch McConnell. There is no mention of numerous American and international experts who have raised serious doubts about President Obama’s “reset” of relations with the Kremlin, including some reports by U.S. diplomats in Moscow — all of this information easily available to sophisticated news consumers abroad.

This particular Voice of America news analysis reminds me of Soviet-style radio reporting about the USSR’s everlasting commitment to peace, disarmament, and international cooperation.

The damage from such unbalanced Voice of America reporting is not limited to the English Service. It is multiplied worldwide as many understaffed VOA language services translate and use these reports, including VOA’s Russian Service. Американо-российские отношения: итоги года

I could not imagine more boring reporting unless it came directly from the Kremlin or the Obama White House. Even Voice of Russia (the old Radio Moscow) commentaries are more fun to hear, for those who can appreciate this type of humor, because of the inability of most Russian state-employed journalists and government officials to refrain from taking cheap shots at the United States.

I invite everyone to read the Voice of America English Service report and judge it for yourself.

2010 Productive Year for US-Russian Relations

André de Nesnera | Washington, DC 27 December 2010

The highlight was the U.S. Senate’s ratification in late December of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty – or New START.

Vice President Joe Biden, in his capacity as president of the Senate, read out the final tally.

“71 yeahs, 26 nays, two-thirds of the Senate present having voted in the affirmative, the resolution of ratification is agreed to,” said Biden.

Shortly after Senate ratification, President Barack Obama addressed reporters.

“This is the most significant arms control agreement in nearly two decades and it will make us safer and reduce our nuclear arsenals along with Russia’s,” the president said.

The Senate action represented a major victory for President Obama, who has made better relations with Moscow a cornerstone of his foreign policy.

The New START treaty sets a limit of 1,550 deployed strategic – or long-range – nuclear warheads. It also limits to 700 the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear delivery systems such as long-range launchers and heavy bombers. The accord also provides for what the Obama administration calls strong verification measures – provisions that ensure each side complies with its treaty obligations.

The treaty now has to be ratified by the Russian parliament – or Duma – and by the Federation Council, Russia’s highest legislative body. Experts say passage is virtually guaranteed.

John Parker with the National Defense University [expressing his personal views], says the New START treaty is as important to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as it is to President Obama.

“Since he [Medvedev] was intimately involved in negotiating it person-to-person with President Obama, it’s important. He invested a lot of time in it and when it’s ratified [by the Duma/Federation Council] he will, I’m sure, take a lot of political credit for it. So it’s important,” said Parker.

Many experts are now looking at what might be the next step in arms negotiations between Washington and Moscow. One of those is Steven Pifer with the Brookings Institution.

“When he signed the New START Treaty back in April, President Obama made clear that he would like to continue and in the next negotiation, address not only deployed strategic forces but address non-deployed strategic warheads – for example those nuclear warheads that are sitting in storage areas – and also address non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons,” said

“And that opens up for the first time that the United States and Russia might be negotiating limits on all of their nuclear arsenals with the exception of those weapons that are in the dismantlement queue,” Pifer continued. “That’s going to be a hard negotiation because the sides will get into questions that they haven’t had to address before.”

Many analysts say the START negotiations and ratification process overshadowed other positive developments in US-Russia relations.

Robert Legvold of Columbia University says one of those was Moscow’s increased cooperation in Afghanistan.

“The most important element has been supporting transit of military equipment to Afghanistan. In the past, the U.S. has been more than two-thirds dependent on supply lines that cross the western border of Pakistan and that are vulnerable both to the insurgency in the area and at times the Pakistan government, when they protest American military actions,” said Legvold.

“So the fact that the Russians now enable both on land and air the transit of both non-lethal and lethal – that is military equipment to Afghanistan – is a critical element in sustaining the military U.S. and NATO effort within Afghanistan.”

Experts say Moscow also toughened its position on Iran, voting in favor of a United Nations Security Council resolution imposing new, tougher sanctions on Tehran – although the text was apparently watered down by Russia and China. Russia also canceled the delivery to Iran of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles – a deal dating back to 2007.

Russia also changed its position on missile defense. After strongly criticizing for many years U.S. plans for such an endeavor, Moscow agreed to cooperate in a NATO-led missile defense system.

Once again John Parker with the National Defense University.

“Politically it’s very important. [Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev signaled a readiness to cooperate in discussions with NATO on European missile defense. What it will eventually turn out to be it’s pretty hard to tell, but at least the two sides are going to be talking. So they are going to talk about how this cooperation might work out,” said Parker. “The important thing for the Russians is that they are in on the ground floor on all of this and not just handed a plan and asked to sign up to it.”

Looking ahead, experts say Moscow and Washington should build on the progress made in 2010. A key event in 2011 will be the expected review of Moscow’s application to become a member of the World Trade Organization – an application supported by the Obama administration.

Американо-российские отношения: итоги года

Андре де Нешнера Понедельник, 27 декабря 2010

Русская служба «Голоса Америки» – итоги года

Пожалуй, ключевым событием в американо-российских отношениях стала ратификация Сенатом США в конце декабря нового соглашения о сокращении стратегических наступательных вооружений.

Вице-президент США Джо Байден в качестве председателя Сената Соединенных Штатов зачитал результаты голосования:

«71 голос «За», 26 – «Против». Две третьих из числа присутствующих сенаторов проголосовали «За» – договор ратифицирован».

Вскоре после ратификации договора в Сенате президент США Барак Обама обратился к журналистам со словами:

«Это самое важное за двадцать лет соглашение о контроле над вооружениями, и этот договор сделает мир более безопасным и позволит сократить ядерные арсеналы США и России».

Ратификация договора Сенатом США стала важнейшей победой президента Обамы, который сделал задачу улучшения отношений с Россией краеугольным камнем внешней политики своей администрации.

По новому договору СНВ предполагается сократить количество ядерных боеголовок баллистических ракет до 1550 единиц с каждой стороны. Договор предусматривает сократить количество носителей ядерного оружия – пусковых установок баллистических ракет и дальних бомбардировщиков – до 700 единиц и у США, и у России. В американо-российском договоре также прописаны, как называет это администрация президента Обамы, четкие меры по проверке выполнения условий данного соглашения каждой из сторон.

Договор теперь должен быть ратифицирован Государственной Думой России и Советом Федерации. Эксперты говорят, что российский парламент практически гарантированно ратифицирует это соглашение.

Джон Паркер из Университета национальной обороны, выражая свое личное мнение, заявил, что новый договор о СНВ одинаково важен и для Президента РФ Дмитрия Медведева, и для президента США Барака Обамы:

«Учитывая, что президент Медведев непосредственно включился в обсуждение нового договора СНВ с президентом Обамой, то это соглашение имеет важное значение. Медведев потратил массу времени для достижения этого договора. И когда СНВ-3 будет ратифицирован парламентом России, я уверен, что президент Медведев получит политические дивиденды. Поэтому так важен договор СНВ», – отметил эксперт.

Многие эксперты сейчас пытаются представить, какую тему могут затронуть на следующих переговорах по контролю над вооружениями США и Россия. Вот что думает по этому поводу Стивен Пайфер из Брукингского института:

«Когда в апреле президент Обама подписывал новый договор о СНВ, он дал ясно понять, что хотел бы продолжить на следующих американо-российских переговорах обсуждение не только развернутых стратегических ядерных сил, но неразвернутых ядерных боеголовок, например, ядерных боеголовок, хранящихся на складах, а также провести переговоры по тактическому ядерному оружию. И это впервые открывает возможность для США и России начать переговоры об ограничении всего ядерного арсенала двух стран, исключая лишь ядерные вооружения, предназначенные для демонтажа. Это будут трудные переговоры, потому что стороны должны будут обсуждать вопросы, которых они до этого даже не касались»

Многие эксперты считают, что обсуждение нового договора по СНВ и процесс его ратификации оставили в тени другие позитивные сдвиги в американо-российских отношениях.

Роберт Легволд из Колумбийского университета говорит, что одним из таких позитивных моментов стало то, что Москва расширила сотрудничество по Афганистану:

«Самым важным элементом такого сотрудничество стало разрешение России осуществлять транзит военных грузов в Афганистан. В прошлом США для доставки двух третьих всех грузов в эту страну зависели от транспортных маршрутов в Афганистан, проходящих через западную границу Пакистана. И эти маршруты уязвимы и для ударов боевиков, действующих в этом регионе, и периодически для действий пакистанского правительства, когда оно протестует против некоторых операций американских военных. Поэтому тот факт, что русские разрешили транзит военных грузов по своей территории и по воздуху, имеет решающее значение для снабжения американских войск и контингента НАТО в Афганистане», – отметил Легволд.

Эксперты говорят, что Москва также ужесточила свою позицию по Ирану, проголосовав за резолюцию Совета Безопасности ООН о введении новых более жестких санкций против Тегерана, хотя Россия и Китай явно сумели смягчить окончательный текст данной резолюции. Россия также отменила поставку Ирану систем ПВО С-300 (договор о продаже Россией батарей С-300 Ирану был заключен еще в 2007 году).

Россия также изменила свою позицию по ПРО. Многие годы Россия резко критиковала планы США по развертыванию системы ПРО, но потом Москва согласилась на сотрудничество с НАТО в вопросе создания системы ПРО.

Джон Паркер из Университета национальной обороны считает:

«В политическом отношении, это очень важно. Президент России Дмитрий Медведев сигнализировал о готовности к сотрудничеству в ходе переговоров с НАТО по созданию системы ПРО над Европой. Во что это выльется, сейчас довольно трудно сказать, но по меньшей мере обе стороны продолжат переговоры о том, в какой форме это сотрудничество может развиваться. Для русских важно то, что им не просто вручили план и попросили его подписать, а они вовлечены в обсуждение этих планов»

Заглядывая вперед, эксперты говорят, что Москве и Вашингтону необходимо развивать успех, достигнутый в 2010 году. Ключевым событием в 2011 году станет давно ожидаемое рассмотрение заявки России на вступление во Всемирную торговую организацию. Эту заявку поддержала администрация президента Обамы.
Послать статью Распечатать Комментарии

Комментарии (5)
28-12-2010
К сожалению,чудовищная коррупция в России не даст нормально развиваться этим отношениям.Для того,чтобы ее победить президент Д.А.Медведев должен принять беспрецендентные меры
28-12-2010гоша (россия)
Медведев? меры?какие меры,Вы о чём говорите! евросоюзу и америке пора задуматься о построении железного занавеса но только с той стороны,а иначе наша псевдодемократия и у вас приживётся
28-12-2010
В реальности – если у России вырастет экономика, исчезнет коррупция, улучшатся дипотношения с близкими и далекими странами — Это будет самое огромное горе для США. Политический парадокс!
28-12-2010гоша (россия)
С такими как Медведев и Путин вобще разговаривать неочем…. можно “потерять лицо”
28-12-2010wwwert (ykr)
да я соглашаюсь, что будет рассмотрен план дальше. глубже. сколько же можно замораживать друг друга и держать мир в недоумении.

Related posts:

1. Misleading foreign audiences – America.gov or America.STATE – U.S. Senate Ratifies New START Treaty
2. Voice of America English programs go the way of Voice of Russia, says former VOA journalist
3. Independent US Bloggers Beat Voice of America and Radio Liberty in Delivering Uncensored News to Russia
4. Why U.S. Public Diplomacy No Longer Works and Can It Be Fixed?
5. Voice of America Report Shows Confusion and Divisions Over Obama’s Policy Toward Russia

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

The timing of the announcement has been seen around the world as a public diplomacy disaster for America and was described with ridicule in U.S. and foreign media reports. Needless to say, not only the decision itself, but also the historical symbolism of the date when it was announced, greatly upset the Polish Government and Polish Americans. It turned out to be a major embarrassment for President Obama.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow cables released so far by Wikileaks and examined by Opinia.US still do not shed sufficient light on the timing of the announcement. Neither do the Wikileaks released cables originating from the State Department in Washington.

We do know, however, that a cable sent from the State Department to U.S. Embassies gave American ambassadors advanced warning of the September 17 announcement. Conceivably, one of the hundreds, if not thousands of U.S. diplomats and other State Department officials and officials of other U.S. Government agencies who had seen the cable could have warned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama that releasing this news on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland was not a particularly bright idea. Unless someone, perhaps a U.S. Presidential adviser, deliberately wanted to send a message to the Poles that they should rely less on U.S. support and should seek an accommodation with the Kremlin.

Another theory is that Russian intelligence media specialists deliberately planted the September 17 announcement idea with historically-clueless American diplomats who somehow got the White House to fall for this clever ruse designed to make the Poles feel more vulnerable, and therefore more likely to adopt a more pro-Moscow attitude.

We still do not know if anyone sounded a warning but we do know that President Obama made his announcement on September 17.

The talking points in the leaked secret cable signed by Mrs. Clinton (The cable was not written by her, but most outgoing State Department cables bear the signature of the Secretary of State.) were addressed to U.S. Embassies except for those in Warsaw and Prague. We have learned from the leaked cable that separate talking points on missile defense were prepared for Poland and the Czech Republic, but Wikileaks has not yet put them on their website, assuming it has them. Also, no cables from the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw have been released by Wikileaks so far.

What we do know is that the Obama Administration had not negotiated a priori any concessions from the Kremlin for making this important decision, which severely undermined the sense of security of Poland and other U.S. allies in the region. We also found out that government officials in France had warned a high ranking U.S. diplomat that the Russian leaders would pocket this unilateral gift from the Obama Administration without giving Washington anything in return.

It also emerged from the leaked cables that one of the strongest advocates for the concession on missile defense to the Kremlin was U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. We also learned that he badly wanted Russian help in moving U.S. military supplies to Afghanistan. (It would be interesting to find out which U.S. private military contractors would benefit from these transports through Russian airspace and territory and what are their links to current DOD officials.)

The ever-so down-to-earth and cynical French warned an American diplomat that the Russians might actually help Washington in this particular area because the Kremlin wants to see the U.S. bogged down in the Afghanistan quagmire. It was also clear that President Obama expected Moscow’s help in dealing with the nuclear issue in Iran in exchange for his unilateral concession on missile defense in Central Europe.

It is incredible but not surprising that ideologically-driven and inexperienced U.S. President failed to get a firm deal with the Kremlin on this point ahead of time. In any case, both French and even U.S. diplomats had warned, according to the leaked cables, that the current Russian leadership would have no interest in helping the U.S. in Iran, and in fact is very much interested in keeping the Iranian crisis simmering on indefinitely for a number of good reasons related to their perception of Russia’s national interest. One of them is the high price of oil, from which Russia (read: the state energy sector controlled by Mr. Putin and to a lesser extent Mr. Medvedev) benefits economically.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush Administration, emerges from the cables almost as naive about dealing with Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev as President Obama himself. In one of the cables from Paris, he is describes as informing the French Defense Minister, apparently with a straight face, that Mr. Putin had once told him that Iran represents the greatest threat for Russia. Apparently both Secretary Gates and President Obama bought this story from Mr. Putin, one of the most sophisticated ex-KGB disinformation experts Russia has ever produced. When it comes to diplomatic intrigue and safeguarding your own and your country’s interests, neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Gates are a match for Mr. Putin, and not even Mr. Medvedev.

Of course, Mr. Putin’s perception of Russia’s interests are not really what the Russian people would benefit from if they had full democratic freedoms and were allowed to develop normal, mutually beneficial relations with America and the rest of the free world.

The leaked cables also show that U.S. diplomats were too timid to challenge vigorously what they knew to be the President’s views, but at least some brave souls tried to point out, albeit weakly and indirectly, that Mr. Obama’s plans with regard to Russia were based on rather naive assumptions. Overall, the American diplomatic service again failed the President and the American people. But with President Obama in the White with his progressive view of international politics, similar to that of President Roosevelt in his dealings with Stalin, the U.S. diplomats probably did not have much of a chance to influence his thinking. That job is now left to the American voters. Let’s only hope it is not too late.

This op-ed may be republished with attribution to Opinia.US.

Ted Lipien, a writer and journalist, was in charge of the Voice of America radio broadcasts to Poland during the Solidarity-led struggle for democracy. He is now president of Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a California-based NGO which supports media freedom worldwide.

Opinia.US

U.S. Consular Officers at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Robin R. Sanders, and Foreign Service Officers responsible for security had a professional duty to immediately cancel Mr. Abdulmutallab’s U.S. visa after his father warned the Embassy officials of his son’s likely radicalization.

No dots with the vague CIA information from Yemen on Mr. Abdulmutallab needed to be connected by anti-terrorism experts. The whole problem could have been easily averted at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, if American diplomats had simply used common sense that most Americans would use in a similar situation.

These highly paid U.S. officials should have erred on the side of caution, not on the side of protecting the rights of individuals who are not U.S. citizens and have no automatic right to a U.S. visa.

After being told of the father’s concerns about his son, the first question from Ambassador Sanders should have been: does he have a U.S. visa? And if he does, let’s cancel it immediately.

Any of the Foreign Service Officers and other officials at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria who knew about the case should have asked the same question. They are some of the best paid U.S. government employees and supposed to be some of the smartest.

We wish the latter were really true. If they were as smart and dedicated as they should be, Americans could feel safe about their borders being protected and there would be no need to spend extra billions of dollars on airport security. Unfortunately, a culture of careerism and political correctness makes it impossible for most U.S. Foreign Service Officers to think and act primarily in the interest of the American people.

U.S. diplomats in Nigeria did nothing to prevent the most recent incident because that would have required them to make a difficult decision that could have been viewed by their bosses at the State Department in Washington as a violation of Mr. Abdulmitallab’s rights. A decision to cancel his visa might have also exposed them to criticism of engaging in profiling and undermining President Obama’s new policy of reaching out to the Muslim world.

Let’s not forget that all of the 9/11 terrorists also received American visas from U.S. Foreign Service Officers.

Each U.S. diplomat stationed abroad costs U.S. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. But today’s U.S. Foreign Service Officers are mostly interested in protecting their considerable salaries and perks. They lack both status and courage to challenge official policies and behavior, often dictated by misguided political correctness.

It does not help that the standards for recruiting Foreign Service Officers have greatly declined over the last few decades. A U.S. diplomat who dares to make a difficult decision that could ruin his chances for career advancement is a rare exception.

If U.S. Foreign Service Officers used the right judgement and did their professional duty of protecting U.S. citizens rather than pleasing the political correctness crowd at the State Department and the White House, the 9/11 terror attack and the attempted airplane bombing over Detroit could have been prevented.

The CIA is also not off the hook. As with Foreign Service Officers, keeping a single CIA officer abroad also costs U.S. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salary, free housing, free education for children and freequent free travel to the U.S. The CIA station chief in Nigeria should have insisted that a Consular Officer at the Embassy or the Ambassador herself cancel Mr. Abdulmutallab’s U.S. visa. Without a U.S. visa, he would not have been able to get on the plane.

Ultimately, however, it’s not the CIA but the U.S. Ambassador who is responsible for what goes on at a U.S. embassy.

It is unlikely that the quality of U.S. Foreign Service Officers can be quickly improved in the current political environment in Washington. Intensive retraining of U.S. ambassadors, political officers, and consular officials at U.S. embassies might offer some help in the future if it is done correctly. But such retraining would certainly clash with the Obama administration’s policy assumptions about the world and the Foreign Service culture that promotes conformism.

Of course, much of the blame goes directly to President Obama and his administration’s top officials who have set the political agenda of granting people suspected of terrorism the benefit of the doubt in an naive hope that by being nice to them they would be nice to us. U.S. diplomats in Nigeria should have shown their respect for the local customs and culture by taking seriously the concerns expressed to them by Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father. They should have been nice to him. Instead, they behaved like typical Americans, assuming that the young man had the right to do what he wanted. Perhaps they thought that if they had cancelled his U.S. visa he might become anti-American and turn into a terrorist. That, after all, seems to be the essence of President Obama’s approach to the problem of terrorism.

U.S. diplomats in Nigeria were more than eager to implement this misguided agenda. The attempted airplane bombing over Detroit was a major failure of both the Obama administration and the culture of the U.S. diplomatic service. The American people deserve better than that.

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

First, President Obama made public his strong desire to “reset” relations with Moscow, based apparently on a naive assumption that Russian leaders would help him deal with nuclear Iran, as if helping the U.S. could ever advance their own authoritarian ambitions. He later declined the Polish government’s invitation to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the outbreak of World War II, which was held in Gdansk, the birthplace of Solidarnosc, on September 1, a date of great historical importance to the Poles. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was there along with other foreign dignitaries.

This American diplomatic snub, combined with the fact that the White House and the State Department were silent during the summer, as various Russian government officials and Kremlin supporters defended Stalin and his pre-World War II pact with Hitler, did not escape the attention of Polish leaders and the Polish public. The Hitler-Stalin pact resulted in Poland’s partition by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with the Soviet attack launched on September 17, 1939.

The final blow came when President Obama made his decision to cancel U.S. plans to build the anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and chose to announce it on the very day the Poles were commemorating the tragic anniversary of the Soviet invasion of their country. Countless public diplomacy experts in the White House and the State Department, including President Obama’s future ambassador to Poland, did nothing to prevent this completely avoidable insult. Wired headline said it all: Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day. Love Uncle Sam.

Alarmed by naive foreign policy statements coming from Washington, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and other Central European leaders had sent a letter to President Obama in July 2009, warning him of the Kremlin’s aggressive behavior toward Russia’s neighbors. The mishandling of the ballistic missile defense (BMD) issue and subsequent events have shown that their alarm was justified, but their warnings have been ignored.

Finally, after an outcry of media criticism following the September 17 missile shield cancellation announcement, the White House hastily dispatched Vice President Joe Biden on a face-saving mission to Central Europe. While visiting Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic, Mr. Biden praised the courage of pro-democracy demonstrators who toppled communist regimes in 1989 while facing tanks and occasional gunfire.

But these Central Europeans, who easily saw through communist propaganda and like to match actions with words, could not fail to notice that only a few days earlier Mr. Biden’s boss had refused to meet in Washington with the revered Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. This was apparently out of fear of offending the aging Chinese communist leaders, who were not brandishing guns but merely frowning at him thousands of miles away from the White House. U.S. NATO allies in Central Europe also learned from news reports that, citing scheduling conflicts, President Obama had canceled his plans to attend the 20th anniversary observances in Germany of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will represent the U.S. Hoping to score a public diplomacy coup, Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev later announced that he would attend along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and a score of other heads of state.

Mr. Obama is too busy to go to Berlin to honor those who fought against communism in Eastern and Central Europe. The White House did say that he would meet the Dalai Lama, but only after his official presidential visit to China. Reacting to this news, former Czech president and human rights activist Vaclav Havel sadly observed that “these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones.”

Repeated diplomatic blunders of the Obama administration embolden dictators who now see the U.S. president as a weak and ineffective leader. They are likely to act upon this perception by further restricting human rights and press freedoms in their countries, while also threatening their smaller neighbors. This is bad news for America and the spirit of freedom that sustained the 1989 peaceful overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.

The White House would like everyone to believe that bad translators and hostile media are misinterpreting President Obama’s foreign policy initiatives. The State Department recently blamed a Polish translator for undiplomatic remarks by President Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw, Lee A. Feinstein, who hinted in a television interview that Poland plans to increase its engagement in Afghanistan.

While the hint was believed to be accurate, Polish government officials were furious that it was made public before foreign minister Sikorski’s scheduled visit to Washington. They did not want the Polish public to learn about it from the U.S. ambassador while sensitive negotiations were still being conducted. To make things worse, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cancelled her meeting with Sikorski when she decided to extend her trip to the Middle East.

The latest diplomatic crises with Poland show a new level of incompetence as well as arrogance of the new Obama administration foreign policy team. The real problem with Obama diplomacy are not bad translators and journalists, but naive assumptions, surprising arrogance and dangerous incompetence. The world needs a U.S. president whose diplomacy is not lost in confusion.

Ted Lipien was in charge of Voice of America radio broadcasts to Poland during the Solidarity movement’s successful struggle for democracy. He now runs a media freedom nonprofit in San Francisco, CA.

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

Subscribe to Opinia.US

Your email:

 Sourced from: Opinia.US

Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam
Wired

While American and international media blames President Obama for choosing to announce his decision on the removal of the missile defense system from Poland and Czech Republic on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland on September 17, 1939, surprisingly so far no one has called it a failure of American diplomacy. What makes this failure even more disturbing is that neither the State Department nor the White House has drawn any lessons from an earlier public diplomacy disaster when they gave grave offence by sending to Poland a low-level delegation to participate in the 70th anniversary observances on September 1 of the start of World War II, a date also of great historical significance to the Polish people.

Both missteps were completely avoidable. Why add insult to injury? Why offend even more a loyal US ally in the war on terror who has contributed troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

There may be some who think that the Obama White House deliberately snubbed and punished Poland because Warsaw was one of the strongest supporters among NATO members of President Bush’s foreign policy. I don’t think this was the case. President Obama and his closest advisors may be naive and historically challenged, but they would not sacrifice American national interests in such a way. The additional humiliation of Poland was not deliberate. It was unplanned, and much of it was certainly unnecessary and avoidable.

If only one US diplomat, one foreign service officer at the State Department, did his or her job well, some of the international headlines making fun of President Obama’s lack of appreciation of history would not have been written. Where was the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale, one of President Obama’s appointees? (Photo) Where was the US Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe?

As President Bush’s holdover appointee who is leaving his post in Warsaw this week, Ambassador Ashe would not have much influence with the Obama White House anyway. But where was President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland Lee A. Feinstein? The Brookings Institution Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies and National Security Director to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign should have been already advising the Obama Administration on a host of issues, including the sensitive area of history and trust in US-Polish relations. His statement made to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 15, just two days before President Obama’s ill-timed announcement, shows a certain appreciation of Poland’s history.

“Poland has endured great hardship and tragedy in its history. It has been occupied and dismembered by foreign powers time and again. It experienced a brief period of independence after World War I, but then fell prey to Nazi invasion and occupation, during which six million Polish citizens lost their lives, including three million Jews, most of Poland’s Jewish population. Then, following the war, the Soviet regime deprived Poles of their political liberty and imposed an economic system that kept the country in poverty and subjugation.”

President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland Lee A. Feinstein, September 15, 2009

Ambassador-Designate Feinstein did not specifically mention the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, but he undoubtedly knew about it, and knew about President Obama’s pending missile shield announcement. He probably also knows that the Poles still remember how the US Administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had betrayed Poland to Russia at the end of World War II. I specifically refer to FDR and his administration, and not the American people who did not want to see Poland being sold to Stalin.

Lee Feinstein should have called the White House to offer friendly advice on Polish history and perhaps quote from another part of his earlier statement: “As Secretary Clinton has said, Poland is ‘one of our closest allies.’ Poland was one of just three countries that entered Iraq with U.S. forces in 2003. It contributes forces for NATO’s KFOR mission in Kosovo. Polish forces have served in Afghanistan since the onset of the NATO mission in 2004.” Ambassador-Designate Feinstein summed up Poland’s special relationship with the US in this way: “In short, intrepid Polish forces stand with us in dangerous places with dangerous missions, and Poland has increased its contributions, which are prodigious.”

During World War II, Polish soldiers fought alongside of British and American soldiers against Nazi Germany. Those who understand how the Polish people feel about history and about America are reminded of Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane who served in Poland from 1945 until 1947 during the Truman Administration, resigned, and wrote a book “I Saw Poland Betrayed.” He described what he saw as the betrayal of Poland by the Western Allies at the end of World War II, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt playing a major part in selling out of Poland to Stalin at the Yalta Conference. Fortunately, subsequent administrations and the American people rejected Roosevelt’s naive assessment of Stalin and supported America’s participation in the Cold War until the Soviet Union collapsed and Poland along with other Central European nations became a member of NATO. The people of Poland can take some comfort in knowing that American democracy eventually corrects even some of the gravest mistakes made by US presidents.

Even if President Obama’s ideological preferences pushed him to embrace Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev rather than listen to Lech Walesa and Waclav Havel, who had sent him a letter warning him about Russia’s dangerous slide into authoritarianism and imperial expansion, there was still room for observing basic diplomatic protocol and good manners. At a lower level of US diplomatic corps, where was the PAO (Public Affairs Officer) at the US Embassy in Warsaw and dozens of other foreign service officers, each costing US taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars? Where was the Polish Desk officer at the State Department? Where were all the public diplomacy experts President Obama had promised to bring on board to correct the mistakes of the Bush Administration, whom he accused of dealing harshly with the rest of the world and of not listening to what others were saying?

Well, the Obama Administration is now talking softly to Moscow, Iran, and Cuba. But what about Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and other nations in Central and Eastern Europe which already are or want to be America’s allies? What about the future of independent and democratic Ukraine? Is Ukraine going to become like Russia? Where was in all of this President Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his chief diplomatic advisor? We have also not heard much from Vice President Biden.

Ultimately, the US President is responsible for any foreign policy and public diplomacy disasters, but American diplomats should have managed the process and tried to soften the blow to Poland and other nations in the region. Perhaps they did warn the White House, and their warnings were ignored. This would still qualify as a failure of American diplomacy — the inability of State Department officials to affect something as simple as the timing of a critical announcement and selecting who should represent the United States at an important event abroad.

If warnings were issued to the White House and were disregarded, I hope we will soon find out. Comments from those who may know are welcome. Whatever happened, this will hurt President Obama politically among Polish-American voters and other Americans with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. With headlines like these, this diplomatic fiasco will likely have a negative political impact for the President and his party across the whole spectrum of the American electorate. But while President Obama may eventually pay a political price for the mistakes that were both his and the State Department’s, the damage to America’s reputation and credibility among our true allies abroad will be long-lasting and will not be easily undone.

This op-ed was written by Ted Lipien, president of Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a 501(c)3 media nonprofit promoting media freedom worldwide. Republishing is allowed.

Wired Headline: Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam

P.S. (TedLipien.com)

By the way, we are taking away the thing that could prevent another one. Hope you don’t mind. Too much.

The Washington Times Headline: Obama not smooth on Gdansk: German attack that started World War II marked without him

Polish Radio Headline: US snubs Poland over WW II ceremony?

DigitalJournal Headline: Opinion: Obama chose wrong day to abandon missile defence shield in Europe

Polish News Headline: OBAMA ABANDONS MISSILE DEFENSE FOR POLAND: Makes Controversial Move on the 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland

examiner.com San Francisco Headline: Obama betrays Poland and every American EXCELLENT VIDEOS!

Drudge Report Headline: September 17: Obama kills missile defense for Poland on 70th anniversary of Soviet invasion…
And countless blogs:

Mother. Of. ALL. Snubs. Obama and the Polish Joke

President Obama acknowledges the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland… …by cancelling the missile defense in Eastern Europe

Obama Celebrates 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland…

Obama to Allies: Drop Dead

Obama’s second Polish joke: the Obama Doctrine

Wikipedia

Soviet invasion of Poland

CPJ blames the Russian authorities for creating a political atmosphere in which journalists who are critical of the Kremlin are marginalized, effectively barred from state-controlled national television, subjected to bureaucratic harassment, and vulnerable to attacks. The report points out that both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin have promised to address the problem, but the Committee to Protect Journalists believes that these statements do not go far enough and have not resulted in stopping or solving murders of journalists in Russia.

CPJ report states that a solution to the problem must start with the political tone set by the Kremlin, which — the international organization of journalists believes — has led to self-censorship in the Russian press, leaving issues of vital importance underreported or entirely uncovered. CPJ warns that in-depth, critical journalism is in danger of becoming extinct in one of the world’s most influential countries. CPJ advises the Russian leaders that if Russia is to pursue a democratic future it cannot allow the levers of power to be unexamined by independent journalists.

CPJ calls on President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin to condemn all attacks on the press in clear, public, and unequivocal terms and to put a stop to efforts to marginalize or criminalize critical journalism. The report said that the Russian leaders should hold top law enforcement officials accountable for solving murders and violent crimes against journalists. CPJ also called on the international community to hold Russian leaders accountable for their record on this issue by monitoring the state of the media in Russia, using political persuasion to effect change, and taking substantive action in international legal forums.

Link to “Anatomy of Injustice: The Unsolved Killings of Journalists in Russia” – The Committee to Protect Journalists

FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom noprofit, has reported extensively on killings of journalists and frequent instances of intimidation and self-censorship in media outlets in Russia. The most recent murder was that of reporter and activist Natalya Estemirova, who was kidnapped and killed in Chechnya. Another recent victim was Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, editor of the Rostov-on-Don newspaper Korruptsiya i Prestupnost, who died after an assault.

Recent examples of Russia-related self-censorship that has affected US-based media outlets included the banning by the Conde Nast publishing group of an article critical of Mr. Putin from the Russian edition of the GQ magazine and the delay in reporting on this story by US taxpayer-funded Radio Liberty.

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, RFE/RL, a private entity which receives money from the US Congress through the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, has a major news bureau in Moscow and a large number of local reporters. FreeMediaOnline.org has criticized the BBG, a bipartisan Federal board consisting of political appointees, and the administrations of both President George W. Bush and President Obama, for not protecting Radio Liberty reporters from being scrutinized and threatened by the FSB, the Russian secret security service, and for severely reducing the Voice of America, VOA, broadcasts to Russia. The BBG manages VOA and RFE/RL by controlling their budgets, programs, and appointments of key personnel. Both the BBG and VOA are based in Washington, D.C. RFE/RL has its headquarters in Prague, the Czech Republic, with major presence in Russia and in other countries of the former Soviet Union, where its reporters and staff are also exposed to harassment by the secret police serving authoritarian regimes.

Link to “How Self-Censorship Works: Putin, GQ, and US Taxpayer-Supported Radio Liberty” by Ted Lipien

Link to “Independent US Bloggers Beat Voice of America and Radio Liberty in Delivering Uncensored News to Russia” by FreeMediaOnline.org

FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Media analysis by Ted Lipien, August 21, 2009, San Francisco — A title of a recent report on the Voice of America Russian Service website caught my attention: “Сговор Сталина с Гитлером – «единственное средство самообороны»?” “Stalin’s Pact with Hitler – «The Only Means of Self-Defense»?”

The story posted in Russian was the VOA Russian Service translation of the English Service report from Moscow by Jonas Bernstein. When I checked the original English-language report, the title was different: “Russia Defends Stalin’s Deal with Hitler.” It was a well-written, objective and comprehensive story how the current leadership and nationalist extremists in Russia are trying to rewrite history by defending Stalin’s secret deal with Hitler that led to the start of World War II.

In the secret documents signed in Moscow by their foreign ministers, Hitler and Stalin had agreed to divide Poland and give the Soviet Union control of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and parts of Finland and Romania. Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, and the attack by the Red Army followed on September 17.

The difference between the Russian and the English title of the VOA report seemed minor but could have a significant impact on an audience in Russia and presumably was chosen with some deliberation. “Russia Defends Stalin’s Deal with Hitler” suggests a neutral perspective. “Stalin’s Pact with Hitler – «The Only Means of Self-Defense»?” — a question asked on behalf of a U.S. Government-funded broadcasting station — gives a subtle measure of legitimacy to the Kremlin’s defense of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, even if the words «The Only Means of Self-Defense» are in quotes followed by a question mark. Behind the title of the VOA story on the Russian Service website was the statement of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, issued on August 17, saying it had declassified documents showing that the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the Soviet Union’s “only available means of self-defense.”

While the VOA report itself does not in any way support the assertion that Stalin had no other choice but to become Hitler’s accomplice in attacking Poland and occupying other countries — in fact, it quotes extensively from those who hold the opposite view — the title used by VOA’s Russian Service shows that the Kremlin’s efforts to rewrite history are achieving at least some success, and not only among nationalists in Russia.

There may also be an additional explanation why an editor in Washington chose to use a title for the audience in Russia that is both provocative and seems to cater to the prejudices of post-communists and nationalists.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan Federal agency which manages VOA, has been pressuring the Russian Service journalists to increase their audience ratings, while at the same time it has been cutting their budget to pay for broadcasting initiatives in the Middle East and other projects awarded to private contractors. In 2008, the BBG had terminated all on-air VOA Russian-language radio programs, just 12 days before Russia launched a major military attack on the Republic of Georgia over a territorial dispute. (Later, the BBG had also eliminated on-air VOA Russian television news programs and forced the Russian Service to rely solely on the Internet for program delivery. VOA websites were completely crippled by a cyber attack for at least two full days during President Obama’s recent official visit to Russia. One short radio rebroadcast in Moscow was reinstituted by the BBG, but only after strong protests from VOA journalists and media freedom advocates.)

Blaming the BBG for editorial mistakes in how VOA journalists describe the history of World War II may seem far-fetched, but another BBG-managed broadcaster, Alhurra Television, caused a major scandal and drew anger of many members of Congress by airing extensive statements from Holocaust deniers. It was an apparent effort to make Alhurra programs more acceptable to those in the Middle East who do not believe the Holocaust is a historical fact. With its programming philosophy set by BBG members, their private sector consultants and neoconservatives in the Bush Administration, Alhurra has not managed to attract a large number of viewers. BBG policies had an equally disastrous impact on VOA’s Russian Service. Largely as a result of the BBG-imposed program cuts, VOA’s audience reach in Russia has declined 98% and is now estimated at only about 0.2% annually.

VOA Russian Service journalists are under enormous pressure to expand their Internet audience, which may also explain why they chose this particular title for the news story about the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. Never mind that it’s almost like asking whether Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union or the Holocaust were also the only means of self-defense. After all, the Nazis claimed they were. Reporting about history at the VOA Russian Service has not been easy under the BBG’s “marry the mission to the market” programming philosophy.

But the Kremlin’s Foreign Intelligence Service has some reasons to cheer that their efforts to rehabilitate Stalin are having an impact. Even if it is only a title for a news story from the U.S. taxpayer-funded Voice of America, at least they managed to raise their defense of the Soviet dictator to a legitimate question.

Voice of America report from Moscow

Russia Defends Stalin’s Deal with Hitler
By Jonas Bernstein
Moscow
20 August 2009

Sunday, August 23, marks the 70th anniversary of the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – the non-aggression treaty signed in 1939 by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The pact included a secret protocol dividing Eastern and Central Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. Days after it was signed, first German and then Soviet forces invaded Poland.

The anniversary’s approach has sparked a debate in Europe. Western governments condemn Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin as two equally murderous variants of totalitarianism. The Russian government calls that comparison a “distortion” of history.

On August 17, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service issued a statement saying it had declassified documents showing that the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the Soviet Union’s “only available means of self-defense.”

The spy agency’s demarche was just the latest in a series of Russian government statements that critics say appear to defend Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and justify actions he took shortly before and during World War II.

In early May, Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu introduced legislation in parliament that would make it a crime to deny the Soviet victory in World War II.

Later in May, President Dmitri Medvedev issued a decree setting up a presidential commission to counter what he called attempts to “falsify history.”

At a meeting in early July, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe passed a resolution designating August 23 – the anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – as a day of remembrance for the victims of both Stalinism and Nazism.

Russian delegates to the European security body walked out of the meeting, in protest. Russia’s Foreign Ministry denounced the OSCE resolution as “an attempt to distort history with political goals,” while Russia’s parliament called it a “direct insult to the memory of millions” of Soviet soldiers who, in the words of the parliament, “gave their lives for the freedom of Europe from the fascist yoke.”

Former independent Russian parliament Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov says what he calls the “official” Russian position on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is “extremely strange.”

Ryzhkov asks why today’s Russia, which has a democratic constitution and new democratic legitimacy, should justify the division of Europe between Hitler and Stalin.

He says that this view is now included in Russian history text books and has caused “enormous moral damage” to Russia’s reputation, particularly in the countries of Eastern Europe that were the main victims of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Ryzhkov says the only explanation for the Russian leadership’s position on the issue is what he calls “sympathy for Stalin.”

Public opinion surveys suggest many ordinary Russians share at least some of their government’s views.

A poll conducted by the state-run VTsIOM agency, following the OSCE resolution condemning Stalinism and Nazism, found that 53 percent of the respondents across Russia viewed it negatively, while 11 percent viewed it positively and 21 percent viewed it neutrally. In addition, 59 percent of those polled said the resolution was aimed at undermining Russia’s authority in the world and diminishing its contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Dmitry Furman of the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Europe calls the presidential commission to counter what it deems historical falsification an “idiotic undertaking” and a “very bad idea.” He also says Stalin’s government killed as many, or even more people than Hitler’s.

But, given the suffering Russians endured after Hitler turned on Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union, Furman says it is natural that many resist equating Stalinism and Nazism.

Furman says it is “very difficult psychologically” for Russians to put what they see as their “victors” in the Great Patriotic War, as they call World War II, on the same level with the vanquished Nazis.

Voice of America Report As Posted on the Russian Service Website

Сговор Сталина с Гитлером – «единственное средство самообороны»?

В воскресенье 23 августа исполняется 70 лет со дня заключения Пакта Молотова-Риббентропа. Речь идет о договоре о ненападении, подписанном в Москве народным комиссаром иностранных дел СССР Вячеславом Молотовым и министром иностранных дел Германии Иоахимом фон Риббентропом. К пакту был приложен секретный протокол о разделе Восточной и Центральной Европы на сферы влияния Советского Союза и нацистской Германии. Через неделю германский вермахт вторгся в Польшу с запада, а две недели спустя в Польшу вторглась с востока Красная армия.

Приближение годовщины пакта вызывает острые дискуссии. Западные правительства осуждают Гитлера и Сталина как вождей двух одинаково преступных форм тоталитаризма. Москва именует подобные сравнения «искажением» истории.

17 августа нынешнего года Служба внешней разведки РФ известила о рассекречивании документов 70-летней давности, призванных доказать, что заключение Пакта Молотова-Риббентропа было для СССР «единственным средством самообороны». Критики расценивают этот демарш российского разведывательного ведомства как очередной шаг Кремля, направленный на реабилитацию Сталина и оправдание его действий накануне и во время второй мировой войны.

В мае российский министр по чрезвычайным ситуациям Сергей Шойгу внес в Госдуму законопроект об уголовном наказании за отрицание победы СССР во второй мировой войне. Чуть позже президент Дмитрий Медведев учредил комиссию по борьбе с «фальсификацией истории».

В июне Организация по безопасности и сотрудничеству в Европе приняла резолюцию, объявляющую 23 августа днем памяти жертв сталинизма и нацизма. Российская делегация в знак протеста покинула заседание ОБСЕ. МИД РФ назвал резолюцию «попыткой исказить историю в политических целях», а Дума сочла ее «прямым оскорблением памяти миллионов» советских солдат, «отдавших жизнь за освобождение Европы от фашистского ига».

Существуют, однако, и другие мнения. По словам независимого российского парламентария Владимира Рыжкова «официальная» российская позиция в оценке пакта Молотова-Риббентропа звучит «крайне странно». Почему сегодняшняя Россия, имеющая демократическую конституцию, должна защищать раздел Европы между Сталиным и Гитлером, спрашивает он?

Как указывает Рыжков, подобные суждения включены в учебники, что наносит «огромный моральный ущерб» репутации России, особенно в странах Восточной Европы, ставших главными жертвами Пакта Молотова-Риббентропа. Единственным объяснением позиции российского руководства депутат Госдумы считает возможную «симпатию к Сталину».

Опросы показывают, что многие рядовые россияне разделяют, по крайней мере, некоторые оценки Кремля. Опрос, проведенный государственным агентством ВЦИОМ после принятия резолюции ОБСЕ, выявил, что 53% респондентов относятся к ней негативно, 11% – позитивно, а 21% – нейтрально. Кроме того, 59% опрошенных выразили убеждение, что резолюция нацелена на подрыв авторитета России в мире и преуменьшение ее вклада в разгром фашистской Германии.

Сотрудник Института Европы РАН Дмитрий Фурман назвал президентскую комиссию по борьбе с фальсификацией истории «идиотским мероприятием». По его словам при Сталине было убито не меньше, а, может быть, и больше людей, чем при Гитлере. Однако, учитывая страдания, перенесенные народами Советского Союза в годы гитлеровской оккупации, многим россиянам психологически трудно поставить себя – победителей в Великой Отечественной войне – на одну доску с побежденными фашистами.

FreeMediaOnline.org,  Free Media Online Blog,  GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, June 26, 2009, San Francisco – Ronald Reagan’s strong response to the imposition of martial law  against the independent Solidarity trade union in Poland in 1981 was distinctly different from President Barack Obama’s nuanced comments about the crackdown on demonstrators in Iran in the aftermath of the disputed Iranian presidential elections. While President Obama may have wanted to show his appreciation of the subtleties of Iranian politics, his public statements projected around the world a sense of confusion and weakness instead of showing firm American support for human rights and democracy.   

Intellectually, President Obama is right that the current situation in Iran is not the same as the communist crackdown on Solidarity in Poland in the 1980′s and may require a different policy response from the way President Reagan dealt with communist regimes. But the right course of improving communications with the Muslim world, set by President Obama’s speech in Cairo, was undermined by his initial refusal to speak out strongly against violations of human rights in Iran. He may have lost some of the earlier respect among supporters of democracy in the Middle East and weakened his position vis-a-vis America’s most determined enemies.

President Obama is right that President George W. Bush had made monumental mistakes by his unsophisticated and interventionist approach to the Muslim world while appeasing other authoritarian rulers, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Public diplomacy mistakes by the Bush Administration are too numerous to list, but U.S. international broadcasting initiatives during the last eight years serve as a good example. The Bush-appointed Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) eliminated all Voice of America (VOA) highly-respected Arabic news programs and created Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV, which are viewed in the Middle East and by independent experts in the U.S. as propaganda stations that lack journalistic standards, credibility and audience. Alhurra had broadcast unchallenged statements by Holocaust deniers at a conference in Tehran organized by no other than President Ahmadinejad. The BBG  had also eliminated Voice of America Russian radio programs just 12 days before the Russian army invaded the disputed parts of the Republic of Georgia. Democrats serving as members of the bipartisan BBG, including former BBG member Edward E. Kaufman, who has replaced Vice President Joe Biden as a U.S. Senator from Delaware, had been instrumental in helping the Bush Administration to make and implement many of the misguided decisions that have replaced objective journalism by the Voice of America with crude propaganda that damages America’s reputation and interests abroad.

President Obama is right in offering a new style of public diplomacy in the Middle East and throughout the world. He did not go to Alhurra to give his first interview targeted for the Middle East but chose an Arab TV network instead. Unfortunately, he still does not have around him enough good advisors who could help shape all of his public statements on human rights and freedom of expression issues, especially in times of crisis, so that he and his Administration do not appear at times as being intimidated by dictators of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s kind or appear naive and impulsive like President Bush.

As someone who was in charge of Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to Poland during the Solidarity period, I agree that the two situations — the imposition of the martial law in Poland in December 1981 and the crackdown on demonstrations in Iran in June 2009 – are not identical. They both required, however, from the President of the United States a quick and decisive public response that would not be misinterpreted by foreign leaders and public opinion. Unfortunately, President Obama did not pass this latest test with flying colors.

Undoubtedly, he is a highly intelligent leader and hopefully capable of making right assessments and decisions. His reading of the situation in Iran may be in some ways correct, but his initial public response to this latest crisis was insufficient and quite wrong. He may have been told that workers and intellectuals in Iran are not as united against the religious regime as the Poles were against the communists in the 1980s. America was never seen by the vast majority of the Polish people as a threatening imperial power; Russia was. On the contrary,  most Poles saw America as an only major ally that could help them free themselves from communism and Soviet domination. And unlike the religious authorities in Iran, the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II were on the side of striking workers, protesting intellectuals and students.

But while the situation in Iran in 2009 is in some ways different from Solidarity’s struggles in Poland in the 1980s, the need for moral support for pro-democracy Iranian reformers is now just as urgent as support for Lech Walesa was for the Reagan White House.  To achieve their goals,  the reform-minded, largely urban Iranians who are behind the street protests could learn from Solidarity’s success in Poland by sticking to their non-violent posture. They could also follow the example of Solidarity’s intellectual advisers, who had shaped the alliance with the Polish industrial workers, by making a similar effort in reaching out to the poor, highly religious, and anti-Western rural voters who tend to support President Ahmadinejad and the clerical regime.

Even in Poland, where conditions were more favorable to creating a democratic society, the solidarity-building process between intellectuals and workers was long and arduous. It took several decades before the Polish society finally united to a sufficient degree against the communist rule. Strong but not overly aggressive statements from President Reagan, and radio broadcasts by the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, had helped the Poles in their struggle for freedom.

President Obama’s speech in Cairo, offering a new approach in dealing with the Muslim world, was a great public diplomacy success and was  seen in the region as a new beginning. Unfortunately, public diplomacy experts at the White House and the State Department were not able to show a similar sophistication when a sudden crisis developed in Iran. President Obama’s overwhelming public concern how his comments in support for the protesting Iranians might be perceived by anti-Western, anti-democratic, and pro-clerical forces was clearly not the right response and opened him to criticism from his Republican opponents.

The White House could have taken a lesson or two from President Reagan on how to articulate a strong public diplomacy message that strikes the right balance between legitimate policy concerns and the impact of presidential statements on public opinion.  It’s good for the president of the United States to be aware of all the subtleties of foreign policy, but in some situations speaking publicly about them sends a wrong message to both supporters and enemies of democracy. Reagan knew how to use public comments to project a strong and confident image abroad while still being able to practice diplomacy when it served America’s interests and the cause of freedom.

In responding to the crackdown on Solidarity In 1981, President Reagan expressed America’s unqualified support for freedom without any concern that he would be criticized in Moscow and Warsaw for interfering in Poland’s domestic politics or trying to undermine the Polish communist regime’s close links with the Soviet Union. He was still able to engage later in successful negotiations with Soviet and Polish communist leaders when they were already critically weakened by America’s resolve to support freedom. Reagan was decisive but not intellectually inflexible like President George W. Bush. His was the right approach, and history has proved him right.

President Reagan’s Address to the Nation About Christmas and the Situation in Poland, December 23, 1981

I urge the Polish Government and its allies to consider the consequences of their actions. How can they possibly justify using naked force to crush a people who ask for nothing more than the right to lead their own lives in freedom and dignity? Brute force may intimidate, but it cannot form the basis of an enduring society, and the ailing Polish economy cannot be rebuilt with terror tactics.

Poland needs cooperation between its government and its people, not military oppression. If the Polish Government will honor the commitments it has made to human rights in documents like the Gdansk agreement, we in America will gladly do our share to help the shattered Polish economy, just as we helped the countries of Europe after both World Wars.

President Obama’s reaction to street demonstrations in Iran was markedly different in an interview with Harry Smith of CBS News, June 19, 2009.

CBS News Harry Smith: Let’s move on to the news of the day.  The Ayatollah Khamenei gave his speech today, gave his sermon.  He said that the election in Iran was, in fact, legitimate.  He said, “The street demonstrations are unacceptable.”  Do you have a message for those people in the street?

President Obama:  I absolutely do.  First of all, let’s understand that this notion that somehow these hundreds of thousands of people who are pouring into the streets in Iran are somehow responding to the West or the United States, that’s an old distraction that I think has been trotted out periodically.  And that’s just not going to fly.

CBS News Harry Smith: People in this country say you haven’t said enough, that you haven’t been forceful enough in your support for those people in the street, and which you say? 

President Obama: To which I say the last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That’s what they do. That’s what we’ve already seen. We shouldn’t be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the Iranian people are seeking to let their voices be heard.

Now, what we can do is bear witness and say to the world that the, you know, incredible demonstrations that we’ve seen is a testimony to, I think what Dr. King called the the arc of the moral universe. It’s long but it bends towards justice.

President Obama is right that the United States should not be seen as directly interfering in domestic Iranian politics, as this may hurt pro-democratic forces. But there is a big difference between actual interference and strong public statements in support of human rights abroad, especially in a crisis situation. Regardless of what President Obama says or does not say, Ahmadinejad’s supporters will still claim — as they have – that the United States is creating unrest in Iran. But if President Obama had taken a more Reagan-like approach in his public statements, while still maintaining diplomatic flexibility – supporters of human rights around the world would not be discouraged and enemies of freedom would not see him and the United States as confused by the events in Iran and weak against dictators. If the president’s public diplomacy advisers knew what they were doing, this would not have become an issue for the new administration. It is possible to have a sophisticated public diplomacy strategy in the Middle East without appearing too cautious in support of democracy and freedom of expression.

About Ted Lipien

Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director. He was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. In the 1980′s he was in charge of VOA radio broadcasts to Poland during the communist regime’s crackdown on the Solidarity labor union and oversaw the development of VOA television news programs to Ukraine and Russia. He is also author of “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church” (O-Books – June 2008). In his book he describes the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by Western journalists.

Wojtyla's Women by Ted Lipien

About FreeMediaOnline.org

FreeMediaOnline.org is a San Francisco-based nonprofit which supports media freedom worldwide. 

About GovoritAmerika.us

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

BBG officials initially had told the VOA Russian Service that their requests to resume radio broadcasts were a “non-starter” even after Russia invaded Georgia. Only after weeks of protests, including reporting by FreeMediaOnline.org, the BBG finally allowed VOA to produce a short audio program for the Internet, updated only Monday through Friday. This program is rather difficult to find on the VOA website. We made it available for easier access and listening on the GovoritAmerika.us website managed by FreeMediaOnline.org.

The commentary was written to show that in a flagrant disregard for U.S. foreign policy and human rights interests,  the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) nearly killed the Russian Service and other VOA broadcasting units. Due to the BBG’s actions, the Voice of America no longer has any Arabic-language programs and its broadcasts to many countries have been silenced. The BBG prevents the Russian Service from broadcasting live radio and TV and deprives it of resources to do any kind of serious reporting work, even for the Internet.

VOA sources tell FreeMediaOnline.org that the Service is barely able to assign one journalist to work an eight hour shift on weekends and can spare at most two or three to work the evening shift only Monday through Friday.  Journalistic positions remain unfilled, the service has no director, and the manager in charge of Internet programming  does not speak Russian and has no experience in Russian affairs.

FreeMediaOnline.org was told that the service had no money to send a reporter with Secretary Clinton. VOA Russian Service journalists cannot broadcast live radio and TV programs and therefore cannot cover live news conferences — all because of the BBG-imposed restrictions. VOA English Service has also been deprived of resources and is unable to provide extensive coverage of Russia and U.S.-Russian relations.

FreeMediaOnline.org has developed a special website, GovoritAmerika.us - ГоворитАмерика.us, in an attempt to help VOA’s Russian Service distribute their limited output and to provide additional U.S.-Russia-related news and analysis from various other sources in the United States to compensate for the restrictions placed on VOA by the BBG. None of it is sufficient, however, to repair the damage stemming from the BBG’s actions.

As FreeMediaOnline.org had predicted, the Internet-only strategy, forced on on the Russian Service by the BBG, has caused its annual audience reach to drop from 7.3% (2007) to 0.2% (est.2009) — a staggering and historically unprecedented 98% decline. All other major international broadcasters, including the BBC World Service, managed to hold on to their audiences in Russia in 2008 despite Mr. Putin’s restrictive media policies. None followed the BBG’s lead in completely terminating on-air Russian-language radio and TV broadcasts. What Mr. Putin could not fully achieve, the BBG did it for him. The United States no longer has a credible voice in Russia.

On top of that, BBG officials produced market research showing that Russian audiences like Mr. Putin, don’t want to hear criticism of human rights abuses, and want less politics. VOA Russian Service journalists were told to be less critical and focus more on nonpolitical Internet reporting that would attract more visitors to their site . This is an example of the total misunderstanding of VOA’s mission and the reasons for the public funding for U.S. international broadcasting.

The VOA Russian Service has been starved of resources, given an impossible task and set up to fail, but the BBG and the VOA management would rather blame a team of dedicated journalists rather than the officials who ended VOA radio broadcasts to Russia just 12 days before the Russian invasion of Georgia and refused to resume them.

Here are some excerpts from a note sent today by a VOA Russian Service broadcaster:

We are accused of bad editorial judgement, poor quality of our reporting and all other possible sins. Never mind that we are starved to death financially and in other resources including manpower, and literally barred from the air.

….management WANTED us to report more on culture because “independent monitors” in Russia said so in the program review.

How much of further damage undermining the Russian Service can we endure? I don’t know…

But even the low figure of 2.5% does not reflect the whole severity of the decline since it represents VOA audience for the whole of 2008 and not VOA’s current reach in Russia. FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit,  estimates that the annual reach for VOA in Russia is now well below 1 percent.

According to FreeMediaOnline.org president Ted Lipien,  the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the agency in charge of VOA, is to blame for causing a 98% loss of audience in just one year. Lipien said that BBG’s actions have caused hundreds of thousands of U.S. taxpayer dollars to be wasted at a time when audiences in Russia are faced with increased media censorship and need access to objective news and opinions from the United States. 

With the elimination by the BBG of on-air VOA radio and TV for Russia in the second half of last year, FreeMediaOnline.org estimates the total audience since August/September 2008 to be not much higher than 0.2 percent. InterMedia — the firm which conducted the survey – reported 0.2% as past year’s reach of VOA Russian Service website. InterMedia also reported that only a very small percentage of former VOA Russian radio listeners and TV viewers are visiting VOA website.

From the InterMedia market media report: “International Broadcasting in Russia,”  December 2008:

VOA Russian [Service] stopped airing radio and TV programs by September 2008 (video and audio segments are still aired by a small number of local stations); Internet is Golos Ameriki’s [VOA Russian Service] principal focus for reaching audiences in Russia. This caused a drop in total annual reach for Golos Ameriki from 10.3 percent in 2007 to 2.5 percent in 2008. Past-year reach for VOA’s golosameriki.us Internet site was 0.2 percent.[Emphasis added by FreeMediaOnline.org.] Other international broadcasters were able to maintain their reach, with Radio Svoboda [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)] reaching 1.0 percent of Russians weekly and 3.2 percent annually; BBC reaching 0.8 percent weekly and 3.3 percent annually; and DW [the German broadcaster] reaching 0.7 percent weekly and 2.0 annually. As with Golos Ameriki, [VOA Russian Service] only a very small portion of this reach can currently be attributed to the websites. 

In late July 2008, just twelve days before the Russian army invaded parts of Georgia in a territorial dispute,  the BBG took all VOA  Russian-language radio programs off the air and later canceled VOA Russian-language TV programs. These decisions were made without any public announcements and implemented despite protests from members of Congress, VOA journalists, and human rights organizations.

The subsequent tremendous drop in audience size (98% in just one year — an unprecedented loss of audience for an existing  media service in the history of international broadcasting) can be attributed almost entirely to decisions made by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a small group of presidentially-appointed officials representing both major political parties and their executive staff who manage U.S.-funded broadcasts for overseas audiences.  Critics of the BBG’s actions argue that these decisions have deprived VOA journalists of their ability to counter censorship in Russia by making it impossible for VOA to use multiple program delivery platforms and media products at a critical time.

VOA and other Western international broadcasters have experienced a steady loss of audience reach in Russia over a number of years as a result of the Kremlin’s restrictive media policies. But according to Ted Lipien, president of FreeMediaOnline.org, the sudden multifold  drop in 2008 was a direct result of actions taken by U.S. government officials and cannot be attributed to any new restrictions by the Russian authorities.  Also confirming that the BBG is to blame for the sudden loss of VOA audience in Russia  was an observation in the InterMedia report that ”other international broadcasters were able to maintain their reach” last year.

Former BBG chairman,  James K. Glassman – known for his neoconservative views, support for privatization of U.S. international broadcasting assets, and great enthusiasm for the use of Internet –  personally rejected urgent requests from VOA journalists who pleaded with him last August to allow them to resume radio broadcasts to Russia and the war zone in Georgia.

BBG officials justified their actions by claiming that VOA would be in a better position to overcome Russian government media censorship if it concentrated its programming efforts exclusively on the Internet. FreeMediaOnline.org and others repeatedly warned the BBG that this strategy was extremely naive and would reward Mr. Putin’s censorship of independent media. The same critics predicted a drastic drop in audience size for VOA if the BBG implemented its plan. They also pointed out that the BBG plan called for spending money on needless projects benefiting private Internet contractors while the Russian Service would be deprived of substantive Internet content previously generated from radio and TV programs.  Read FreeMediaOnline.org report “Model Interactive Website Touted As Replacement for Voice of America Radio to Russia Attracts No Comments from Users”

This is how in an internal memo “VOA Russian Options Paper,”  written in 2008, government bureaucrats inspired by the BBG’s marketing strategies, boasted about their ability to substantially increase VOA audience size in Russia using only the Internet:

Based on the situation in Georgia and the separatist territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, VOA has investigated options to reach audiences in Russia and neighboring countries. While options exists for reaching audiences through traditional broadcast methods — AM/FM, shortwave, and television — data indicate the growing market for reaching our target audience is in new media.

FreeMediaOnline.org sent a critique of the Internet-only strategy to the BBG, but a former BBG member, Edward E. Kaufman, who is now a Democratic Senator from Delaware, reportedly blocked an effort  by another Board member to hold a vote on resuming VOA radio broadcasts to Russia. Kaufman, another Board member Jeff Hirschberg, and the BBG executive director Jeffrey Trimble are believed to have initiated the move to deprive VOA of radio and TV presence in Russia in order to benefit Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Jeff Hirschberg and Jeffrey Trimble, who was formerly acting president of RFE/RL, have personal links with RFE/RL managers in Moscow and Prague, while Senator Kaufman may have supported the move because RFE/RL is incorporated in Delaware. His former boss, Vice President Biden, was also known to be a strong supporter of the private broadcaster during and after the Cold War. Trimble and most BBG members ignored warnings that by establishing a large presence in Russia after the Cold War, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has exposed its reporters, who are Russian citizens, to intimidation and blackmail by the Russian secret police. This was not seen as a problem immediately after the end of the Cold War but after Mr. Putin’s rise to power (he is a former KGB officer) is viewed as a serious threat to RFE/RL’s journalistic independence. Read FreeMediaOnline.org report Radio Liberty Russian managers put a positive spin on Putin’s comments about the murder of a pro-democracy journalist 

 VOA’s audience reach in Russia had been previously reduced over time due to the Russian secret police interference with the affiliate stations using VOA programs but never suffered a similar one-time loss, not even from major increases of jamming of shortwave radio signals during the Cold War.  FreeMediaOnline.org had warned that eliminating VOA radio and TV in Russia would be harmful to media freedom and would send a wrong signal to the Kremlin and human rights activists.

While all major Western international broadcasters have been increasing their Internet presence, none followed the BBG’s course on relying exclusively on the Internet in Russia and dropping both radio and TV. Ted Lipien said that a proper response to the growing media censorship in Russia should have been an expansion of the number of delivery platforms rather than their reduction to a single one. Before leaving public service, he was an acting associate director of the Voice of America. To compensate for restrictions and reductions in VOA output, FreeMediaOnline.org has launched a volunteer-run GovoritAmerica.us website, which compiles Russian-language news and analysis about the United States and U.S.-Russian relations.

Journalists working in the VOA Russian Service also don’t see BBG’s actions as designed to help them but rather as being part of the same strategy that resulted in the dismantling and eventual total elimination of VOA Arabic-language programs as well VOA broadcasts in other languages. After they had created Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television, BBG members made sure that VOA no longer had any Arabic-language programs. Some VOA Russian Service journalists suspect that the BBG executive staff purposely mislead the Board about the benefits of the Internet-only option in order to justify later a complete elimination of VOA broadcasts to Russia citing low audience ratings, which they knew would result from their actions.

One of many nonprofit foreign policy organizations, which believes the BBG has seriously mismanaged U.S. international broadcasting, is the highly-respected Public Diplomacy Council. The organization, which includes former diplomats, academics and other foreign policy experts, has called on President elect Obama and Congress to take urgent action in reforming publicly-funded U.S. international broadcasting. The Council blames the BBG for ignoring strategically important target areas such as Russia, the Balkans, India and the Western Hemisphere. The Council noted that the Broadcasting Board of Governors “has taken special aim at the Voice of America” by abolishing the VOA Arabic Service and reducing its broadcasts in English to the Middle East and other regions.  The Council also criticized the BBG’s decision to terminate all VOA radio broadcasts in Russian shortly before Russia’s military attack on Georgia last summer. Read FreeMediaOnline.org report: Public Diplomacy Experts Urge Obama to Stop the Broadcasting Board of Governors from Silencing the Voice of America

Many VOA journalists, NGO media freedom activists, and former U.S. diplomats believe that the BBG, dominated by an alliance of Republican neoconservatives and Democrats who joined forces in formulating and supporting ill-conceived outreach programs vis-a-vis the Muslim world such as Alhurra and Radio Sawa,  is determined to continue expanding privatization of U.S. broadcasting resources. The latest push, which affected Russia and Ukraine and threatened Georgia, came between July and December, in the waning months of the Bush Administration, and may have been purposely orchestrated and timed to present the Obama Administration with a fait accompli.

Not satisfied with killing VOA radio in Russia, on December 31, 2008, the BBG terminated VOA radio programs to Ukraine. This action was taken just hours before Russia stopped the flow of natural gas supplies through Ukraine when that country was on the verge of a major economic and political crisis. The Ukrainian crisis has since then gotten much worse and  now seriously threatens democratic gains and pro-Western foreign policy of the government in Kiev.

Critics have been warning for years that the Broadcasting Board of Governors is outsourcing vital journalistic and public diplomacy functions to private entities and contractors who – as a direct result of BBG’s marketing policies – are unable and unwilling to reflect American opinions and values and lack basic journalistic skills. (BBG-created private broadcaster Alhurra Television for the Middle East aired comments by Holocaust deniers and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty gave extensive airtime to extremist Russian politicians known for their racist views.)  A study by researchers for the University of Southern California, who conducted a review of Alhurra broadcasts, concluded that “The quality of Alhurra’s journalism is substandard on several levels.“

Critics also accuse the BBG of ignoring such problems with these private broadcasters and of deliberately trying to dismantle the Voice of America, which operates under strict U.S. government fiscal controls and enjoys journalistic independence under a Congressional Charter. The Charter requires VOA to adhere to high journalistic standards and to accurately and objectively represent a broad spectrum of American views. According to critics, BBG officials prefer to steer money to private broadcasters, such as Alhurra and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, because these stations can be more easily controlled. They can also be used to benefit their friends and supporters with high-paying positions and private contracts.

According to these critics, the BBG executive staff knew from previous market research that  VOA’s annual reach on the Internet for its Russian-language programs in Russia was well below one percent. (Weekly reach for VOA Russian website is far lower: 0.03%.) Despite of this data, BBG officials made widely exaggerated predictions and ignored obvious warnings that the Russian security services are fully capable of blocking and manipulating the Internet. RFE/RL was not ordered by the BBG to drop its shortwave radio broadcasts and managed to hold on to its radio audience, as did the BBC  and Deutsche Welle Russian-language services — another proof that the sudden 98% drop in VOA’s reach in Russia was orchestrated by the BBG and its executive staff.

Ted Lipien of FreeMediaOnline.org said that the actions of BBG officials that have obliterated VOA audience in Russia not only harm media freedom but represent  a monumental waste of U.S. taxpayers’ money. “In just one year, these BBG officials and their staff have completely wasted 98% of a VOA broadcasting service budget,  making a free gift of  hundreds of thousands of U.S. tax dollars to Mr. Putin and other enemies of democracy and free media in Russia,” Lipien said. Even if the BBG managed to increase VOA Russian-language website’s reach by 100% each year for the next few years,  — a highly unlikely prospect — it would take about a decade to go from 0.2 percent to the 2007/2008 level registered before the BBG’s single program delivery platform strategy was put into place.

As many critics have feared, there is also evidence that the BBG’s marketing policies may have started  a process of promoting censorship and self-censorship at the Voice of America, which would be a violation of the VOA Charter and U.S. law. In an apparent attempt to increase ratings similar to what seemed to have encouraged airing of statements by Holocaust deniers on Alhurra and giving airtime to racist politicians on RFE/RL broadcasts, VOA Russian Service journalists were reportedly confronted with the BBG-commissioned market research analysis and told to avoid topics that are “confrontational” to the Russian audience. They were also reportedly ”berated” for their “hostile” and “in your face” blogging and urged  not to express their opinions in blogs.

“They want VOA’s Russian Service toothless,” was the conclusion of one VOA journalist who remains defiant but is afraid that the BBG will succeed in destroying VOA Russian-language programs as they did earlier with VOA Arabic broadcasts and many other VOA vernacular and English services. “That is the only way to characterize their demands,” this VOA Russian Service journalist wrote, ”because most of our materials will not be liked by [the] Kremlin and its agents (how do we know that [market research] monitors are not Kremlin’s loyal servers?). Welcome to the new era at VOA’ Russian Service!”

The VOA journalist did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation. VOA employees have no confidence in the BBG’s ability to manage international broadcasting.  In a recent government-wide survey, they rated their employer as one of the very worst among U.S. government agencies. Read FreeMediaOnline.org report Broadcasting Board of Governors Rated Worst Than Ever By Its Employees and As One of The Worst Federal Agencies

More comments from a VOA Russian Service journalist:

I am reading the program review materials [annual evaluation of a VOA program] now and can’t help laughing at some things. For instance, it states that “given the unfavorable media climate in Russia today, characterized by increasingly strict government control, VOA Russian has embarked on a project to develop a multi-media, interactive web site that will allow the Service to circumvent the problem of government pressures which have led to the loss of most of its affiliates.”

Translation: VOA and IBB [IBB -- the International Broadcasting Bureau] is a technical arm of the BBG] closed Russian radio and TV programs and put all eggs in one basket at a time when Kremlin is following China’s steps to establish full control of Internet.

All VOA’s independent evaluators “related concerns about ongoing difficulties associates with the functionality of video files (on our site). One suggested that incompatibility between site formats and available local technologies ( in Russia and other former Soviet states) might exacerbate this problem.”

Translation: VOA management is clueless about media infrastructure in countries other then the U.S. and wastes money, resources and talent without achieving the goals of U.S. international broadcasting.

the performance of America’s international broadcast entities has been quite successful in telling America’s story (largely the task of the VOA) — Hillary Clinton

The dismantling of VOA as America’s voice to the world became an ideological and bureaucratic goal of both the Bush Administration and of the BBG, despite the latter’s bipartisan status. After the decision to invade Iraq had been made,  the Board worked closely with neoconservatives Bush White House staffers to privatize U.S. international broadcasting by subcontracting this vital government function. The idea was to make U.S. international broadcasting more responsive in supporting the Bush Administration’s policies — something that VOA journalists, protected by their Congressional charter and committed to journalistic independence, were unwilling to offer, neither to the White House nor the BBG.

In their push to give themselves maximum control, the BBG not only eliminated jobs of  U.S.-based VOA journalists, most of them American citizens, but at the same time denied foreign journalists hired abroad job security and basic protections of American labor laws. These protections were available to VOA journalists, which made them more independent but annoyed the Bush White House and the BBG because they were unable to control them.

In carrying out its privatization plan, the BBG closed down many VOA language services, including the VOA Arabic Service, and created private entities such as Radio Sawa and Alhurra, with new multiple executive positions and contracting opportunities for favorites of BBG officials. (Some of the former Democratic BBG members, including Norman Pattiz and Senator Edward E. Kaufman, were in the forefront of implementing the neoconservative privatization agenda and the Bush White House propaganda goals in the Middle East; they were in fact more enthusiastic supporters than some of the conservative Republican members, but in the end most Republicans and Democrats supported the  Bush Administration’s plans.)

Other major international broadcasters felt no similar need to create new broadcasting entities with new names and new missions. The British Broadcasting Corporation also expanded its media coverage in the Middle East and recently launched a Persian TV channel, but it is proudly and consistently promoting the BBC brand.

Focused on privatization and advertising schemes in international broadcasting and public diplomacy, the Bush Administration and the BBG worked together to destroy the Voice of America as an internationally recognized American broadcaster and went on to create multiple brands, such as Sawa and Alhurra, with no solid journalistic traditions or clearly defined goals. The BBG corporate structure is now very similar to the multi-brand corporate structure of General Motors.

The Public Diplomacy Council, a nonprofit organization which includes former diplomats, academics and other foreign policy experts, agrees that the BBG’s policies are designed to waste U.S. taxpayers’ money.  The PDC has called on President Elect Obama and Congress to take urgent action in reforming publicly-funded U.S. international broadcasting and is proposing consolidation of all five broadcast entities into a single international network. The PDC believes that the proposed consolidation and replacing the Broadcasting Board of Governors by a new nonpartisan oversight commission would result in “cost savings aimed at making U.S. global broadcasting unmatched on the airwaves and in cyberspace.”

As it is customary during the confirmation process, Hillary Clinton’s answers to Senator Lugar’s questions were quite vague and may very well have been written based on information provided by the BBG staff. She made no reference to numerous reports about major editorial and financial scandals at Radio Sawa and Alhurra, such as airing of unchallenged statements by Holocaust deniers and giving extensive airtime to Islamist extremists and racist Russian politicians. ( These decisions were made by untrained and unmanaged contract employees in support of the BBG’s goal to achieve a mass audience in Iran and Russia. Their effort to gain higher ratings by playing up to the presumed worst prejudices of their audience was in any case unsuccessful, but it created a distorted impression of American values and damaged America’s reputation as a supporter of freedom.) 

 A study prepared by the Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, University of Southern California, which was commissioned by the U.S. government, concluded that Alhurra, Arab-language television to the Middle East managed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) fails to meet basic journalistic standards and is seen by few.  Read FreeMediaOnline.org report: “U.S. Taxpayers Pay for Spreading Racist Views on Radio Liberty in Russia: What Would Barack Obama Say If He Knew…”   

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

One statement that deserves further analysis was Clinton’s assertion that “the BBG has learned that it must rely on the best market analysis to understand the unique listening habits and attitudes of the populations we seek to inform.” The BBG indeed spends tremendous amount of taxpayer money on market research, and BBG members often make claims that their decisions are driven by research.

Unfortunately, most BBG members have demonstrated that they lack both experience and judgment to apply research results to political realities in countries without free media. Senator Lugar asked a very good question whether the U.S. should try to reach a mass audience in the Middle East through entertainment programming. Perhaps understandably at this point, Hillary Clinton could not provide a clear answer.

While still working for the BBG, I became aware that BBG members and staffers were spending countless hours pouring over research data showing that the word “American” was unpopular in the Middle East and trying to come up with new names for their Middle East privatized broadcasting enterprise. They lacked knowledge, experience, and sophistication to realize that the problem was not with the word “American,” American society, or the Voice of America, but with the Bush Administration Middle East policies and their own preoccupation with marketing and advertising.

Making outdated Cold War-like assumptions about the Arab and Islamic culture, they named their TV station (Alhurra) ”The Free One.” It was utterly naive of them to believe that their audiences would be fooled by the lack of the word “American” in the name selected for the new network.

In the process of trying to disassociate their new broadcasting outlets from America, the BBG insulted Arab pride by implying that Middle East audiences were uniformly lacking basic freedoms.  It did not occur to them that this was not an East European-like audience, which truly lacked basic freedoms during the Cold War and looked to the West for help. Those in the Middle East who do not want to hear American news or the word “American” are not going to become viewers and listeners anyway, but most would rather have access to authentic American news and culture from a clearly identified source rather than rely on light-weight news and entertainment hiding behind propagandistic names from another era and another part of the world.

The new Secretary of State should inquire about some of the decisions made by the BBG during the last weeks of the Bush Administration. They included the shutting down of VOA radio broadcasts to Russia just 12 days before the Russian military invasion of Georgia and the Board’s refusal to resume them during the crisis. The BBG also ended VOA radio broadcasts to Ukraine just hours before Russia cut off the flow of natural gas supplies to that country and the rest of Europe. The BBG also wanted to end VOA radio broadcasts to Georgia.

The BBG staff claims that each one of these blunders was justified by solid market research. As someone who as a former BBG employee has placed U.S.-supported programming on stations in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Russia, and Iraq, I known that some of the research results obtained in closed and repressed societies are questionable ( for example, WMD intelligence research in Iraq, another closed and repressed society). But the main problem is not the quality of the research but the inability of the BBG members and their staff to interpret the data in light of political realities on the ground.

Most political loyalists serving on the BBG lack journalistic and human rights advocacy experience and know very little what it means to live in a country without free media. They nearly always have failed to understand what American broadcasting means to both dictators and victims of human rights abuses. Unfortunately, this is not something that reading audience research reports on countries without free media can teach them.

QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD, SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR: Many have criticized the Bush Administration’s decision to try to reach broader audiences in the Middle East through efforts such as Radio Sawa and Al Hurra TV. Critics argue that Sawa – which relies primarily on a pop-radio format with a smattering of news – fails to deliver sufficient information to serious listeners who desire to hear unfiltered news about their country and the rest of the world. Opponents of AL Hurra – which attempts to serve as a
counter to Al Jazeera – claim that it often fails to provide sufficient counterpoints to radical and inaccurate claims made by participants on many of its programs.

141. Does the Obama Administration intend to continue funding Radio
Sawa in its current, mostly music, format? Similarly, what changes does the
Administration intend for Al Hurra?

142. Does the Obama Administration believe that the Broadcasting Board
of Governors, which oversees both Al Hurra and Radio Sawa as well as
Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, is the
appropriate vehicle to provide managerial and policy guidance to the
disparate broadcasting entities? Does the Administration seek to alter or
even replace the BBG?

HILLARY CLINTON: Let me answer these two questions together. For the most part, the performance of America’s international broadcast entities has been quite successful in telling America’s story (largely the task of the VOA), and in serving as important surrogates for missing independent media in countries where a free press and independent media have been repressed, such as Afghanistan and Burma, where RFE/RL and Radio Free Asia respectively operate. Beyond the precise content of the news, our international broadcast services demonstrate an essential lesson of free societies – the requirement of an independent media for a robust democracy.

A robust and effective BBG in turn requires a strong and unambiguous
fire wall between the professional journalists and editors at BBG, and
others in the U.S. government whether at the White House or the State
Department. I recognize this to be a fundamental requirement of
effective international broadcasting.

The BBG is an independent agency but the Secretary of State holds a
seat on the Board, through which the Department can express its views.
State also clears editorials for the VOA broadcasts. But the most
effective BBG will be one at arms length from these and other
government agencies.

Now is the time to review the Arab language services – they have grown
in listenership in recent years, and we should review their performance
and impact to determine whether Al Hurra and Radio Sawa are
achieving their full potential.

We recognize that our biggest challenge is to ensure that our messages
are listened to, considered and, we hope, acted upon by people in the
Middle East, and Muslim societies around the world. To do this
effectively, the BBG has learned that it must rely on the best market
analysis to understand the unique listening habits and attitudes of the
populations we seek to inform, and these conditions differ substantially
from one country to its neighbor. So we must start with the market, and
then devise our message accordingly, which more and more will include
new digital platforms.

 

This commentary can be republished with attribution to FreeMediaOnline.org

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

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

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

FreeMediaOnline.org bloggers described the “Democracy Video Challenge” contest as crude propaganda. One blogger, who grew up in Eastern Europe under communism and later worked as a journalist in the United States, wrote that asking young people to produce videos about democracy and offering them a free trip to the United States as a prize seems reminiscent of similar contests about the virtues of communism that school students behind the Iron Curtain had to enter to meet propaganda goals.

Ted Lipien, president of FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit, commented that this particular contest has been part of a much larger effort by the Bush Administration’s political appointees who tried to privatize the conduct of public diplomacy by granting lucrative contracts to advertising firms and web development companies. “They generally know very little about foreign policy and foreign cultures. Many of their ideas and programs have embarrassed the United States and contributed to the growth of anti-Americanism abroad,” Lipien said.

FreeMediaOnline.org bloggers also pointed out that these experiments in propaganda advertising were undertaken at the expense of traditional public diplomacy programs supported by American taxpayers, such as exchanges for foreign journalists and serious international news broadcasting by the Voice of America (VOA). These programs have been effective over many decades but were reduced during the Bush Administration to pay for various advertising schemes and the use of private contractors.

The Department of State was not the only U.S. government entity affected by experiments in advertising and privatization. The Bush Administration’s last Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James K. Glassman, supported a privatization effort  at the Voice of America, the official but journalistically independent U.S. government supported international broadcaster,  that resulted in weakening and in some cases ending substantive American radio and web journalism directed at audiences abroad.

While he was the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages U.S. international broadcasting, Glassman and other BBG members voted to end VOA radio news programs to many countries, including Russia, Georgia, and Ukraine. Glassman ordered instead more Internet video production, which requires high speed Internet access in areas usually known for poverty, corruption and conflict. He refused to allow VOA Russian Service journalists to resume emergency radio broadcasts to the war zone during the Russian-Georgian conflict last summer.

But in a move that may signal change under Secretary Clinton, the State Department web site, which has been partially and quickly redesigned after President Obama took office, no longer shows on the home page a prominently displayed image announcing the “Democracy Video Challenge” contest. It now shows under the heading of “FOREIGN POLICY HIGHLIGHTS” a link to  a different online video contest, “My Culture + Your Culture,” which seems more in line with traditional public diplomacy programs carried out by American diplomats as opposed to content developed by advertisers and private contractors.

But to participate in the “My Culture + Your Culture”  contest, visitors are taken to ExchangesConnect web site, which — as in the case of the “Democracy Video Challenge” web site –  also does not look at all like a U.S. government official site but rather like a site run by a nongovernmental enterprise. ExchangesConnect is copyrighted (unlike official U.S. government web sites, which are not copyrighted) and has all the indications of  being operated by a private contractor. There is a small notice, however, that ExchangesConnect is administered by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. Much of the propaganda effort during the Bush Administration, both at State and at the BBG, was designed to hide any connection to the U.S. government in a naive belief that foreign audiences would not notice.

In the same area of the State Department web site’s home page with information about the cultural video contest, visitors are also informed about the “Ask The Ambassador” online forum that lets them interact with U.S. Ambassadors around the world. It tells visitors that when a chat is announced, questions submitted online are answered by State Department officials and posted to the website so that others many benefit from the discussion. Unfortunately, there was no announcement of any new online discussions.

To get to the “Democracy Video Challenge” contest, site visitors can still stay on the State Department’s home page, but they now have to navigate under “FOREIGN POLICY HIGHLIGHTS” to a next slide.  In addition to the video contest, that slide also features a link to the “Policy Podcast,” where State Department officials discuss upcoming events and foreign policy issues.

The U.S. certainly needs more Public Diplomacy 2.0 programs that promote online discussions with American officials and use other interactive forms of communicating with foreign audiences.  The new Obama Administration has to be careful, however, what content goes into these programs.  Secretary Clinton should not allow advertising and propaganda to replace serious journalism. She should not discard well-tested public diplomacy tools in favor of gimmicks developed by private contractors whose only qualification are connections to high government officials.

Ted Lipien of FreeMediaOnline.org pointed out that one result of privatizing experiments during the Bush Administration was the airing of unchallenged statements from Holocaust deniers on the U.S.-funded Alhurra television network for the Middle East. Before that happened, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is responsible for these broadcasts, eliminated Voice of America Arabic radio programs, which had accurate and balanced news prepared by well-trained journalists. The BBG re-directed resources, previously used for serious journalism at VOA, to develop Alhurra as a private entity. It could more easily control  Alhurra as a private entity and force it to accept advertising and marketing concepts rejected by VOA journalists as incompatible with objective and balanced reporting.

Ted Kaufman, who had previously served as Senator Joe Biden’s chief of staff, was appointed in 1995 to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan body which oversees U.S. government-funded international broadcasts, including those by the Voice of America. Although he is a liberal Democrat,  Kaufman and another former BBG member, Norman Pattiz of the U.S. radio conglomerate Westwood One, formed an alliance with a few of the Board’s most famously incompetent  neoconservative Republicans. Kaufman, Pattiz and their neoconservative allies including James K. Glassman, the current Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs, worked together to outsource much of U.S. international broadcasting to private contractors such as Alhurra Television and Radio Sawa network for the Middle East. These new networks were created based on the outdated Cold War-era surrogate broadcasting concepts and Norman Pattiz’s domestic U.S. radio business models. To pay for them, Kaufman and his allies began a process of closing down Voice America language services, which were financially and editorially  more accountable to American taxpayers but also more difficult to be managed by the BBG in any way the Board members saw fit.

Ted Kaufman was the primary force behind the shutting down of many Voice of America radio broadcasts, including programs to Russia, a secretive action taken last summer only days before the Russian army attacked Georgia. Even when after the Russian move against Georgia Kaufman’s foreign policy and public diplomacy blunder became obvious, the future U.S. Senator from Delaware prevented the BBG from voting on restoring the Russian-language radio programs that could reach Russia and the war zone in the Caucasus on shortwave. Shortly before the start of the Georgian conflict, Kaufman also voted to eliminate VOA radio to Georgia and Ukraine on the assumption that even poor, desperate and displaced people in conflict areas will be able to get their news and information from the Internet.

While the BBG praises its own and Ted Kaufman’s achievements, the Board has numerous critics and no major outside defenders. Many have called for its abolition, including the highly-respected Public Diplomacy Council, a Washington nonprofit think-tank on public diplomacy, which accused the BBG of taking “special aim at the Voice of America.” The PDC has recommended that the Broadcasting Board of Governors should be replaced by a new nonpartisan oversight commission. It blamed the BBG for silencing VOA Russian radio and ignoring subsequent appeals to restore it.

The BBG, which had tried unsuccessfully to hire Paula Zahn, formerly of CNN, as its high-profile spokesperson to improve its public image while cutting or reducing programs to countries like Tibet and Russia, issued a statement on the appointment of Ted Kaufman to the U.S. Senate describing him as “a dedicated guardian of the journalistic independence of our broadcasters and a passionate advocate of the Agency’s mission.” It also said that “Mr. Kaufman understands the impact of international broadcasting and has always been quick to credit the brave reporters in the field and dedicated employees behind the scenes who are essential in providing reliable news and information to audiences suffering censorship and lack of press freedom.”

Many VOA employees dispute such statements by the BBG spokespersons as public relations hype hat has no basis in reality. They point out that in addition to terminating VOA radio to Russia, a country where censorship is widely practiced and independent journalists are frequently murdered, the BBG had tried also to reduce radio broadcasts to Tibet. In that case, the BBG was forced to cancel its threat after protests by Tibetan monks on Capital Hill and letters from outraged members of Congress.

A letter issued last summer by the leadership of the Voice of America employees’ unions, AFGE Local 1812 and AFSCME Local 1418, said that the Broadcasting Board of Governors “has been responsible for one blunder after another — to the point that its actions have compromised U.S. strategic interests.” Saying that “the elimination of Russian and Georgian radio broadcasts should be the last straw,” the VOA employees’ union leaders called on Congress to act immediately to dissolve the Broadcasting Board of Governors.  Their letter also said that the BBG, “unilaterally and in contravention of the express language of the Congress, closed the Voice of America Russian Radio Service.”  “In effect, we are deaf, dumb and blind in Russia,” the union letter said.

Upon learning of Ted Kaufman’s appointment to the U.S. Senate, a high-ranking Union leader told FreeMediaOnline.org that ”Ted Kaufman was no friend to the employees of the VOA.” A former VOA Union member and manager said that the statement by the BBG spokeswoman Letitia King describing Kaufman as “the kind of person who expresses sincere appreciation for the person on the front line,”  is as hollow “as any statement could possibly be.”  The former VOA employee said that Kaufman never sought input from the rank-and-file and kept himself ”behind the closed doors of the BBG fortress. ” 

Journalistic blunders and financial abuses during Ted Kaufman’s watch at the BBG have been well documented by the independent journalism web site ProPublica.org, a non-profit led by former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger. ProPublica.org investigative journalists reported that a guest invited to participate in an Alhurra program had called for killings of American soldiers in Iraq. The Alhurra network also aired a completely unbalanced report on a Holocaust deniers conference in Tehran. According to ProPublica.org, “the reporter who covered the conference told viewers that Jews had provided no scientific evidence of the Holocaust.” ProPublica.org has also uncovered major financial abuses at Radio Sawa and Alhurra. The BBG has refused to make public an independent study commissioned last year from the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School to review the network’s content because the study is reportedly highly critical of Alhurra and the BBG.

Such public diplomacy,  journalistic and financial  blunders would be unlikely to occur on a vast scale if Ted Kaufman and Norman Pattiz had not become liberal allies of equally incompetent neo-conservative spenders of U.S. taxpayers’ money who wanted to outsource U.S. international broadcasting to private contractors. Many Voice of America employees are thankful that Ted Kaufman is finally gone from the Broadcasting Board of Governors along with people like James Glassman, who in 1999 co-authored a book DOW 36,000 predicting an unstoppable growth of U.S. stocks, and Norman Pattiz, whose radio programing company’s shares sold at 3 cents on Wednesday and will stop trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Despite Kaufman’s close links with Biden and Biden’s links with Pattiz, who has been one of Biden’s major financial backers, some VOA employees are also optimistic that in managing U.S. international broadcasting and public diplomacy, President Obama will be true to his promise of rewarding  foreign policy experience and competence above political loyalty. They also hope that as a junior Senator from Delaware, Ted Kaufman can do less damage to U.S. international broadcasting than he would have if he had stayed at the BBG. As one former VOA broadcaster, manager and Union leader put it, Ted Kaufman was a big fish in a small BBG pond, but he will be a mere guppy in a mammoth Senate sea.

This commentary may be republished on the web or in print with attribution to the author.  Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director and was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. He is founder and president of FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based nonprofit which support media freedom worldwide, and author of Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church (O-Books – June 2008).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Press Releases

BBC reinforces its Russian online output

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BBC World Service Publicity

 

Ted Lipien was formerly acting VOA associate director and helped to place BBG-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and in other countries in the region. 

He is the author of a book about Pope John Paul II and new feminism, in which he discussed the attempts by the Polish communist secret police and the KGB to spy on the Polish pontiff and feed disinformation to Western journalists. He also described how communist agents tried to infiltrate U.S. radio stations broadcasting to audiences behind the Iron Curtain. He points out in his book that the main targets of the communist secret police blackmail and recruitment efforts were journalists, intellectuals, extremists of all types, and priests. 

He worked in Washington, D.C. and spent eight years as a regional  media marketing director for the BBG based at the RFE/RL headquarters in Prague.

Wojtyla’s Women: How Women, History and Polish Traditions Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church
Ted Lipien has written an incisive and penetrating book on the role remarkable women, played in shaping John Paul II’s outlook on important and controversial issues that defined his papacy. One of them was the Albanian-born nun and Nobel laureate Mother Teresa. Much of the ground that Lipien covers in his meticulously documented book is not familiar to students of John Paul II’s papacy. He presents new information on the Pope’s enduring relationships with women who had an enormous impact on his life, offers original interpretations, and makes a significant contribution in advancing the theoretical discussion on John Paul II’s papacy. The greatest strength of “Wojtyla’s Women” lies in the author’s impassioned analysis of astonishingly complex issues and events. Lipien’s landmark book opens new paths for other scholars and is essential reading for specialists as well as the wider public.
Dr. Elez Biberaj, author of Albania in Transition: The Rocky Road to Democracy

Extremely detailed research into a heretofore unexamined aspect of the beloved Pope John Paul II’s life. This book is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the personal network of highly influential women who shaped John Paul II’s attitudes, particularly on the debate of women’s roles.
Dr. Nancy Snow, author of Information War

An important book. Few persons are as qualified as Ted Lipien to enlighten readers about Pope John Paul II’s Polish roots — and the impact that they had on his views on women. Lipien provides a stimulating analysis of the Pope’s ideas on gender roles and how John Paul believed the Church should deal with sexual issues. While he does not agree with many of the Pope’s stands on women, Lipien makes a laudatory effort to understand — and explain — them. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between feminism and Catholicism, a key issue of our times.
Dr. John H. Brown, former U.S. diplomat in Poland, editor of Public Diplomacy Press Review

Even if the information given by the VOA director was fully accurate, which it is not, the logic of his argument is appalling, to say the least. According to this line of reasoning, Mr. Putin will be rewarded for his crackdown on the local media by VOA’s decision to stop radio broadcasts not only on the affiliate stations in Russia but also on shortwave and the Internet.  

While it is true that Mr. Putin can easily close down all affiliates in Russia, both VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty still have access to AM frequencies in Moscow. RFE/RL continues to use its AM frequency while VOA now uses its AM frequency for VOA English programming only. BBC and RFE/RL did not stop their radio programming in Russian because Mr. Putin closed down most of their affiliates, and neither should VOA.

The VOA director knows or should have known that the decision to stop VOA Russian radio programs had very little to do with Mr. Putin, and a lot to do with bureaucratic politics that damage U.S. national security and public diplomacy. If anything, VOA should be now greatly expanding shortwave and Internet radio broadcasts in response to Mr. Putin’s crackdown on the Russian media. Instead, Mr. Austin is helping the BBG and its executive director to undermine America’s ability to safely and effectively communicate with the Russian people.

Mr. Austin knows that the BBG staff led by Jeff Trimble is preventing VOA Russian service from having any radio production, not even for the Web, in order to protect RFE/RL. Perhaps, there would be nothing wrong with that if RFE/RL could indeed do VOA’s job. But the Russian managers of this semi-private broadcaster, based largely in Moscow, express confidence in Mr. Putin’s leadership and give extensive airtime to racist Russian politicians who verbally attack Africans, Jews, and other minorities. I have warned that RFE/RL needs to protect its journalists who live in Russia with their families from the intimidation by Mr. Putin’s secret police. Journalists working under such conditions in Mr. Putin’s Russia can hardly be expected to accurately and objectively present American views and opinions. As U.S. government officials, Mr. Austin and Mr. Trimble had an obligation imposed on them by the American people and the U.S. Congress to seriously consider this issue before stopping VOA radio broadcasts to Russia. 

If Mr. Austin is concerned about the lack of radio affiliates in Russia, he should be even more concerned about the Internet-only strategy being forced on the VOA Russian service by Mr. Trimble, who was formerly RFE/RL’s acting president. Shouldn’t he be somewhat curious why Mr. Trimble is not advocating Internet-only strategy for RFE/RL but only for VOA?  If RFE/RL can have an outstanding Russian website, which it does, and still produce tons of radio programming and even video, why is the VOA Russian service staff, about 20 full time employees plus a number of stringers and purchase order vendors, only capable of doing a website with some video and nothing else. Mr. Austin should be concerned that these talented professionals are now woefully underemployed and that he, together with Jeff Trimble and the BBG members, is responsible for wasting U.S. taxpayers’ money.

The BBG staff would like, of course, Mr. Austin to believe that the Internet requires as many if not more resources than producing regularly scheduled radio and TV programs. If that were the case, RFE/RL and most other broadcasters around the world would have long ago be forced to stop their core broadcasting functions and use all of their resources for developing their Internet presence. If Mr. Austin believes in this myth, then the Voice of America is really in deep trouble. The so called VOA Russia Options paper produced by the BBG staff, which advocated the Internet-only option for VOA, is based on so many naive and misleading assumptions that any intelligent person could see that its only purpose was to prevent VOA from producing radio programs in Russian. Among other things, the paper advocated using Internet companies known to be controlled by the Russian security services.

When asked later why that question about VOA broadcasting to Russia was raised during a meeting with VOA director Dan Austin, a member of the Ukrainian Service said that “we are all Americans and it is important that we broadcast to Russia in Russian.” It is ironic that a Ukrainian VOA broadcaster would defend VOA broadcasts to Russia while the VOA director says that Mr. Putin has won the battle. Let’s hope Mr. Austin does not really believe the arguments, which were clearly prepared for him by the BBG staff. Those who know how the BBG operates say that the VOA director’s position is too weak for Dan Austin to stand up to Jeff Trimble.

We can only hope that Mr. Austin will find the courage to say to the BBG what needs to be said: the Russian Service of the Voice of America is one of the most important of VOA services and its radio broadcasts will be resumed and put on shortwave, the AM frequency in Moscow, and on the Web. The message from Mr. Austin should be that even if Mr. Putin closes down every single affiliate in Russia and blocks the Internet, VOA will broadcast radio to Russia on shortwave and satellite.

To do anything short of that would be a major failure for U.S. public diplomacy and would reward the enemies of media freedom. Let’s hope that Mr. Austin will find enough wisdom and courage to do what the American people and the supporters of democracy in Russia expect from the leader of an organization committed to promoting free flow of information to countries without free media.

According to a source within the bipartisan but Bush-appointed Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages VOA and other government sponsored U.S. broadcasting, Senator Biden’s staff has worked behind the scenes with the BBG staff to kill VOA Russian radio broadcasts and almost succeeded in closing down VOA radio service to Georgia.

The Senate staff of Senator Biden,  whom Senator Obama selected primarily because of his strong foreign policy experience, is said to have told the BBG staff that it would be safe to terminate VOA broadcasts to Russia and to say that the Congress was “on board” with this decision.  Other than Senator Biden, most members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, however, have been strongly opposed to the BBG-proposed  Voice of America radio and television programming cuts to media-at-risk countries.

On July 17, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) warned the BBG and the Bush Administration not to stop VOA radio broadcasts  to Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tibet and to the Balkans, “where freedom of speech remains restricted and broadcasting is still necessary.” The BBG ignored his warning and terminated VOA radio to Russia on July 26 without making any public announcements. Russian tanks rolled into Georgia on August 8.

According to FreeMediaOnline.org, a media freedom non-profit, Senator Biden’s staff  is said to have worked with a few members of the BBG and the board’s executive director, Jeff Trimble, to deprive the Voice of America of resources to broadcast on-air radio to Russia in favor of a semi-private entity, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which is based in Prague, the Czech Republic, and has a large news bureau in Moscow staffed by Russian citizens. RFE/RL is incorporated in Delaware, Senator Biden’s home state. Senator Biden’s former chief of staff, Edward E. Kaufman, is a BBG member. Another BBG member, Jeff Hirschberg, also a Democrat, is a director of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, according to the BBG website. The BBG’s executive director was formerly acting president of RFE/RL.

FreeMediaOnline.org president, Ted Lipien, a former acting VOA associate director who had worked also for the BBG, placing VOA, RFE/RL, and other BBG-sponsored programs in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan  and Iraq, said that stopping VOA radio to Russia is seen as a “gift to Mr. Putin for his crackdown on independent media.” Lipien wrote a book about Pope John Paul II, in which he described communist secret police attempts to spy on the Vatican and influence Western media reporting. He warned that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalists, whom he described as having a great record of fighting press censorship during the Cold War and still doing an outstanding job in some places and in individual cases, have now been exposed as a group working in Russia to intimidation by the Russian secret police.

Lipien blamed the BBG for putting RFE/RL in a dangerous position in Russia and in several other media-at-risk countries. He said that the Board’s action, in which Senator Biden’s staff is said to be involved, has seriously undermined the ability of the American people to communicate with the Russian people in peacetime and in any future crisis.

Since the Russian attack on Georgia, the BBG has agreed to continue VOA radio broadcasts to Georgia “for the forseeable future” but, according to FreeMediaOnline.org sources, it has refused as “a non starter” urgent pleas from VOA journalists to resume broadcasts to Russia. Due to budget restrictions ordered by the BBG, only four VOA Georgian broadcasters were left to respond to the crisis. FreeMediaOnline.org reported that they have been working with hardly any days off to produce an expanded 60 minute daily broadcast.

Since the official announcement today by Senator Obama that Senator Biden will indeed be his vice-presidential running mate, I have revised the story and posted it on Blogger News Network. I hope the story will help in getting a clarification from Senator Biden on the future of the Voice of America Russian radio broadcasts and might convince the BBG to reconsider their recent decisions and actions taken by their staff.

When Russia attacked Georgia on August 8, VOA Russian radio programs were already off the air. Since then, the BBG is said to have dismissed urgent pleas from VOA journalists to resume these broadcasts in response to the war as “a non-starter.” Because of the BBG ordered cuts, only four (4) broadcasters remained at the VOA Georgian service to respond to the crisis. They have been working without hardly any days off since the invasion on a one hour daily broadcast.

After several days of complete public silence as the Russian military action in Georgia continued, the BBG issued a statement on Tuesday agreeing to let  the VOA Georgian staff to broadcast “for the foreseeable future.”  Rather than using the term “indefinitely,” which would have been more appropriate if the BBG wanted to send a strong message to former President, now Prime Minister Putin, the BBG press release instead reminded VOA Georgian broadcasters that all BBG broadcasting to Georgia was to be done by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a privatized BBG-run entity, after September 30, 2008. The press release offered no words of thanks for their hard work.

The Senate staff of Senator Biden,  who primarily because of his strong foreign policy experience is reported to be one of the top candidates to become Senator Obama’s vice-presidential running mate, is said to have told the BBG staff that it would be safe to terminate VOA broadcasts to Russia and to say that the Congress was “on board” with this decision. The “on board” term was used by  BBG spokesperson Tish King, as reported by ProPublica.org, a non-profit engaged in investigative journalism. Most members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, however, have been strongly opposed to the BBG-proposed radio and television programming cuts.

The BBG staff, headed by Jeff Trimble, a former  acting president of RFE/RL, apparently wanted to terminate Voice of America radio to Russia as quickly as possible to avoid being stopped by any  new action in Congress, which had previously reversed similar cuts sought by the BBG and the Bush Administration.  The BBG wants Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, based in Prague, with much or its Russian broadcasting originating in Moscow, to become the only on-air radio voice of the American people in the Russian language, with VOA being reduced to producing a website. The website has no significant number of users in Russia and, in a crisis, can be easily blocked by the Russian security services. 

Critics of the BBG, including Ted Lipien, a former VOA journalist who is now president of media freedom non-profit FreeMediaOnline.org, pointed out that Moscow-based RFE/RL broadcasters, most of whom are Russian citizens living in Russia, have been accused by a local human rights organization of giving airtime to racists and ‘ultra-right’ extremists. Lipien also said that it was “an act of complete foolishness to place significant  U.S. broadcasting resources within easy reach of Prime Minister Putin’s secret police and intelligence services. The Russian leader had used  the secret police to destroy independent media in Russia.” Lipien warned that RFE/RL journalists in Russia are open to “similar intimidation and their broadcasts  can be quickly shut down by the secret police or worse.” 

Shortly after the murder in Russia of independent journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, the head of RFE/RL Moscow bureau, Elena Glushkova, said in an on-air discussion that she believes in the common sense of the current Russian leadership. Maria Klain, Russian Service director at the RFE/RL home office in Prague, also expressed confidence that RFE/RL’s future in Russia looks good. Many members of Congress and numerous foreign policy and human rights experts have since expressed alarm at increasing repression by the Russian government. Lipien has recently published a book in which he describes how the Polish communist secret police and the KGB tired to infiltrate spies into the Vatican to report on Pope John Paul II and how both intelligence agencies tried to undermine the work of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America journalists.

The extent of Senator Biden’s direct personal involvement in the discussions with the BBG staff has not yet  been determined, but he has been for many years a strong supporter of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.  RFE/RL is incorporated in Delaware, his home state. His former chief of staff, Edward E. Kaufman, is now one of the BBG members who are in favor of reducing Voice of America programs to boost broadcasting by semi-private entities, such as RFE/RL and the Middle Eastern Alhurra Television. The latter has been accused by critics of giving airtime to extremists who have called for killings of American soldiers in Iraq.

Another BBG member who strongly favors giving VOA radio mission to RFE/RL is Jeff Hirschberg, also a Democrat, who is a director of the U.S.-Russia Business Council.  Of the six current BBG members, only one Republican member, radio host Blaquita Cullum, is said to have spoken strongly against program cuts to Russia, Tibet and other media at risk countries.

The VOA employees’ union has accused  the BBG of spending money on itself while U.S. international broadcasting is being privatized and given away to scandal-ridden contractors. BBG members, their support staff, and members of Senator Biden’s office have made frequent trips to Prague, where they are hosted by RFE/RL, which is not subject to the same strict programming or  financial controls on entertainment as the Federally-run Voice of America based in Washington, D.C.

Some  current and former VOA staffers, including those who said they are Obama supporters, have expressed fear that if Senator Biden is selected as Obama’s running mate and the Democratic ticket wins in November, Biden would support the dismantling of the Voice of America in favor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. They also fear that he might bring back Norman Pattiz, a former BBG member and founder and chairman of Westwood One radio empire, also a Democrat.  Pattiz was the primary force behind Alhurra Television, and Radio Sawa to the Middle East with its Britney Spears-type music format, and was reported to have supported closing down as many VOA services as possible to pay for these initiatives.

Senator Biden’s staff is said to have assisted Jeff Trimble in carrying out the wishes of the Board members, but in an apparent effort to keep the news of the termination of Voice of America Russian radio from other members of Congress and  the U.S. media, the BBG staff and VOA director Dan Austin, a Republican who takes orders from the Board and can be fired by them, implemented the Russian program cut without issuing any announcements to the American public.  Earlier warnings from members of Congress, foreign policy experts, and human rights organizations apparently convinced the BBG staff of the need for quick action and secrecy.

A few day before the BBG acted to terminate VOA Russian radio on July 26, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) specifically warned them and the Bush Administration not to stop Voice of America broadcasts  to Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tibet and to the Balkans, “where freedom of speech remains restricted and broadcasting is still necessary.” The BBG ignored his warning. Russian tanks rolled into Georgia on August 8.

While any direct role Senator Biden may have played in shutting down VOA radio broadcasts to Russia still needs to be clarified, it is unlikely that he was completely unaware of the nature of the contacts between his staff and the BBG.  According to FreeMediaOnline.org president “as someone who claims strong experience and sophistication in foreign policy matters, Senator Biden should have known and agreed with many of his colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives, both Democrats and Republicans, that stopping VOA radio to Russia would be seen as a gift from the U.S. government and the American people to Mr. Putin for his crackdown on the independent media. Senator Biden also should have known that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is now more vulnerable to intimidation by Russia’s secret police than it was even during the Cold War, and that it cannot possibly be the voice for the American people to the people in Russia,” said Lipien. 

Lipien pointed out that U.S.-based Voice of America journalists are American citizens or U.S. residents and  as such are directly accountable to Congress and to the American people. Media freedom nonprofit representative suggested that  in order to preserve his credibility as a foreign policy expert, Senator Biden should explain the actions of his staff and join his Congressional colleagues in condemning the Broadcasting Board of Governors for “seriously undermining America’s ability to communicate with foreign audiences in a time of crisis.”