Archive for July, 2009

VOA Director Testifies Before Congress About Strategy in Russia and Cyber Attack on VOA Website But Serious Mistakes Go Unreported

By BBGWatcher | July 24, 2009 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

danforth-austin-voa-195eng23jul09_1
FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, July 23, 2009, San Francisco — Voice of America director Dan Austin had a hard job explaining before Congress the broadcasting and program delivery strategy for Russia and the cyber attack that shut down the VOA website, including its Russian-language site, for at least two full days during President Obama’s visit to Russia earlier this month. His testimony was most revealing in how damaging information was being obscured from members of Congress and American taxpayers.

VOA Russian annual Reach

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages VOA, stopped all on-air Voice of America radio and television broadcasts in Russian just 12 days prior to the Russian military attack on Georgia last summer. Largely as a result of this action, VOA’s annual audience reach in Russia dropped by 98% to an estimated level of just 0.2%, which was the prior reach of VOA in Russia on the Internet.

VOA Capital Hill correspondent Dan Robinson reported that “Lawmakers are concerned about obstacles in places like China, Iran and Russia to the free flow of information and independent reporting. The role U.S. government-funded broadcasters play in overcoming these barriers was the main focus of a Europe subcommittee hearing.

Members of Congress have condemned Iranian government restrictions on the Internet, and criticized steps by the Chinese government to tighten surveillance of Internet traffic, and government pressure on radio, television and print outlets in Russia.

Referring to the impact of technology amid post-election turmoil in Iran, the panel chairman Democrat Robert Wexler said VOA and RFE/RL play a crucial role as ‘smart power tools’ as the U.S. faces foreign policy challenges, anti-Americanism, and efforts by governments to suppress media.” more

Voice of America director Danford Austin:

“In Russia, we are now a multi-media web-based service produced for a country where Internet usage is growing rapidly,” said Danforth Austin. “At a very critical juncture in U.S.-Russia relations, this strategy allows audiences to increase their understanding of American policies, politics and culture and American views of Russia. It also frankly galvanizes conversation among its audience through utilization of these so-called Web 2.0 tools.” more

The anecdotal and largely meaningless statistics for Russia, which the VOA director selected for presentation to Congress, were designed to draw attention away from the real issues: how many Russians have access to the VOA website in Russia (about 0.2% annually); the lack of any significant interaction by the small number of VOA site visitors; the departure of talented TV and radio journalists; inability to take advantage of TV and radio broadcasting in response to changes in U.S.-Russian relations; the lack of any significant impact on the political discussion and media scene in Russia. VOA Capitol Hill correspondent Dan Robinson:

“Critics say the decision by the non-partisan Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which oversees U.S. international broadcasting to end Russian-language radio and television broadcasts in favor of an Internet-focused approach damaged efforts to maintain the flow of news to people in the country.”

VOA director offered a rather lengthy and somewhat confusing explanation of the shutdown of the VOA website during President Obama’s visit to Russia:

“The Denial of Service (DoS) cyber-attack against the VOA web site on July 5 was part of a wide scale attack that targeted Korean and US government sites, financial sites, and some news sites. VOA’s core computer systems were never affected and there was no loss of any agency information technology asset. The voanews.com web site is hosted off-site, and all public traffic to it was affected, most severely from the Asia-North America axis, with local access problems elsewhere, such as within Russia. The attack prevented many users from reaching the site (and all the other targeted sites) for several hours until Korea, the suspected source of the attacks, was cut-off by many of the Internet Service Providers (ISP). As the suspect machines were quarantined by Korean ISPs and others, the attacks slowed and Korea access was re-established. VOA traffic from Asia since has reached near normal levels and non-Asian traffic is completely back to normal levels. Our production systems are behind firewalls and intrusion detection systems, which functioned well, and both servers and desktop machines are updated with security patches at least once per day. Working with our web distribution contractors, we now have predictive systems in place that can isolate the source of DoS attacks much more promptly.”

In simple words, the testimony can be reduced to a few facts: despite warnings from VOA journalists, members of Congress, and media freedom organizations like FreeMediaOnline.org, the BBG ended all VOA radio and TV Russian-language broadcasts to Russia last summer opting for the Internet-only program delivery strategy. Shortly after VOA radio in Russian went of the air, Russian troops attacked Georgia. The BBG refused urgent appeals from VOA journalists to resume these broadcasts. Within a relatively short period, VOA’s annual audience reach in Russia dropped by about 98%, and is now well below 1%. The BBG failed to provide security for the VOA website. The VOA website was unavailable in Russia during President Obama’s visit not just on June 05 but for at least two full days.

The Russian media largely ignored President Obama’s major speech to the graduates of the New Economic School in Moscow, in which he defended democratic institutions and media freedom while calling for bringing an end to the Cold War mentality in US-Russian relations. VOA was both silent and invisible in Russia during the speech. And even if its website had not been blocked, the lead U.S. international broadcaster no longer has the capability to engage with the Russian media in serious interactive TV and radio broadcast journalism. The Obama White House, which still lacks a public diplomacy team and direction, did not do much better. It released a video promoting the speech 10 days after it was delivered. The video had not been translated into Russian.

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VOA Director Testifies Before Congress About Strategy in Russia and Cyber Attack on VOA Website But Serious Mistakes Go Unreported

By tedlipien | July 23, 2009 | International Broadcasting, Russia | Comments Off

danforth-austin-voa-195eng23jul09_1

Voice of America director Dan Austin had a hard time explaining before Congress the broadcasting and program delivery strategy for Russia and the cyber attack that shut down the VOA website, including its Russian-language site, for at least two full days during President Obama’s visit to Russia earlier this month. His testimony was most revealing in how damaging information was being obscured from members of Congress and American taxpayers.

 

VOA Russian annual Reach

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages VOA, stopped all on-air Voice of America radio and television broadcasts in Russian just 12 days prior to the Russian military attack on Georgia last summer. Largely as a result of this action, VOA’s annual audience reach in Russia dropped by 98% to an estimated level of just 0.2%, which was the prior reach of VOA in Russia on the Internet.

 

VOA Capital Hill correspondent Dan Robinson reported:

 

“Lawmakers are concerned about obstacles in places like China, Iran and Russia to the free flow of information and independent reporting. The role U.S. government-funded broadcasters play in overcoming these barriers was the main focus of a Europe subcommittee hearing.

 

Members of Congress have condemned Iranian government restrictions on the Internet, and criticized steps by the Chinese government to tighten surveillance of Internet traffic, and government pressure on radio, television and print outlets in Russia.

 

Referring to the impact of technology amid post-election turmoil in Iran, the panel chairman Democrat Robert Wexler said VOA and RFE/RL play a crucial role as ‘smart power tools’ as the U.S. faces foreign policy challenges, anti-Americanism, and efforts by governments to suppress media.” more

 

Voice of America director Danford Austin:

 

“In Russia, we are now a multi-media web-based service produced for a country where Internet usage is growing rapidly,” said Danforth Austin. “At a very critical juncture in U.S.-Russia relations, this strategy allows audiences to increase their understanding of American policies, politics and culture and American views of Russia. It also frankly galvanizes conversation among its audience through utilization of these so-called Web 2.0 tools.” more

 

The anecdotal information and largely meaningless statistics for Russia, which the VOA director selected for his presentation to Congress, were designed to draw attention away from the real issues: how many Russians have access to the VOA website in Russia (about 0.2% annually); the lack of any significant interaction by the small number of VOA site visitors; the departure of talented TV and radio journalists; inability to take advantage of TV and radio broadcasting in response to changes in U.S.-Russian relations; the lack of any significant impact on the political discussion and media scene in Russia. VOA Capitol Hill correspondent Dan Robinson:

 

“Critics say the decision by the non-partisan Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which oversees U.S. international broadcasting to end Russian-language radio and television broadcasts in favor of an Internet-focused approach damaged efforts to maintain the flow of news to people in the country.”

 

VOA director offered a rather lengthy and somewhat confusing explanation of the shutdown of the VOA website during President Obama’s visit to Russia:

 

“The Denial of Service (DoS) cyber-attack against the VOA web site on July 5 was part of a wide scale attack that targeted Korean and US government sites, financial sites, and some news sites. VOA’s core computer systems were never affected and there was no loss of any agency information technology asset. The voanews.com web site is hosted off-site, and all public traffic to it was affected, most severely from the Asia-North America axis, with local access problems elsewhere, such as within Russia. The attack prevented many users from reaching the site (and all the other targeted sites) for several hours until Korea, the suspected source of the attacks, was cut-off by many of the Internet Service Providers (ISP). As the suspect machines were quarantined by Korean ISPs and others, the attacks slowed and Korea access was re-established. VOA traffic from Asia since has reached near normal levels and non-Asian traffic is completely back to normal levels. Our production systems are behind firewalls and intrusion detection systems, which functioned well, and both servers and desktop machines are updated with security patches at least once per day. Working with our web distribution contractors, we now have predictive systems in place that can isolate the source of DoS attacks much more promptly.”

 

In simple words, the testimony can be reduced to a few facts: despite warnings from VOA journalists, members of Congress, and media freedom organizations like FreeMediaOnline.org, the BBG ended all VOA radio and TV Russian-language broadcasts to Russia last summer opting for the Internet-only program delivery strategy. Shortly after VOA radio in Russian went of the air, Russian troops attacked Georgia. The BBG refused urgent appeals from VOA journalists to resume these broadcasts. Within a relatively short period, VOA’s annual audience reach in Russia dropped by about 98%, and is now well below 1% . The BBG failed to provide security for the VOA website. The VOA website was unavailable in Russia during President Obama’s visit not just on June 05 but for at least two full days.

 

The Russian media largely ignored President Obama’s major speech to the graduates of the New Economic School in Moscow, in which he defended democratic institutions and media freedom while calling for bringing an end to the Cold War mentality in US-Russian relations. VOA was both silent and invisible in Russia during the speech. And even if its website had not been blocked, the lead U.S. international broadcaster no longer has the capability to engage with the Russian media in serious interactive TV and radio broadcast journalism. The Obama White House, which still lacks a public diplomacy team and direction, did not do much better. It released a video promoting the speech 10 days after it was delivered. The video had not been translated into Russian.

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Why are they not smiling? White House Photo from Obama-Putin Meeting

By tedlipien | July 21, 2009 | Photo, Russia | Comments Off

obama_putin_5652
obama_putin_5651
President Barack Obama meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at his dacha outside Moscow, Russia, July 7, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Why are they not smiling? Missile defense system in Central Europe, Georgia, Ukraine, NATO, Iran, human rights…

See more photos on the White House Flickr page.

Download Free Photo – Вы можете скачать эту фотографию

Почему г. Обама и г. Путин не улыбаются? – ПРО, Грузия, Украина, НАТО, права человека…

ГоворитАмерика.us GovoritAmerika.us Выбор ГоворитАмерика.us GovoritAmerika.us. Вы можете скопировать и использовать эту статью. You can copy and use this report. Подписка на рассылку ГоворитАмерика.us по электронной почте. Подписка на рассылку ГоворитАмерика.us.

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Ted Lipien’s 1976 Interview with Card. Karol Wojtyla – future Pope John Paul II

By tedlipien | July 21, 2009 | Audio | Comments Off

jpiijune2004

Ted Lipien’s 1976 Interview with Card. Karol Wojtyla – future Pope John Paul II

(opening segment in Polish)

 

This interview was broadcast first by the Voice of America (VOA) in 1976.

Those interested in broadcast quality copy of the entire interview should send an email to: mail@tedlipien.com

1976 Ted Lipien Interview with Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, future Pope John Paul II, About The Eucharistic Congress and The Hunger for God and Love
 
English Transcript

Ted Lipien: I believe the just-concluded Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia was the main purpose of your Eminence’s visit to the United States; may I ask you to share with us your impressions and to summarize the Congress’s goals and results.

Card. Karol Wojtyla: The Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia was without any doubt the result of a solid concept, enormous work, and many preparations. In this spirit one should, I believe, also look at its results.

The concept of the Congress was expressed in its main theme: “The Eucharist and the Hungers of Contemporary Man.”* This theme was divided into many subjects. There is no doubt that we have a common need to raise awareness of the physical hunger — the hunger for daily bread — that this hunger afflicts many people and societies. The need to raise awareness about this issue, which is basic for many so-called underdeveloped societies, is especially present in America, in this perhaps the richest nation in the world.

The problem of hunger is as we can see the problem of justice for the entire human family. By taking on this issue, Cardinal Krol and the organizers of the Congress followed such papal encyclicals as John XXIII’s Mater at Magistra and Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio.

Together with this basic hunger– if one could use this expression — go other types of hungers of today’s Man, equally great and equally deeply felt by various societies, by different groups and finally by individuals. The organizers of the Congress rightly included in its program such themes as: “The Hunger for Liberty, “The Hunger for Truth,” “The Hunger for Understanding,” “The Hunger for Love.” To all of these hungers of today’s Man, the Eucharist provides a final dimension: Man hungers for God. His heart is unsettled without Him.

*”The Eucharist and the Aspirations of the Human Family” was the official theme of the 1976 Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia.

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Pope John Paul II’s 1979 Visit to the U.S. – VOA Video

By tedlipien | July 20, 2009 | Video | Comments Off
President Jimmy Carter with Pope John Paul II, photograph by Bill Fitz-Patrick, October 6, 1979

President Jimmy Carter with Pope John Paul II, photograph by Bill Fitz-Patrick, October 6, 1979

Pope John Paul II’s 1979 Visit to the U.S. – VOA Video

President Jimmy Carter’s notes from his private meeting with Pope John Paul II, October 6, 1979, front

President Jimmy Carter’s notes from his private meeting with Pope John Paul II, October 6, 1979, front

Although his notes are sketchy, they show that the discussion included particular situations in the Philippines, China, Europe, South Korea, and the Middle East. The White House issued a statement that day stating that during the meeting “the Pope and the President agreed that efforts to advance human rights constitute the compelling idea of our times.”

National Archives, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Atlanta, Georgia

President Jimmy Carter’s notes from his private meeting with Pope John Paul II, October 6, 1979, reverse

President Jimmy Carter’s notes from his private meeting with Pope John Paul II, October 6, 1979, reverse

National Archives, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Atlanta, Georgia

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John Paul II’s Close Friend Dr. Wanda Poltawska Defended Against Attacks by His Former Male Associates

By tedlipien | July 20, 2009 | Religion | Comments Off

Wojtylas_Women_PBSome of Pope John Paul II’s male friends and associates, including the Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, have attacked Dr. Wanda Poltawska, a Polish psychiatrist and defender of traditional family values, for publicizing her private correspondence with the Pope. They claim that Dr. Poltawska has exaggerated her close personal and professional relationship with Karol Wojtyla. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

Whether one agrees or not with her traditional views on gender roles and sexual ethics, as a close friend and his primary medical advisor and collaborator, Dr. Wanda Poltawska had an enormous influence on the development of Karol Wojtyla’s views on artificial contraception, the rhythm method, abortion and other family, marriage, and Church issues.

 

This former Nazi concentration camp inmate and victim of Nazi medical experiments helped Cardinal Wojtyla write a special study for Pope Paul VI, urging him to confirm the Catholic Church ban on artificial birth control, which he did by issuing Humanae vitae in 1968. Cardinal Wojtyla placed Dr. Poltawska in charge of his extensive program of teaching women natural birth control methods in the Krakow Archdiocese. She and her husband visited John Paul II frequently at the Vatican.

 

One could not underestimate the importance of her role as a Polish woman who helped to define and reinforce many of Karol Wojtyla’s views on women. Dr. Poltawska was also behind Pope John Paul II’s campaign to promote New Feminism – a Catholic version of feminism that defends traditional Church values relating to marriage, family, and gender roles while stressing equal dignity of men and women.

 

It’s interesting that some of the Pope’s close male friends were also attacking another Polish woman who also had a close professional relationship with Pope John Paul II. After he was elected pope in 1978, they tried to minimize the extent of his collaboration with Dr. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, a Polish-born phenomenologist living in the United States who had worked with Cardinal Wojtyla on translating into English and promoting his book The Acting Person.

 

In a letter to the Editor of The Universe Catholic newspaper in the UK, Elizabeth Price refers to my book about the role of remarkable Polish women in the life of Pope John Paul II. Despite of what Cardinal Dziwisz and some of the other male friends are now saying, Dr. Wanda Poltawska is one of those remarkable women.

 

Sir,

As a serious student of John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility and The Theology of The Body and Cardinal Wojtyla’s part in persuading Paul VI to reject the findings of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control, I believe the influence of his friend the psychiatrist Mrs. Wanda Poltawska was vital. It is therefore a pity that Cardinal Dziwisz and Archbishop Zycinski want to prevent her publishing the correspondence between herself and John Paul II. (Article The Universe June 19th).

Little is known about her by Western Catholics, however a superb biography of John Paul II Wojtyla’s Women – How They Shaped the Life of John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church by Ted Lipien (O Books 2008) is crucially informative. Ted Lipien is a journalist and broadcaster brought up in Poland who then migrated to the USA . His analysis of Polish culture and family customs, Nazism and Communism, feminism and the effect of all of these both on John Paul II and Wanda, who was a prisoner in a concentration camp, is mastery and thorough. He also gives frequent website addresses for further study. It is a great pity this superbly written very readable and informative book has not been reviewed in any of the Catholic newspapers in this country.

Yours faithfully,

Elizabeth Price

 

Wojtyla's Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church“Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church,” a book about Pope John Paul II and feminism by international journalist Ted Lipien who had interviewed Karol Wojtyla, offers a unique perspective on the late Pope’s views on women and American society.

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, June 24, 2008 — John Paul II warned about the dangers of secular feminism but accepted of some of its ideas. A new book — “Wojtyla’s Women“ — explores the role of remarkable women who shaped the life of Pope John Paul II, supported his concept of “New Feminism,” and changed the Catholic Church.

 

Ted Lipien’s new book, “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church,” published by the UK publisher O-Books and available on Amazon, reveals for the first time the role of remarkable women in the life of Karol Wojtyla and their impact on his papacy and the Catholic Church. The book also explores John Paul II’s views on feminism, gender roles, love, sex, abortion, and contraception in the context of unprecedented threats against human dignity during his lifetime, from pre-World War II anti-Semitism to the Holocaust, Nazi medical experiments on women prisoners, and communist dictatorship.

 

The book shows how John Paul II, the most charismatic and influential Pope in centuries, reshaped many facets of Catholic thought. Yet, as Ted Lipien demonstrates, Church policy on women during John Paul II’s papacy remained deeply resistant to popular modern ideas on gender roles. Wojtyla’s Women explores John Paul II’s views on women, marriage, family and sexual ethics from both feminist and conservative Christian perspectives. Previously untapped sources reveal the influence of his upbringing in Poland at the outset of the Twentieth Century, a time when deeply rooted traditions collided with rapid social change and new ideas, against a backdrop of war, genocide, and political oppression.

 

As the book reveals, Polish women were a remarkable and unexpected influence on John Paul’s understanding of gender issues and the Catholic Church’s theology. They were also the main force behind his advancement of New Feminism and Theology of the Body as alternatives to the Sexual Revolution and to radical and Marxist feminism in the West and in the communist world.

 

The future Pope John Paul II told Polish Catholics before becoming pope that “the affairs of the Kingdom of God” cannot be left only to women and that “social advancement of women has in it a little bit of truth but also a great deal of error.” John Paul II was strongly opposed to ordaining women priests.

 

But while he could not reach an understanding with liberal Western women because of vast differences in how he and they were shaped by culture and history, Karol Wojtyla nevertheless supported many ideas embraced by secular feminists and broke with many misogynist Christian traditions.

 

“Wojtyla’s Women” also analyzes the considerable impact of John Paul II’s views and papacy on the abortion debate in the United States and his conflict with the Clinton Administration over U.S. policies on birth control programs and abortion in the Third World. Lipien writes in his book that John Paul II was successful in raising awareness of the moral aspects of abortion through his campaign of “the culture of life versus the culture of death.” The book demonstrates, however, that Wojtyla’s campaign to promote natural birth control methods for women has not succeeded in any country, including his native Poland.

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With VOA Left Voiceless, Obama Fails to Reach Russian Public – Jonathan Liedl, The Heritage Foundation

By BBGWatcher | July 18, 2009 | Media Reports | Comments Off

This post by Jonathan Liedl of the Heritage Foundation on the SZONE.US Forum includes several links to FreeMediaOnline.org reports.

With VOA Left Voiceless, Obama Fails to Reach Russian Public

President Obama’s foreign policy thus far has been marked by an emphasis on public diplomacy. As a result, successfully engaging foreign publics has become a top priority of his administration. The President himself has taken an active role in this effort, delivering several high-profile speeches to audiences around the world. His July 7th oration in Moscow, which focused on the importance of media freedom and human rights, was one such occasion.

But Obama’s message failed to reach his intended audience- the Russian public. On Russian television, which is tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Obama’s remarks were largely ignored, receiving hardly any air-time.

To make matters worse, a crippling cyber-attack had rendered the international websites of Voice of America (VOA) useless. As a result, VOA, the federally-funded broadcast service congressionally mandated to provide objective, accurate news to foreign audiences, was utterly incapable of offering the Russian public unbiased coverage of the President’s speech. VOA’s loss of web-based capabilities might have been less damaging if not for the fact that its oversight, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, decided in 2008 to completely do away with VOA’s Russian language radio and television broadcasts into the country.

VOA has demonstrated its ability to circumvent anti-American state-media and deliver objective news programming, most notably in Iran following the June 12th election. However, the internet-only approach in Russia, and the inability to provide sufficient security for this service, allowed Kremlin-controlled media to undermine Obama’s attempt to connect with the Russian public. Unless the Obama Administration takes the necessary steps to ensure the vitality of VOA and similar programs, our nation’s outreach to foreign publics will continue to be rebuffed by unreceptive governments.
>

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White House Video From Russia Released 10 Days Late, Without Russian Translation, And A Message Overtaken By Events

By BBGWatcher | July 17, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

AS RELEASED BY THE WHITE HOUSE, FRI, JULY 17, 12:51 PM EST

Highlights from the President’s Trip to Russia

Posted by Katherine Brandon

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the highlights of the President’s trip to Moscow earlier this month. See images of his trip, and listen to the President speak at the New Economic School. You can read the whole speech here.

END OF WHITE HOUSE MATERIAL

White House Video From Russia Released 10 Days Late, Without Russian Translation, And A Message Overtaken By Events

President Barack Obama at the Kremlin

Pro-democracy intellectuals in Russia and political leaders from the former Soviet block countries, who had lived under communism and were exposed to communist propaganda, would probably see the White House video as dangerously naive.

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, July 17, 2009, San Francisco — The White House posted on its website today carefully produced video highlights from the President’s visit to Russia, exactly ten days after Barack Obama delivered a major speech on the future of U.S.-Russian relations. The address to the graduates of the New Economic School, which Natalia Bubnova, a public affairs specialist at the Carnegie Center in Moscow, described as a “silent speech,” was not carried live by the Kremlin-controlled national television networks and received relatively little media coverage in Russia, where journalists are increasingly threatened by the Kremlin’s secret police and the local mafia of business and government leaders. Many Russian journalists have been murdered by unknown assailants, and the few remaining semi-independent media outlets practice self-censorship to protect themselves from official reprisals.

But if the White House video was designed to inform and inspire the Russian public about the President’s commitment to a new start in U.S.-Russian relations, it was not only released ten days too late to be of any news value to journalists and media consumers. It also came without a Russian translation, and its overly optimistic message presented in the style of old Soviet era propaganda films would have been inappropriate for the skeptical Russian audience. Barack Obama would have done much better in communicating his message of change to the Russian people if the White House handlers had arranged during his visit for a series of extensive live interviews with audience participation on national TV networks in Russia and had insisted that his speech also be carried live on the same television channels, which are controlled by the Kremlin. When it comes to overcoming media control in Russia, some of the Cold War diplomatic tactics are still needed.

The limited media outreach during the Moscow visit was in sharp contrast with the White House public relations effort to publicize the President’s earlier speech in Cairo, Egypt, in which Barack Obama called for a new beginning in America’s relationship with Muslim communities around the world. The Cairo speech was released by the White House in Arabic and other foreign languages, both in text and in video, as soon as it was delivered. The media blitz after the Cairo speech seems to have been, however, a one-time effort, which the Obama Administration seems not capable of sustaining due to a severe shortage of experienced public diplomacy and media specialists.

Other than the lack of proper structures and resources, the public diplomacy experts at the White House and the State Department also seem to have some difficulty realizing that their focus should be on providing timely and objective information in foreign languages to local media outlets and media consumers rather than taking full ten days to produce a short upbeat video, as the one released today, that looks and sounds much more like a government-generated propaganda film of World War II and Cold War vintage. Had the video been released immediately after the speech, Russian journalists may have been able at least to take advantage of its outstanding visual composition and provide an appropriate text and translation. Ten days later, in its English-language version, it is largely unusable. Its release now is also counterproductive, as its core message has been overtaken by recent events in Russia and the region.

Normally, the Voice of America (VOA), the U.S. government-funded international broadcaster, would have carried live a major presidential speech in Moscow and provided a Russian translation. VOA would have also offered live commentaries by independent U.S. experts. These would be broadcast on satellite radio and television from VOA studios in Washington, D.C. Some of the programs might have also been replayed live or broadcast later on those stations in Russia that would still be willing to defy the Russian secret police and maintain an affiliate relationship with VOA. The VOA Russian broadcast would have also been transmitted on short-wave radio frequencies, which cover great distances and are not as easy to jam as a single website, although they attract a very limited number of listeners unless there is a major crisis and a government blockade or heavy censorship of all other media.

Unfortunately, the Federal agency in charge of the Voice of America, the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), terminated in 2008 all live VOA Russian-language radio and television programs, both high-tech satellite and low-tech short-wave, just 12 days before Russia’s sudden military attack on the Republic of Georgia over a territorial dispute. Since then, the BBG has refused urgent pleas from VOA journalists to resume these broadcasts as a response to the last summer’s Russian-Georgian war and the still deteriorating human rights and media situation in Russia.

The Voice of America Russian Service was left only with a poorly-designed and unprotected website and a 30 minute Monday through Friday pre-recorded radio segment on a weak AM station in Moscow, which was restored only after protests from media freedom advocates over a period of many months. To make things much worse, during Barack Obama’s historic first presidential visit to Russia, the Voice of America website went blank for at least two full days as a result of a suspected North Korean cyber attack. The website was back online after President Obama left Russia, but even then the audio program on the web was not updated for over a week. The BBG/VOA web team was not aware of the problem for several days. Instead of a recording of President Obama’s speech with a Russian translation, visitors to the VOA website were offered a week-old audio newscast. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), another U.S. taxpayer-funded international broadcaster also managed by the BBG, did cover the Obama visit, but RFE/RL is based in Prague, the Czech Republic, and in Moscow, and its Russian speaking reporters do not specialize in analyzing U.S. foreign policy from an American perspective. RFE/RL reporters based in Russia are also vulnerable to threats from the Russian secret police.

Even if the Voice of America website were available during President Obama’s visit to Russia, it would not have included full texts in Russian, video, and audio of all the presidential speeches delivered in Moscow. BBG officials responsible for terminating live VOA Russian radio and TV programs had also directed the Russian Service to focus their energies on producing short and entertaining news stories for the web in order to drive more visitors to the VOA website.

English and Russian texts of most of President Obama’s speeches in Moscow — but not audio or video files — were posted rather quickly on the State Department’s news and information website, America.gov, and on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Summaries of President Obama’s speeches and links to full texts were also available on GovoritAmerika.us, a Russian-language news analysis website created by volunteers associated with the San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit FreeMediaOnline.org. Some of them are former VOA journalists who are concerned about media censorship in Russia and the restrictions imposed by the BBG on the Voice of America Russian broadcasts.

One of the drawbacks of waiting ten days to produce a video from a presidential trip is that new events can quickly overtake the video’s message. The same is true for producing a video that is much more oriented toward promoting a particular propaganda theme rather than offering factual information in a timely manner.

The White House video was heavily focused on hailing a new beginning in the bilateral relationship between Washington and Moscow and making a clean break with the Cold War models. Unfortunately for the public relations specialists who produced it, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev directly challenged their theme and President Obama when he visited South Ossetia earlier this week and said that Moscow would continue to back the breakaway Georgian region, which Russia recognized as independent despite strong objections from the United States and most other nations. Then, as a further sign that the situation in Russia was not moving in the direction desired by the Obama Administration, a respected human rights activist, Natalya Estemirova, was abducted and brutally murdered in Chechnya. Both the U.S. State Department spokesman and the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, have condemned the murder. The White House has also condemned the killing, calling it “especially shocking” that it happened a week after President Barack Obama met with activists, including those from the human rights group Memorial, of which Ms. Estemirova was a member.

Because of these events in Russia, this may have not been the best time to release the already much outdated video. Also, a group of pro-American intellectuals and political leaders from former Central and East European countries, including former Polish president Lech Walesa and former Czech president Waclav Havel, has just published an open letter to the Obama Administration, warning President Obama of Russia’s return to what they call a “revisionist power pursuing a 19th century agenda with 21st century tactics.” The letter refers to “nervousness in our capitals” over energy blockades, media manipulation and other methods Russia has used to undermine the region’s ties with Western Europe and the United States.

The White House media team may deserve some credit for much more timely postings of official photographs, texts of presidential speeches and at least some videos during President Obama’s first visit to Moscow. After his initial meeting in London with President Medvedev in April 2009, the official photograph of the two presidents was not made available on the White House website for several days. The website was only infrequently updated during the entire U.S. presidential trip to Europe last April.

President Obama has a highly talented team of photographers and web designers lead by Pete Souza, but his public affairs and public diplomacy advisors seem to be lacking critical journalistic skills and are suffering from what could only be described as too much of a hero worship to be able to produce timely and credible materials for the media and news consumers. (They even put “hero” as part of the name for web images with President Obama, which anybody visiting the White House website can see by right-clicking on these photos in order to download and save them.)

These White House advisors, if they are indeed advising the president, clearly lack the journalistic, public diplomacy and foreign policy experience to find the right balance in describing and presenting his message to Russia and the rest of the world. They are, unfortunately, repeating the mistakes of the Bush White House by confusing U.S. domestic political campaign advertising with public diplomacy abroad. Pro-democracy intellectuals in Russia and political leaders from the former Soviet block countries, who had lived under communism and were exposed to communist propaganda, would probably see the White House video as dangerously naive.

Perhaps then, it’s not so bad after all that the video with the highlights of President Obama’s trip to Russia was released several days too late and without foreign language captions. Hopefully for the Obama Administration, it will not receive much publicity in the region formerly dominated by the Soviet Union and still feeling threatened by Russia’s autocratic leaders. If it does, it will only contribute to the nervousness about the U.S. policy and intentions.

About Ted Lipien

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.

Wojtyla's Women by Ted Lipien

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). The book, which describes Pope John Paul II’s views on feminism, also includes evidence of the importance of Western radio broadcasts during Karol Wojtyla’s life in communist-ruled Poland and in the first ten years of his papacy. The book also has references to the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by journalists covering the Polish pope.

About FreeMediaOnline.org

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo

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

About GovoritAmerika.us

GovoritAmerika.us - US-Russia Multisource News Analysis/ГоворитАмерика.us - Всесторонний Анализ Новостей из СШАIn 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.

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GovoritAmerika.us ГоворитАмерика.us Всесторонний Анализ Новостей из США – Link to GovoritAmerika.us Home

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With Obama in Moscow, Voice of America Russian Reporters Saw Their Work Vanish

By BBGWatcher | July 10, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

President Barack Obama meets former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev during his recent official visit to Russia

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) has put all the eggs of broadcasts to Russia from the U.S. in one basket.

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, July 10, 2009, San Francisco — Established in 1942 in response to wartime emergency, the Voice of America (VOA) has been the official U.S. broadcaster, funded by American taxpayers and guaranteed journalistic independence by the U.S. Congress. VOA journalists produce radio and TV programs and maintain Internet websites in multiple languages. VOA helped the United States win the Cold War and continues to provide uncensored news to countries with limited or no free media.

But when President Obama went to Moscow this week and met with President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin, as well as with opposition and civil society leaders, a VOA Russian Service correspondent who was reporting on these meetings vainly tried to see his own work on the VOA website. The VOA site suffered a catastrophic failure and was out of commission for at least two full days due to a suspected North Korean cyber attack. The Russians could not learn from the Voice of America about President Obama’s speeches in which he talked about human rights and media freedom issues in Russia. These speeches were not carried live by the Kremlin-controled national TV and radio networks and did not receive wide coverage from independent media outlets, few of which still remain.

Voice of America Website Under Cyber Attack

Agency set up to guarantee America’s ability to communicate with the world could not protect its own website

Other U.S. government websites were also targeted by the latest cyber attack, but only the Voice of America website was made inaccessible for a number of days. This failure is extremely disturbing, since the Voice of America, created during World War II with a mission to provide accurate and objective news to the rest of the world, is still considered by the U.S. Congress and the White House as an important national security asset, especially in times of national and international emergencies.

Until the summer of 2008, the Voice of America Russian Service still had on-air radio and TV programs. Some of the radio programs were transmitted on short-wave, which hostile governments cannot easily block, while other radio and TV programs were rebroadcast by local stations and networks in Russia, even as the Russian security services were trying to force them to stop from carrying such foreign broadcasts.

BBG lacks strategic vision and fails to plan for emergencies

This is when the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) — the bipartisan body which manages U.S. international broadcasting entities, including the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio and TV Marti, Alhurra Television and others — decided that from now on the Voice of America will only use the Internet for delivering its programs to Russia. In July 2008, the BBG took all VOA Russian-language radio programs off the air. 12 days later, the Russian army attacked the Republic of Georgia over a territorial dispute, creating a major crisis in Moscow’s relations with Washington and other Western nations. Despite of the political and news emergency resulting from the Russian military attack, the BBG refused to resume VOA radio broadcasts to the war zone.

Before the Russian-Georgian war, members of Congress and representatives of human rights and media freedom organizations had warned the Bush Administration that the BBG’s Internet-only strategy for the Voice of America in Russia represented a serious national security risk and a further threat to what little remained of the Russian independent media. The BBG ignored these warnings.

The BBG not only did not anticipate the possibility of a Russian attack on Georgia, BBG members also did not consider the possibility that Barack Obama would be elected president, or that in the resulting improvement in U.S.-Russian relations, VOA might again be able to expand placement of its programs on national and local media in Russia. Such program placement represents the best option for gaining a large audience, assuming that it does not compromise journalistic freedom and objectivity of the programs being produced for local rebroadcasts — something that the BBG’s “marrying the mission to the market” strategy was not able to guarantee. In fact, it encouraged biased, unbalanced and soft journalism, as in Alhurra TV network’s coverage of the Holocaust deniers conference in Tehran, hosted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and in some of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) programs. Both Alhurra and RFE/RL are managed by the BBG.

While the Russian government continued to expand placement in the United States for its international TV program, “Russia Today,” the BBG granted victory to the Russian security services in their intimidation campaign designed to drive the Voice of America off the airways in Russia shortly before President Obama was elected and promised to work to improve U.S.-Russian relations. If they are serious about U.S. international broadcasting, the Obama Administration officials should now point out to their counterparts in Moscow that, unlike harsh treatment of foreign and local media in Russia by the Russian secret police, the FBI and the CIA have not been trying to force “Russia Today” off American stations and cable channels.

Had it been allowed to maintain its multimedia program delivery strategy, the Voice of America could now be in a good position to quickly regain its TV and radio audience in Russia. But BBG officials killed both radio and TV, ignoring their own audience research, which showed that VOA was only reaching about 0.2% of the Russian audience through the Internet. Most importantly, however, they ignored clear evidence that, unlike radio and satellite TV, the Internet can be easily sabottaged and blocked not only by the Russian FSB, the KGB’s successor, but even by security services of other countries, and possibly also by ordinary hackers. The BBG has put all the eggs of broadcasts to Russia from the U.S. in one basket.

Screenshot of BBG officials failed to anticipate what might happen to the Internet-only strategy if U.S.-Russian relations should take a sudden turn for the worse. If the North Koreans could launch a successful attack on the VOA website — assuming that North Korea was indeed behind the latest attack — so can the Russian security services if ordered by the Kremlin. They demonstrated this ability during the Russian-Georgian war by blocking the Georgian government websites.

Another BBG-managed broadcaster, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, still has radio programs to Russia. But RFE/RL staff is based in Prague, the Czech Republic, and in Moscow. Its broadcasts do not focus on the United States or provide an American perspective on world events. In any case, RFE/RL reporters working in Russia are vulnerable to intimidation by the Russian security services. These foreign-born, locally-based journalists are discriminated against and denied basic legal protections by the BBG. They would be especially threatened if a serious crisis developed in U.S.-Russian relations.

Letter to BBG from Rep. Jim McDermott and Rep. Joe Wilson protesting the planned termination of the Voice of America radio service in Hindi to India.The U.S. Congress and American taxpayers should be concerned that a VOA Russian Service correspondent traveling with Barack Obama to Moscow could not see for a number of days any of his reports on the President’s comments about human rights and media restrictions in Russia. They should be concerned that a few North Korean agents were apparently able to shut down the Voice of America website serving the entire world, including Russia, China, and Iran. They should also be concerned that members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and their executive staff terminated VOA programs to Russia a few days before the Republic of Georgia was invaded, and that they have failed to protect the VOA website from cyber attacks. (The BBG also ended VOA Hindi radio broadcasts to India shortly before the terrorist attacks in Mumbai and VOA radio broadcasts to Ukraine one day before Russia shut of the delivery of natural gas supplies to Ukraine and Western Europe in the middle of winter. They even tried to limit broadcasts to Tibet.)

Federal Human Capital 2008 Survey (FHCS)

Americans should not be surprised, however, by the BBG’s dismal record. The Broadcasting Board of Governors has been consistently rated by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management as the worst managed Federal agency.

There have been many calls for abolishing the current board in charge of U.S. international broadcasting. Some have suggested taking away the BBG’s powers to conduct day-to-day journalistic and programming operations. Others have called for selecting competent journalists, human rights, and media freedom professionals to fill the vacant BBG positions.

Journalists working at the Voice of America Russian Service hope that something will be done to make their programs once again heard and seen in Russia. As a result of the BBG’s termination of on-air radio and TV Russian broadcasts, their audience in Russia shrunk by an estimated 98%, an unprecedented audience loss in the history of international broadcasting. The same BBG officials who suggested that the Internet-only strategy for VOA in Russia would work also failed to protect the VOA website from a relatively minor cyber attack.

Frustrated current and former VOA journalists seeks private Russian-American broadcasting ventures to overcome restrictions imposed by the BBG

Some VOA Russian Service journalists, frustrated by the inability of the BBG and VOA management to grasp the opportunities presented by President Obama’s call for a “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations, have started to explore with Russian networks the possibility of launching live TV discussion programs between Washington and Moscow, which would be conducted outside of VOA, privately funded, and would focus on serious political, social, economic, and cultural topics of the day. BBG and VOA officials eliminated such programs last summer and ordered production of short videos with a focus on popular American culture.

The morale of journalists working for VOA’s Russian Service is at all time low. One of its most experienced journalists and managers has left. VOA executives refused to fill the position of the service director, appointing instead a number of non-Russian managers, some of whom do not even speak Russian. They also refused to send a Russian Service reporter when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had her first meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva, during which she called for a new start in U.S.-Russian relations.

GovoritAmerika.us ГоворитАмерика.us In response to the dismal state of VOA’s Russian Service, some former VOA journalists have launched an independent private website, GovoritAmerika.us, which serves as an aggregator of U.S.-Russia-related news and analyses from multiple American government and non-government sources. GovoritAmerika.us website was available online and included extensive summaries of Voice of America reports when the VOA website suffered a two-day meltdown.

With the latest blow of seeing even their current limited work vanish during the critical news window of President Obama’s visit to Russia, VOA journalists are understandably frustrated. Let’s hope that the Obama White House will take notice of this latest example of the BBG’s numerous failures. The latest one is the BBG’s failure to protect America’s lead website for communicating with the rest of the world.

About Ted Lipien

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). The book, which describes Pope John Paul II’s views on feminism, also includes evidence of the importance of Western radio broadcasts during his life in communist-ruled Poland and in the first ten years of his papacy. The book also has extensive references to the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by journalists covering the Polish pope.

Wojtyla's Women by Ted Lipien

About FreeMediaOnline.org

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo

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

About GovoritAmerika.us

GovoritAmerika.us - US-Russia Multisource News Analysis/ГоворитАмерика.us - Всесторонний Анализ Новостей из СШАIn 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.

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U.S. International Broadcaster Voice of America Unable to Recover from a Crippling Cyber Attack for More Than Two Days

By BBGWatcher | July 8, 2009 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, July 09, 2009, San Francisco — While other U.S. government computer networks have long been back in operation after the cyber attack launched last weekend, the lead Federal agency in charge of communicating with the world on behalf of the United States suffered a catastrophic failure, which it has been unable to overcome for several days. As of Thursday morning, the Voice of America (VOA), the main U.S. international broadcaster, still could not make its main website, voanews.com, operational, days after a suspected North Korean cyber attack. Those attempting to access VOA multilingual websites were still experiencing major problems. The English website and foreign language websites were partially restored by early Thursday afternoon.

Voice of America Website Under Cyber Attack

VOA Internet Office Director Michael Messinger said visits to the agency’s website were down by about 40,000 a day. He said although difficult to pinpoint, the attack appears to have originated in South Korea. He said the attack has caused a “significant disruption” to the VOA servers.

Some VOA journalists suspect that the 40,000 figure appears as an attempt to vastly minimize the extent and the seriousness of the problem, considering that most Internet users around the world were not able to see the VOA website for a number of days. According to sources within VOA, officials in charge of the agency’s websites did not immediately inform their superiors, the oversight Board and other U.S. international broadcasting entities about the catastrophic Internet failure at the Voice of America.

A spokesman for the San Francisco-based media freedom organization, FreeMediaOnline.org, said that the inability of the Voice of America to reach Internet users over a number of days in countries like Iran, Russia and China represents a devastating flaw in U.S.-funded independent international journalism and public diplomacy. Ted Lipien, president and founder of FreeMediaOnline.org, said that the latest crisis exposed critical shortcomings in the policies of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, which manages VOA and was rated by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as one of the worst-managed Federal agencies.

In recent years, the BBG has come under severe criticism for eliminating radio broadcasts to a number of countries, including Russia, Ukraine and India. In 2008, the BBG adopted an Internet-only strategy for VOA in Russia, ignoring warnings members of Congress and media freedom organizations that such a strategy posed a national security risk and further undermined media freedom.

While other U.S. government agencies were also affected by the latest cyber attack, most managed to keep their websites operational or restored them quickly to full use. The VOA websites in English and in many other languages have been now largely unavailable for more than two days.

According to Ted Lipien, the Broadcasting Board of Governors has had a long record of major strategic blunders. In the summer of 2008, the BBG terminated all VOA radio and television broadcasts to Russia. The radio went silent just 12 days before Russia invaded parts of the Republic of Georgia in a territorial dispute. The then BBG chairman, James K. Glassman, who later became President Bush’s last Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, refused urgent pleas from VOA journalists to restore radio broadcasts to the war zone in Georgia and to Russia. He was supported by a senior Democratic BBG member, Edward E. Kaufman, a former Senate aide to Joe Biden who is now a U.S. senator from Delaware.

The BBG’s decision caused an unprecedented 98% drop in VOA’s annual audience reach in Russia. The Voice of America Russian website was largely unavailable during the last full day of President Obama’s visit to Russia during which he met with the Russian opposition leaders. The official Russian TV channels, which are controlled by the Kremlin, provided no live coverage or extensive reporting on President Obama’s comments on human rights and media freedom.

Commenting on the latest cyber attack against the Voice of America website, Ted Lipien of FreeMediaOnline.org said that the Internet plays a critical role in bringing information to countries under government censorship, but he added that the BBG made a serious mistake when it ended on-air VOA radio programs in Russian. “If North Korean hackers can shut down the VOA website, security services of other countries can easily do the same, especially in time of a major international crisis. It may be coincidence that the suspected North Korean cyber attack happened during President Obama’s historic visit to Moscow, but Internet users in Russia were effectively prevented from learning from the Voice of America about the U.S. president’s meeting with Russian opposition leaders. The democratic opposition in Russia criticizes President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, a former KGB spy, of stifling independent media,” Lipien said. He urged the Obama Administration to provide the Voice of America with funding to adopt a multimedia program delivery strategy to countries like Russia and to make its websites less vulnerable to cyber attacks in the future.

Ted Lipien is a journalist, media marketing expert and a former acting associate director of the Voice of America.

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