All posts in China

CUSIB Opposes BBG’s FY2013 Budget Proposal

By tedlipien | February 20, 2012 | China, International Broadcasting | No comments
CUSIB.org Logo

Republished from CUSIB.org.
February 17, 2012
For Immediate Release

Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting Opposes Broadcasting Board of Governors’ Budget Proposal for FY2013

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) has issued the following statement after a careful review of the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ 161-page Budget Proposal for FY2013:

“The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting is outraged by the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ Budget for FY2013 that proposes to cut and reduce Voice of America (VOA) English and foreign language programs and positions, as well as programs and positions at Radio Free Asia (RFA) and at other U.S. government-funded international broadcasting entities managed by the BBG.

We oppose the BBG’s efforts to eviscerate core news services provided by the Voice of America and other broadcasters while using U.S.-taxpayer resources to inflate the ranks of the BBG management.

The VOA Tibetan Service was created by an Act of Congress signed into law on February 16, 1990 ‘to provide Voice of America Tibetan language programming to the people of Tibet.’ Less than one year ago the Voice of America was celebrating the importance of Tibetan radio broadcasts, marking the 20th anniversary of the first VOA Tibetan radio program.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors now wants to eliminate completely these critical radio broadcasts from their budget and leave funding only for a television program which most people in Tibet are unable to receive. This BBG action would defeat the purpose of the Federal law sponsored by Rep. Dante B. Fascell (Public Law No: 101-246) which established the VOA Tibetan Service.

We also adamantly oppose the BBG’s plans to cut the entire VOA Cantonese Service, which includes the VOA Cantonese weekly program, ‘American Report’ viewed in Cantonese‐speaking areas of China.

We expect that there will be a public outcry for these services to remain. Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Burma, Georgia, Greece, Laos, Russian Federation, Turkey and Vietnam are some of the other countries to which the BBG wants to reduce information programs. The Caucasus region, including Chechnya, and Central Asia are also targeted by the BBG for program cuts and reductions.

CUSIB also questions the BBG’s ‘over-arching strategic objective … (T)o become the world’s leading international news agency by 2016…’ This proposal also seems to be in direct conflict with Congressional intent as it will divert scarce resources from serving those who are most desperate to receive uncensored news and information.

In a memo to BBG staff, the BBG wrote: ‘We realize that some of these proposed changes will create anxiety.’ On the contrary, these BBG proposed changes will re-ignite passion of every journalist and human rights activist and incite and re-inspire them to preserve those programs that support journalism for media freedom and human rights.”

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

For further information, please contact:

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB)
New York, New York

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

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

  • Share/Bookmark

BBG Governor Victor Ashe calls shortwave broadcasting to countries without free media ‘valuable’

By BBGWatcher | December 10, 2011 | China, International Broadcasting | Comments Off

Ashe pauses before a portrait of Murrow with Walter Patterson, right, station manager.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors announced that BBG Governor Victor Ashe toured the last remaining U.S. –based international broadcast facility recently, noting the historical significance of the base which is named for an icon of U.S. international broadcasting. BBG Watch reported earlier that the BBG executive staff tried to discourage Ashe from visiting the Edward R. Murrow Greenville Transmitting Station in North Carolina. BBG executives want to close the station down as part of their plan to limit Voice of America radio broadcasting, eliminate several language services, and to switch most of the remaining ones to Internet-only program delivery.

BBG announcement notes that during his December 8 visit to the Edward R. Murrow Greenville Transmitting Station in North Carolina, Ashe met with employees and discussed the installation’s mission, which includes shortwave broadcasting to Latin America, Cuba, the Caribbean, and Africa.

Ashe has been meeting with BBG employee and raising employee morale issues in open BBG meetings to the dismay of BBG executives. They have been rated in government-wide employee surveys as being among the worst managers in the federal government.

Ashe has also raised questions about BBG staff’s plans to privatize Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti and to merge Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa into a large corporate bureaucracy. A former Republican mayor of Knoxville and former U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Ashe is known to be concerned about the BBG staff’s eagerness to eliminate radio and television VOA broadcasting services and jobs in the United States.

BBG announcement states that Ashe said he was impressed with the professionalism and dedication of the staff of the transmitting station in North Carolina, particularly their ability to maintain aged broadcast transmitters and related equipment.

While BBG public affairs staffers tried hard to focus the announcement on the historical aspects of the visit, sources told BBG Watch that Ashe also said that employees of the Edward R. Murrow Greenville Transmitting Station are “performing a valuable service.” Ashe also called for using the official name of the station rather than referring to it as a transmitting facility. Edward R. Murrow, a famous broadcast journalist during World War II and post-war director of the United States Information Agency, was a native of North Carolina.

Sources also told BBG Watch that Ashe is concerned how BBG executives deal with the American public and members of Congress. While BBG public relations staffers posted online a short announcement about Ashe’s visit to North Carolina, they refused to issue a press release about a Capitol Hill reception to mark the 70th anniversary of VOA broadcasting to China, which was hosted by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.

The BBG wanted to end radio and television broadcasts to China but their plan was blocked in Congress thanks to an amendment introduced by Rep. Rohrabacher. His amendment received full bipartisan support. Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, attended the reception and recorded a special video message in support of VOA broadcasting to China.

  • Share/Bookmark

Don’t silence Voice of America radio to China — Ted Lipien in The Washington Times

By tedlipien | April 1, 2011 | China, International Broadcasting | Comments Off

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, April 1, 2011– The Washington Times has published an op-ed by Free Media Online president Ted Lipien urging Congress to stop the Broadcasting Board of Governors from silencing the Voice of America radio to China.

A Chinese free labor union leader like Poland’s Lech Walesa could be declared expendable by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which manages U.S. international broadcasting operations, because he has no Internet and no higher education, is older than 30 and is poor.

Government executives who advise part-time presidential appointees at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) would want you to believe that silencing Voice of America radio to China is a great political and technological idea that is bound to displease the communist regime in Beijing. The savings would be used to expand Internet presence, or so they claim.

But theirs is a misguided proposal that would harm both the United States and pro-democracy forces abroad. It sends a strong signal to authoritarian regimes that Americans either don’t care about human rights or don’t know how to defend them. Not surprisingly, the Chinese communists already have greeted the BBG announcement as a defeat for America.

Read The Washington Times op-ed: LIPIEN: Don’t silence Voice of America radio to China

  • Share/Bookmark

Sound of Hope Plans to Increase Shortwave Radio to China while Voice of America Retreats

By tedlipien | March 2, 2011 | China, International Broadcasting, Russia | Comments Off
Sound_of_Hope_Radio

TedLipien.com TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, March 1, 2011 — In this series of analyses for Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org) — U.S. International Broadcasting in Crisis– Ted Lipien, former Voice of America acting associate director, examines recent Broadcasting Board of Governors’ decisions, with a focus on the latest controversial plan to completely eliminate Voice of America on-the-air radio broadcasts to China.

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org Part Two — Special Report: Sound of Hope Plans to Increase Shortwave Radio to China while Voice of America Retreats — Read Part One: No Apology for Failure

While officials of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) tell members of Congress that shortwave radio in China is dead and announce plans to terminate all Voice of America shortwave broadcasts to China in Cantonese and Mandarin, California-based Sound of Hope Radio (SOH) has announced plans to expand its shortwave programs targeting Mainland China, The Epoch Times newspaper reported. Sound of Hope Bucks the Trend and Expands Broadcasts to China | Read The Epoch Times article in Chinese. Read more…

  • Share/Bookmark

No More Voice of America Radio to China and No Apology from BBG Officials for Allowing Iranian Cyber Attack on Voice of America

By tedlipien | March 1, 2011 | China, International Broadcasting, Russia | Comments Off
Voice_of_America_Website_Hacked_Feb21_2011_Web_Image

TedLipien.com TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, February 28, 2011 — In this series of analyses for Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org) — U.S. International Broadcasting in Crisis — Ted Lipien, former Voice of America acting associate director, examines recent Broadcasting Board of Governors’ decisions, with the focus on the latest controversial plan to completely eliminate Voice of America on-the-air radio broadcasts to China.

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. 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. Read more…

  • Share/Bookmark