Mismanagement should have been dealt with swiftly and without mercy, but it has festered so long that we wonder whether IBB/VOA/etc. can be revived.

Awards? That’s just the tip of the pile of, — well, let’s say it’s the tip of the iceberg. Upper management should give back any that they have accepted. Make no mistake, there are many employees who do deserve awards. People in the studios, the overseas bureaus and the overseas transmitting stations do more useful work in one week than most “managers” do in a year. Or perhaps in a lifetime. Yet their awards, if any, are barely sufficient for a half dozen pizzas.

Please help us, Obi-wan VictorAshe. You’re our only hope!

Does BBG know?

Anyway, his writing is separate from his part-time role on the BBG. It would be VOA’s journalistic responsibility to make it a fair story and not a puff job. VOA would have to report on the bad and so-so reviews for the book, in addition to the positive ones.

And if we talk about ethics, he’s not too shy to have his CNN friends put into high paying government positions at BBG and VOA and to tolerate “old white guys” comments.

Ergo, @jjj – I don’t think that contributing to promoting philanthropy is so much of a problem as promoting the book – which he didn’t do.

The same BBG executives, some of whom collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries and additional benefits, were firing experienced journalists, terminating VOA broadcasts to countries without free media, and expanding their vast bureaucracy. No BBG executive’s job has ever been eliminated to save money. Their numbers and perks have been growing each year. They always get paid on time and receive regular pay raises, and bonuses. All this for being in charge of the agency which is consistenly rated by the Office of Personnel Management employee surveys as one of the worst-managed within the entire Federal government system.

Ambassador Ashe has shown courage and moral conviction in pointing out some of these inequities. If the BBG is now rated by regular government employees as one of the worst places to work in the Federal government, imagine what that number would look like if 45 percent of the workforce, which is not allowed to participate in the OPM surveys, would have its say. Government workers at VOA see how these contract employees are treated by the BBG management. Everyone knows that they all do the same jobs — there are no differences in what regular employees and contract broadcasters do and how they perform their duties. This situation cannot continue.

Ambassador Ashe is right, POVs at VOA are “an unhappy group.” The BBG executives responsible for this state of affairs advise BBG members and formulate strategic plans, which are then severely criticized by human rights and media freedom organizations, both in the U.S. and abroad, and rejected by Congress.

Other BBG members would be wise if they would follow Ambassador Ashe’s example and look closely at how BBG executives manage and treat journalists and other employees, both government workers and contractors. Instead of listening to these career bureaucrats, they should meet with women and men who prepare broadcasts to countries with restricted or undeveloped media environments. They would learn a lot more and perhaps avoid the constant blunders that the Broadcasting Board of Governors has become known for on the Hill and among other key constituencies.