Kristina Gorelik (Кристина Горелик), fired last September by American taxpayer-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) along with dozens of her colleagues, has received today the Moscow Helsinki Group prize for “journalistic activity aimed at promoting human rights values.” The prize was presented on the International Human Rights Day, December 10.

At Radio Liberty, Gorelik specialized in human rights reporting, but the new American management of RFE/RL cancelled her programs and those of other journalists whom they fired. Several other journalists resigned in protest and with their fired colleagues formed Radio Liberty in Exile. They launched their own website, LibertyNew.com.

Nearly all major Russian human rights leaders and democratic political figures, including Mikhail Gorbachev, issued statements in support of the fired journalists. Some have also appealed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Congress and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees Radio Liberty, to overrule the mass dismissal of Radio Liberty journalists and other recent personnel and programming decisions made by RFE/RL president and CEO Steven Korn and his top deputies. In remarks to senior staff at the RFE/RL headquarters in Prague, Korn said that that he would not have been able to convince Russian human rights activists and political leaders of anything, including what day it was.

The Moscow Helsinki Group, also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, (Московская Хельсинкская группа) is an influential human rights monitoring NGO which was established in the Soviet Union and still operates in today’s Russia. It is led by Lyudmila Alexeeva (Alexeyeva).

The last interview Kristina Gorelik recorded for Radio Liberty last September on the day she and other journalists were being fired was with Alexeeva. Gorelik and Alexeeva were inside the RFE/RL Moscow bureau recording the interview, while her colleagues were being prevented from entering the building by RFE/RL security guards. Later, Alexeeva told RFE/RL President and CEO Steven Korn that even repugnant wild capitalists in Russia treat their employees better than he had treated Radio Liberty journalists.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President Steven Korn and Vice President Julia Ragona insist that the reorganization of the Moscow bureau was done to prepare it for Radio Liberty’s new role in digital media in Russia after RFE/RL lost a medium wave (AM) radio frequency in Moscow under a new Russian media law. But the list of the fired employees (some resigned in protest) shows that the entire Internet and social media team was also dismissed along with some of the most famous Radio Liberty journalists. According to latest reports, the Radio Liberty Russian website, now run by Masha Gessen, Korn’s new choice to be the Russian Service director, has lost more than 50 percent of its online audience. Ragona, who oversaw the firings in Moscow, said that Russian human rights and opposition leaders who sent a letter of protest to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of the U.S. Congress were confused about what happened at Radio Liberty. Mr. Korn issued a statement in which he implied that the fired Radio Liberty employees were treated with great respect and made the following observation:

“Though we have said good-bye to some of our journalists and other colleagues, we are thankful to have had the benefit of their creativity and dedication over the years and hope they will continue to contribute their voices and ideas to the public forum.”

But the fired journalists said they were humiliated by being fired in a law firm office in Moscow and prevented from returning to work, and one independent Russian journalist called Korn’s statement a mockery.

The new Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty management has been criticized for programming changes that de-emphasize news reporting and include posting of sexually suggestive videos.

Republican BBG member Victor Ashe has publicly questioned Steven Korn’s leadership at RFE/RL. Ashe said that Korn made Radio Liberty an enemy of the human rights movement in Russia. Korn has reportedly also angered BBG Democratic member Michael Meehan by refusing to provide answers to the BBG Strategy and Budget Committee which Meehan chairs. Other BBG members, both Republicans and Democrats, are also deeply concerned by Korn’s actions, according to BBG Watch sources. The BBG’s next board meeting is scheduled for December 14. The RFE/RL board, which includes all BBG members, will also be meeting, at which time the issue of the fired Radio Liberty journalists may be discussed, sources told BBG Watch.

Radio Liberty's former human rights reporter Kristina Gorelik

In a letter sent to the Broadcasting Board of Governors last September, Kristina Gorelik described how she and her colleagues, including employees with disabilities and single mothers with dependent children, were fired by RFE/RL executives without any warning.

Putin’s Regime Could Not Have Asked For A Greater Gift

Letter to the Broadcasting Board of Governors from fired Radio Liberty journalists Kristina Gorelik.

On the morning of September 20th, RFE/RL’s corporate lawyers summed the entire staff of the Moscow bureau’s Internet division and informed them that they were no longer employed by the company. On the morning of September 21st, when the rest of the bureau’s staff came into the office, they were met by similar news. In one stroke, a collective that took over twenty years to assemble was destroyed.

Out of 55 people employed by the bureau, 35 were fired. An additional 5 resigned in protest. There remain 15, of whom 4 are producers, 3 are technical staff, a secretary, a coordinator, an accountant, and an administrator. The whole of broadcasting and information services has been entrusted to just three individuals.

I was lucky in that I was able to say farewell to my listeners who have followed my human rights programs for 10 years. The majority of fired journalists were not afforded such an opportunity. One by one, they were summoned, forced to sign off on their own dismissal, and given two hours to vacate the premises.

Many of these people had worked at the bureau since its founding over 20 years ago. What did the Russian public get to hear about this? Not from most of us, chased away from the microphone, our computers, and our building by guards especially hired by RFE/RL managers for this purpose.

My own opportunity to say good bye was pure luck. On the day I was fired, I was recording an interview with the famous human rights activist and founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group Ludmila Alekseeva. Owing solely to this circumstance did my program eventually air. Alekseeva saw first hand what was happening in the bureau, and soon a letter was drafted by ten of Russia’s most prominent human rights activists. They were outraged by the destruction of the Moscow bureau. Most importantly, no one knew at the time, and no one knows now what the real reasons behind this decision were.

From a strictly legal standpoint, I have no qualms with RFE/RL’s management; I signed the papers I was asked to sign. But no one can silence my moral condemnation of what happened. I still have not heard a satisfactory explanation for why such an enormous percentage of our staff was fired, considering the fact that the BBG’s annual report named the Russian Language Service one of the best under its supervision.

RFE/RL’s management has stated on a number of occasions that our future is in multimedia. Why, then, were the first people fired those who staff our Internet division – the people who brought coverage of the protests in Russia to hundreds of thousands of online users? The number of our website visitors and social network subscribers has been growing unabatedly, and these figures were part of the BBG’s annual report.

RFE/RL’s management talked about convergence, but our journalists already wrote pieces for the station’s website, produced video materials, maintained personal pages and broadcast over the Internet. Many of them took the initiative and took multimedia training sessions in order to improve our mass-media outreach. Was this not a clear enough demonstration of our willingness and ability to adapt to new conditions?

RFE/RL’s management also talked about cutting costs, but due to the timing of the dismissals — not wanting to see these loyal employees for even one more day or to allow them even to say good bye — the company was forced to pay out hefty severance packages.

The Moscow bureau was provided with a new space: a new office was built and furnished with expensive equipment. Benefits packages for new employees were expanded and salaries increased significantly. Questions arose over the inexplicably high pay rise for the bureau chief, but this was never addressed. Nothing was done to economize in the aforementioned areas, and the Russian Language Service’s budget for the following year – even in light of recent spending – was not trimmed.

RFE/RL’s management explained the current wave of layoffs by referring to a new strategy, but why were the details of this strategy never made public? Access to these documents might have explained why influential, seasoned journalists with excellent reputations, who had spent years reporting on sociopolitical issues in Russia, were suddenly deemed unfit for service?

RFE/RL’s management additionally explained the layoffs by citing recently passed legislature that prohibits broadcasting in Russia by agencies whose funding is over 48% foreign. I won’t dwell on the argument that our broadcasts are necessary (there are plenty of advocates for this position), or that similar rules did not prevent the Radio from broadcasting before or that all other Western broadcasters in Russia had other arrangements and will continue to broadcast despite the new law. I will, however, point out that the new rules come into effect for us on November 10th. Why, then, was it necessary to lay off people with such urgency, and to burden the tiny remaining staff for at least a month if not much longer while we are being paid to do nothing and for not showing up? Is our presence, after 20 years of serving our audience, so distasteful to the new management that we can’t even say good bye and thank them for listening, visiting our website, calling and participating in our programs all these years?

And finally, why did no one consider the reputational risks and damage that RFE/RL would incur by acting in such a fashion?

People who have worked in the Moscow bureau have excellent reputations and considerable influence in Russian public circles. It is no accident that among those who spoke out against the recent layoffs were Mikhail Gorbachev, numerous human rights activists, opposition politicians, prominent public figures and journalists. Many of them have agreed that, in light of the recent crackdown on civil rights in Russia, Putin’s regime could not have asked for a greater gift. The American taxpayer seems to be rather confused regarding whose interests are really at stake in this situation.

Kristina Gorelik is a journalist, member of Russia’s Union of Journalists, former human rights broadcaster at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) fired in September 2012, author of former Radio Liberty programs “The Third Sector,” “A Man has a Right,” and “The Path of Freedom,” winner of the Moscow Helsinki Group Journalism Prize.

These journalists are facing now an uncertain future in Vladimir Putin’s Russia without any support or protection from their former U.S. taxpayer-funded employer, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the U.S. federal agency that allowed this to happen – the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

Imagine journalists being stopped by guards from entering their offices and prevented from even saying good bye to your loyal radio and online audience of many years. This is what happened to Radio Liberty journalists in Moscow.

As BBG Watch extends our Best Wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to all our online visitors, contributors and supporters, we also ask you to continue to support Radio Liberty in Exile journalists and their new SvobodaNew.com news website.

We hope that they will soon be returned to work at Radio Liberty and will see their pro-media freedom and pro-human rights restored. But we must also do everything possible to make it happen.

We are, of course, grateful for all the successes during the past year, including saving Voice of America broadcasts to China and Tibet.

We thank you all for your support and ask you now to support Radio Liberty in Exile.

1. Sign Radio Liberty in Exile Petition

2. Like Radio Liberty in Exile on Facebook and Leave a Comment

3. Visit SvobodaNew.com

4. Email SvobodaNew.com info@svobodanew.com

5. View Radio Liberty in Exile Video

6. Write, Phone, or Email the Broadcasting Board of Governors http://www.bbg.gov/contact-us/

7. Write, Phone, or Email Your Members of Congress http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/index.htm

Remarks at Swearing-in Ceremony for U.S. Ambassador to Poland Steve Mull

Link to Video

Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Benjamin Franklin Room
Washington, DC
October 24, 2012

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we have put this off about as long as we could. We’ve dragged our feet, we did some private diplomacy with the Senate saying, “You know, you really don’t want to confirm him.” (Laughter.) But unfortunately, here we are. And it could not be for a more deserving professional – someone who has in every way represented the United States so well for so many years. And I’m delighted that Steve’s wife, Cheri, and his son Ryan, and his extended family can be here because we know that behind all that hard work, Steve, were a lot of people cheering you on and supporting you as you undertook your various assignments. And to Poland’s new ambassador, we welcome you, and I can say I welcome you to the neighborhood. And we look forward to working with you.
I am a little concerned about one thing that has been making the rounds of the State Department. Ryan is by all accounts pretty tech-savvy – (laughter) – and when we saw a recently Photoshopped depiction of Steve’s head on Captain America’s body, we at first were hardly affected because that is how we think about Steve. The superhero Executive Secretary – and Captain America has nothing on you, Steve.

But think about it: Forty-nine trips. One hundred and one countries. Five thousand memos and documents last year alone, which he made me read. Spur-of-the-moment missions to far-flung places around the world. And yet Steve, at least in my experience with him, never broke a sweat. Okay, we need to leave tomorrow. We have to clear the following a hundred obstacles, we have to get then to a next place that is about 20,000 miles away. No worry. No worry. It just always got done. And it was just another day’s work for Captain America. (Laughter.) And I know that because Steve was running a tremendous operation, it was easier for everyone in the building to do the jobs we were expected to do.

But that was just the day-to-day. Then crises would erupt. And they have occurred, unfortunately, all too frequently. Steve was always the first to spring into action, standing up task forces, managing rapid response personnel. Whether it was after the earthquake in Haiti, the terrible natural and nuclear crisis in Japan, or, most recently, the awful assault on our post in Benghazi and other diplomatic posts that were threatened, we never doubted we’d get the best response, the most professional response because of Steve’s leadership and hard work.

Now he learned that, I’m told, from his parents, who themselves have worked hard all of your lives. And no one comes here on his or her own. You are here because you were someone who wanted to make a difference in the world and instilled with values that have stayed with you to this day. And I’m sure that when you were a young Foreign Service Officer stationed in Warsaw, and you were literally carrying messages from President Reagan to Lech Walesa, you were someone who remembered where you came from and where you hoped the Polish people would be going, the opportunities that they would have, ending oppression and tyranny, and making clear the United States would be their partner and friend.

Now, full disclosure: a long time ago when Steve was much younger and I had a different hairstyle – (laughter) – I visited Poland as First Lady. Steve Mull was my Control Officer – (laughter) – showing me around the country with a deep understanding of how far things had come, but also what challenges lay ahead. And during his prior service and in the years since, he has built a deep connection with Poland and with the Polish people. He has been a champion and advocate of their freedom and the future that they are so successfully charting for themselves.

And as sorry as we are – and you heard Cheryl really speak on behalf of all of us — to see Steve go, we cannot think of a better person to represent the United States at this point in our relationship with Poland. We have a lot of work to do on everything from energy diversification to missile defense to democracy promotion to security in Afghanistan. So Steve was there seeing firsthand Poland emerge from Soviet domination and grow into a model of a young democracy, a vital free market economy, a leader on the global stage. And I’m thrilled that he’ll be going back to continue building that essential relationship. So if you are ready, Steve, I am now ready to swear you in. (Laughter and applause.)

(Whereupon, Steve Mull was sworn in as Ambassador to Poland.)

Congratulations. (Applause.)

AMBASSADOR MULL: Well, thank you all for coming. My voice is, unfortunately, broken, so my son Ryan has agreed to read my comments for you. So Ryan, over to you. (Laughter and applause.)

MR. MULL: Secretary Clinton, Ambassador Schnepf, and beloved family, friends, and colleagues. Today is a dream come true. And I am so happy to be able to celebrate it with the people who mean so much to me. I especially want to thank you, Secretary Clinton – laughter – for your support for this job, for the extraordinary honor of swearing me in today with such kind words, and for the amazing opportunity to serve on your team these last few years.

Your leadership of and loyalty to this institution and its people have enriched us beyond measure. And I know I speak for all of us with these three heartfelt words: Please don’t go. (Laughter and applause.)

Poland has been such an important part of Cheri’s and my life over the years. That’s where we spent the first years of our marriage in the 1980s and that’s where, in 1995, we became parents of our son, Ryan – (laughter) – of whom we are so proud. (Applause.)

We have only the happiest memories of this amazing land and its people. A people who know and live every day the true values of freedom, loyalty, and friendship. When Cheri and I left Poland the first time in 1986, no one – least of all me – would have predicted that someday I would return as ambassador. Just before our departure, Poland’s communist government accused me of running a NATO spy ring, probably as a means of embarrassing my contacts in Poland’s democratic community.

It was a difficult time for my family. My hometown newspaper that day led with a banner headline reading: Local Man Accused of Spying. (Laughter.) When my mother was in line at the local supermarket, the shopper in front of her gestured angrily at the newspaper and said, “Look at that. That boy should be shot.” (Laughter.) “Hey,” my mother yelled out. “That boy’s my son, and I’ll shoot you if you don’t watch out.” (Laughter and applause.)

In the 23 years since it regained independence, Poland has proven itself as an unshakable ally of the United States standing shoulder to shoulder with us on the front lines from Iraq to Afghanistan, shining the light of democracy on those dark corners of the world that have not yet won their freedom, and volunteering to be among the first in helping the NATO alliance defend against the threat of ballistic missiles.　

While our ties of blood and common values have endured for centuries, I am convinced the greatest rewards of America’s friendship with Poland are yet to come. As Ambassador in Warsaw, I will work hard to build new friendships between Americans and Poles in academia, business, culture, and diplomacy. Together, we will tighten our cooperation to expand opportunities for energy independence, drawing on the vast reservoirs of talent and innovation that our people possess. We will expand and intensify our two-way trade and investment bringing economic benefits to us both. And we will work even harder to promote democratic values and respect for basic human rights in parts of the world that are still shaking off the bonds of oppression, even as we rededicate ourselves to the principles of justice and fair play in our own societies.

Madam Secretary, I pledge to pursue this agenda with all the tools that you’ve given us through the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. I’ve got a head start on engaging with the Polish people on a more personal level, by opening a Twitter account just a few weeks ago. (Laughter.) One of my first tweets asks about what bike paths are like in Warsaw these days. A few days later, I asked what beers are now the most popular. One of my newfound followers was skeptical. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This ambassador is going to be riding around our country on a bicycle drinking beer?” (Laughter.) “He must be a fake.”

Before we finish, I want to say a special thanks to those who made today possible, including the extraordinary Sharon Hardy and Heather Samuelson and our terrific colleagues in the Bureau for Legislative Affairs, Josh Blumenfeld and Rob Fallon, all of whom worked together to pilot through this nomination in almost record time. I want to thank my outstanding team of colleagues in the Executive Secretariat, including Pam Quanrud, Julieta Noyes, Ted Allegra, Tuli Mushingi, Paco Palmieri, and Marcella Hembry, Darlene Namahoe, Diane McBride, Nancy Walker, Robin Hartle, and Ned Filipovic for being such rocks of support.

Thanks also to my new colleagues in the European Bureau, including Mike Morrow, Kate McGeary, Mara Vento, and Eleanor Chamberlin, all of whom have been enormously helpful in preparing for this assignment. A special thanks to John Dowd for his selfless and decisive friendship over the years. And to my Friday lunch crew, Ruth, Rich, Liz, and Dick, your laughs and support were enough to power me through every crisis. You don’t know the half of how much I will miss you.

I also want to take a moment to recognize two very special colleagues who have had such an enormous impact on me over the past years: Deputy Secretary Bill Burns is already so well-known as the most gifted, professional American diplomat of our generation. And working with him closely over the past four years has benefited me in ways I realize every day on the job. And then there’s Counselor Cheryl Mills, who inspired me every day with her razor sharp mind, unshakable commitment to justice, and amazing fighting spirit. If you’re ever in a fight, you need to make sure Cheryl is on your side . (Laughter.) Cheryl, thank you for making today possible.

I also want to mention the people who mean so much who are not here with us – my high school teacher Mrs. Jess Cwiklinski, the daughter of Polish immigrants herself, whose health did not allow her to travel today; my friend Peter Gazda, who fled Poland with his wife Kasia in the 1980s when their friendship with Cheri and me brought the communist secret police to their door. Peter tragically passed away much too early three years ago, but I am so glad that his wife Kasia and son Michael can be here with us today from Toronto. Ambassador Nick Rey, who also was taken from us too early three years ago, was such an influential mentor and friend for me when we worked together in Poland in the ’90s, and I am so glad his beloved wife Lisa can be here with us today. And finally, my stepfather Frank Spracklin, whom we lost just over a year ago. He would be so proud to be here today to hold your hand, mom, and to give us all hugs.

And finally, a word of thanks to the two people who bring all meaning to my life, Ryan – (laughter) – you grew up too fast – (laughter) – and I’ll miss you so much – (laughter) – as you get ready to move away to college. But don’t forget, it will be just as easy to harass you about finishing your homework from Poland – (laughter) – as it is in the dining room. And to my beautiful bride Cheri, who vowed to her parents after growing up in the Foreign Service that when she was an adult, she would never move again – (laughter) – forgive me for making you break that vow once again. I will be waiting for you in Poland with a heart full of love and open arms, so grateful that you said yes.

Thank you all for coming to share this day with us. As the Poles say, “May you all live 100 years.” Thank you.　 (Applause.)

In an article published in National Review Online, Mario Corti and Ted Lipien argue that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) executives have mislead the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the American public on the circumstances and the reasons for the mass firing of Radio Liberty journalists in Moscow.

The authors state that contrary to the assertions from RFE/RL president Steven Korn that the journalists were respectfully, fairly and generously treated, there is abundant evidence that they were coerced by security guards, humiliated and given no choice but to sign their termination documents, and were not allowed to say good bye to their audience of many years.

Corti and Lipien cite a letter written to the Broadcasting Board of Governors by fired Radio Liberty journalist Veronika Bode. Many other Radio Liberty journalists have also written to the BBG describing the humiliating treatment they were subjected to by RFE/RL executives. They have also sent letters to the White House, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of Congress.

Mario Corti is an Italian journalist and Russian-speaking writer whose books have been published in Russia. He is a former director of Radio Liberty’s Russian Service.

Ted Lipien is an American journalist, media expert and writer. He is a former Voice of America acting associate director and was in charge of marketing and program distribution for the BBG, including Russia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Corti and Lipien point out in their National Review article that RFE/RL executives mislead the BBG into believing that Radio Liberty journalists were resistant to change and not capable of doing digital media when in fact Radio Liberty had one of the most advanced multimedia news website in Russia with live video streaming and social media outreach, while new employees brought on board by the new Russian Service director Masha Gessen lack such skills. They also note that RFE/RL executives fired almost the entire highly-talented and praised Radio Liberty Internet team to clean house for the new director who later accused independent journalists of slandering her for suggesting a link between her appointment and the dismissals. She had previously worked as a consultant for RFE/RL. Kremlin officials use accusations of slander and the new anti-libel law signed by President Putin to stifle investigative reporting in Russia.

The authors also take issue with RFE/RL executives’ position that they did everything to keep Radio Liberty on the air in Moscow. Corti and Lipien explain that the new Russian media law does not prevent the Voice of America from broadcasting in Moscow and that Radio Liberty could have asked for using the VOA affiliate or found other arrangements. They argue that RFE/RL management and the BBG in Washington have capitulated to President Putin. Radio Liberty will continue to broadcast on shortwave, but it’s not clear for how long since the best broadcasters are gone.

The article lists numerous protests against the actions of RFE/RL executives from prominent Russian political leaders and scholars, including former president Mikhail Gorbachev, former reform-minded prime minister and deputy prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov and Boris Nemtsov, Professor Vladimir Shlapentokh (Michigan State) and a group of legendary human rights activists led by Lyudmila Alexeeva.

Corti and Lipien also take issue with RFE/RL president’s argument that Radio Liberty was overstaffed and had too many reporters covering Putin’s Russia. They point out that some of the best independent journalists in Russia were unceremoniously dismissed and that Radio Liberty has lost its reputation and credibility. It appears highly unlikely that prominent independent journalists in Russia will want to work for Ms. Gessen after what happened to their colleagues. It is also unlikely that democratic opposition leaders and human rights activists will associate with the station as they did in the past.

Corti and Lipien conclude that “Steve Korn and Masha Gessen are not launching a digital revolution. Instead, they have created a weapon of mass destruction that has vaporized Radio Liberty in Russia and damaged America’s reputation everywhere.”

Read: Silenced by Washington – Mass firings have ended the distinguished history of Radio Liberty in Russia – by Mario Corti and Ted Lipien, National Review Online, Oct. 23, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 12, 2012

CUSIB Applauds Former BBG Member Blanquita Cullum’s Statement on Radio Liberty Crisis

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) is honored to learn that former Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) member Blanquita Cullum has joined efforts to save Radio Liberty (Radio Svoboda) in Russia.

Blanquita Cullum’s statement of October 12, 2012 describes the decisions of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) executives as “dangerous, short-sighted and shameful.” Referring to officials in charge of U.S. international broadcasting, Ms. Cullum asked:

“Whose side are they on? Whose interests are they serving? Not the interests of Democracy or America, but instead are catering to Russian President Vladimir Putin who comes out as the winner in this fight.”

The management of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty orchestrated a two-day purge of about 40 Radio Liberty journalists, broadcasters, web editors, video editors and technical staffers. Specially hired guards were used to provide the necessary degree of coercion. After being deceived into believing that employees would finally be getting medical insurance, moving to a new facility, and receive new training, Radio Liberty journalists saw RFE/RL’s American officials use their security guards to block the entrance to the building and instead announce the employees’ terminations. The management of the U.S. taxpayer-funded broadcasting station then prevented longtime Radio Liberty radio hosts and website editors from airing and posting their human rights programs and did not even allow them to say good bye to their radio listeners and website visitors. Some Radio Liberty journalists who were not fired resigned in protest.

Prominent Russian human rights activists like Lyudmila Alexeeva and political leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev have condemned the mass dismissal of Radio Liberty journalists and the cancellation of their political and human rights radio and online programs.

Full Statement of Blanquita Cullum, former Broadcasting Board of Governors Member

“Dangerous, short-sighted and shameful. That is how I would characterize the recent morale-killing move by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s firing of many veteran journalists. What kind of an impact do senior IBB staff want to have in that part of the world when they purposefully and arrogantly destroy the capability to provide an independent and free voice to the Russian people whose own domestic media is marginalized? Whose side are they on? Whose interests are they serving? Not the interests of Democracy or America, but instead are catering to Russian President Vladimir Putin who comes out as the winner in this fight.”

Ms. Cullum has also published an op-ed in The Washington Times: Stifling Free Speech Abroad.

Blanquita Walsh Cullum was named to the Broadcasting Board of Governors in 2002 by President George W. Bush and served until 2010. She came to the board as a radio broadcaster whose nationally syndicated programs BQ View and Newsbeat were carried coast-to-coast by the Radio America Network. She was the founder of the Young American Broadcasters Program, a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating the next generation of print and broadcast journalists. Ms. Cullum began her broadcasting career in San Antonio, Texas, where she worked for KENS-TV, KITE-Radio, KTSA-Radio and KSJL-Radio. Ms. Cullum has appeared on network and talk shows for ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, C-Span, BBC, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

For further information, please contact:
Ann Noonan, co-founder and Executive Director
Tel. 646-251-6069
Ted Lipien, co-founder
Tel. 415-793-1642

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. www.cusib.org

CUSIB Joins the Rally Cry for Radio Liberty Supporters

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) stands in solidarity with Radio Liberty supporters and listeners who demonstrated at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow Tuesday against the mass firing of Radio Liberty (Radio Svoboda) journalists, web editors, and other staffers. Russian and international media covered the protest.

CUSIB remains aggrieved that the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is doing nothing to remedy this outrage against U.S. public diplomacy interests and human decency.

CUSIB Executive Director Ann Noonan stated: “Providing a voice for dissenting opinions and peaceful demonstrations are the hallmarks of a democratic society, yet the wholesale firing of reporters who covered these events amounts to complicity by the management of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) with the anti-democratic elements in Putin’s Russia. The RFE/RL and the BBG must not abandon the core principles of their mission statement as they apply to broadcasts to countries with censorship and oppression.”

The Radio Liberty firings occurred in a two-day purge orchestrated last month by the management of RFE/RL who used specially hired guards to provide the necessary degree of coercion. After being deceived into believing that employees would finally be getting medical insurance, moving to a new facility, and receive new training, Radio Liberty journalists saw RFE/RL’s American officials use their security guards to block the entrance to the building and instead announce the employees’ terminations. The management of the U.S. taxpayer-funded broadcasting station then prevented longtime Radio Liberty radio hosts and website editors from airing and posting their human rights programs and did not even allow them to say good bye to their radio listeners and website visitors.

CUSIB Director and co-founder Ted Lipien stated: “The decision to fire journalists and silence human rights programs was not related to funding. The decision was made by the American management. A new director for the Russian Service was hired and the staff, which made Radio Liberty a human rights station, had to go. The excuse was the loss of an AM transmitter in Moscow due to a change in Russian law, but RFE/RL management did not try hard to find alternative rebroadcasting arrangements. They also claim the need for a digital transformation, but they fired the entire Internet team that made Radio Liberty website and social outreach in Russia one of the best in that market.”

A young Russian journalism student Kirill Filimonov (photo) was detained at Tuesday’s protest by the police but later released and, undeterred, continued the picket with mostly young Russian demonstrators in front of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

Lyudmila Alexeeva and other prominent human rights leaders in Russia have sent a protest letter to Secretary Clinton and the U.S. Congress. Major opposition political leaders in Russia have also spoken up against the mass firing of Radio Liberty journalists and what they see as the United States turning its back on pro-democracy Russians. Former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev has also criticized the actions of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty executives.

For further information, please contact:
Ann Noonan, co-founder and Executive Director
Tel. 646-251-6069
Ted Lipien, co-founder
Tel. 415-793-1642

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. www.cusib.org

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) Supporting journalism for media freedom and human rights

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – cusib.org) has been asked by a committee of former Radio Liberty Moscow journalists and other staffers who were dismissed last month in a secretly-planned two-day action by the management of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) to forward their open letter to President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Under Secretary of State Tara Sonenshine, and members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors who manage Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The sudden dismissal of these pro-democracy and human rights journalists and the cancelation of their radio programs and online reports brought condemnation from a group of prominent Russian human rights leaders, led by Lyudmila Alexeeva, and from former President Mikhail Gorbachev. RFE/RL executives banned these longtime journalists and broadcasters from the studios and prevented them even from saying good bye to their radio listeners and website visitors who relied on these brave professionals to bring them uncensored news and opinions in Putin’s Russia. The Russian media and opposition leaders have described these actions as a further proof of the United States turning its back on the pro-democracy movement in Russia and dismissed explanations of the mass firings from the RFE/RL management as misleading and a mockery.

Elena Vlasenko (center) with Kristina Gorelik and Dimitry Florin

The letter to the U.S. Administration was drafted by a young former Radio Liberty journalist Elena Vlasenko who was not fired by the RFE/RL management but chose to resign in protest to show solidarity with her colleagues. They have also signed her letter. Ms. Vlasenko published an account of the mass firings at Radio Liberty for the Index on Censorship blog UNCUT: Iconic Radio Free Europe Moscow bureau shot by both sides.

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting has issued its own appeal for an immediate return to work of the dismissed Radio Liberty journalists but has not yet received any response from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to whom RFE/RL management reports.

Some of Radio Liberty Moscow journalists on the day of their dismissal.

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

Members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)
330 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20237

Open Letter form Former Journalists of Radio Liberty Moscow Dismissed by Management of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

Dear Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Madam Secretary Clinton, Madam Secretary Sonenshine, Members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors:

I was working  RFE/RL for three years — writing, shooting documentaries and hosting live broadcasts for its Russian website www.svobodanews.ru and making audio reports for the radio.

Throughout the three years of its existence RFE/RL Russian Service Internet team, which was fired two weeks ago, increased the number of http://www.svobodanews.ru/ visitors eight times, and the number of constant visitors – 20 times.

We were the first of non-TV media to broadcast live protest actions and controversial trials (Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, Pussy Riot) and to shoot documentaries (Krymsk flood victims, Astrakhan elections crisis, civil society leaders, etc).

RFE/RL Russian Service was the second most frequently quoted radio station after – “Ekho Moskvy,” which has an FM frequency.

After numerous talks with RFE/RL Russian Service veteran – technical director Ilya Tochkin, who is also fired but who was allowed to work till the end of the year – some of my colleagues and I couldn’t help concluding that new RFE/RL management (Mr. Steve Korn and  Ms. Julia Ragona) didn’t even set the goal of keeping radio broadcasting in Moscow and/or finding partners who could retransmit RFE/RL on AM or FM frequencies. This approach, in his view, reduces RFE/RL Russian Service audience, which consists of two big parts: the one which prefers www.svobodanews.ru website (average number of daily visitors – 100 thousand) and the one that listens to the radio (70-100 thousand daily listeners  in Moscow alone).

But RFE/RL’s Russian audience didn’t have to wait until the end of medium wave (AM) broadcasting in Moscow, scheduled to occur on November 10. The audience has already turned its back on RFE/RL after the mass firings of well reputed professionals who spent years developing and maintaining Radio Liberty’s brand and increasing its audience. Two of the dismissed employees are disabled (post stroke, cancer); two of them are single mothers with several children to support.

Mr. Korn and Ms. Ragona are saying that the dismissals were based “on the agreement of both parties.” This may be legally or technically true, but it  is  nevertheless simply at variance with facts and reality.

The truth is that RFE/RL management representatives forced the staff to sign dismissal agreements. What could these journalists do faced with blocked computers, canceled electronic passes, and prevented from accessing RFE/RL’s website publishing system? If an employee refused to take the offer to be fired, he or she would be dismissed anyway.

Such methods and style of management – bragging about a new multimedia concept and firing people who succeeded in its implementation and increased RFE/RL Russian Service web audience tenfold; dismissing all journalists, who throughout the last twenty years have become a part of RFE/RL’s brand –  all this looks like the worst kind of mismanagement and a gross violation of moral and ethical values.

That is why I resigned in protest.

The Radio Liberty editorial office, which consisted of people who spent years risking their health and lives (RFE/RL didn’t provide its staff in Moscow and in other Russian cities with medical insurance) advocating for human rights and freedom of expression, was ruined not by our antagonists but by our own top management – at the expense of American taxpayers, whose money was used not for promoting democracy but for hiring  guards to keep those doing the promoting from going on the air and posting human rights stories on the web.

Tens of professionals with irreproachable reputation, the second most popular Russian multimedia platform and the respected brand developed throughout years of hard work –  became victims of such incredible bad judgement that it brought condemnation from some of the most famous Russian human rights activists and former President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev.

We respectfully urge you to find out what happened to this venerable American public institution in Russia and to restore what was lost before it is too late. I speak here on behalf of myself and my colleagues.

Sincerely,

Elena Vlasenko, Moscow, Russian Federation
Email: windprose@gmail.com

℅ The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – cusib.org)
12726 Greenwood Dr.
Truckee, CA 96161
contact@cusib.org
415-793-1642

This letter was also signed by former RFE/RL staffers who share the author’s opinion:

Ludmila Telen – the chief editor of the Radio Liberty website and social media

Mikhail Shevelev – editor of Radio Liberty’s website

Mikhail Sokolov – on air personality, the host of the Radio Liberty political show,
President Yeltsin personally handed him the license for Radio Liberty broadcasting
in Russia in recognition of his role in live reporting during the communist coup in 1991

Dmitry Florin

Nikita Tatarsky – Radio Liberty cameraman, video editor (resigned himself)

Yuri Vasilyev – editor of Radio Liberty’s website

Tatyana Skorobogatko – editor of Radio Liberty’s website

Alexey Morgun – editor of Radio Liberty’s website

Danila Galperovich – on air personality, the host of the Radio Liberty program Face to Face

Veronika Bode – on air personality, the host of the Radio Liberty Public Opinion Program

Dmitry Nalitov – Radio Liberty sound editor

Andrey Trukhan – editor of the evening Radio Liberty political show

Yuri Timofeev – Radio Liberty web photographer

Lyubov Chizhova – Radio Liberty special correspondent

Alexey Kuznetsov – editor of Radio Liberty’s website and online content, sports expert

Artur Asafyev

Lyaylya Giniatulina

Kristina Gorelik – experienced human rights reporter, the host of the Radio Liberty
show Third Sector

Ivan Trefilov – one of the best observer of economics news in Moscow
(resigned himself)

Marina Petrushko – Radio Liberty’s specialist on Internet and social media promotion

Alexander Orlov-Sokolsky

Olga Orlova

Venera Abarbanel

Marina Staune

Alya Sanches-Lir

Vitaly Kamyshev – Radio Liberty special correspondent

Mumin Shakirov – Radio Liberty special correspondent

Daria Zharova – Radio Liberty news service

Elena  Kolupaeva – Radio Liberty sound chief editor

Elena Fanailova – poet, on air personality, the host of the show Liberty in
Clubs (resigned herself)

Marina Timasheva – one of the best expert on Russian culture, the
editor and presenter of cultural programs on Radio Liberty

Vladimir Abarbanel – the coordinator of the Radio Liberty correspondent network in Russia, editor and presenter of the Radio Liberty program about Russian regions – Correspondent Hour

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) Supporting journalism for media freedom and human rights

contact@cusib.org

Ann Noonan, co-founder and Executive Director

Tel. 646-251-6069

Ted Lipien, co-founder and Director

Tel. 415-793-1642

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting is an independent, nonpartisan organization that supports free flow of uncensored news from the United States to nations with restricted and developing media.

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting Condemns Crippling of Radio Liberty in Russia

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) stands in solidarity with Lyudmila Alexeeva, Chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, in her call for the expansion of Radio Liberty broadcasts in Russia and the reversal of the sudden decision to to fire dozens of experienced human rights journalists at the RL bureau in Moscow. CUSIB supports the call of Russian human rights leaders to the U.S. Congress to investigate the actions of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) management that have crippled Radio Liberty and damaged America’s image in Russia.

CUSIB condemns RFE/RL executives for engineering a mass firing of Radio Liberty journalists precisely at the time when the Kremlin bans RL broadcasts in Moscow, having already banned them in the rest of Russia, and stifles all other independent media which support democracy. The timing of the firing and an earlier selection of a new Radio Liberty Russian Service director shortly before the mass purge of personnel and immediately after a semi-private meeting with President Putin could not have been worse from a public diplomacy perspective regardless of the candidate’s anti-Kremlin views. Russia is a country where opposition leaders feel that the U.S. Administration does not care much about violations of human rights. Russian media coverage of RFE/RL management’s actions has been uniformly negative, some describing as a mockery the management’s explanations that fired employees were treated with respect and that they in fact were not fired but signed voluntary termination agreements and departed happily.

CUSIB is disturbed by this account in openDemocracyRussia of a former Radio Liberty journalist and filmmaker Mumin Shakirov how he and his colleagues were called suddenly at their homes by a receptionist and told to report to the office of an international law firm where they learned that they were being dismissed.

“The lawyer’s arguments are convincing: legal action against the company will be fruitless; he is making us an offer we can’t refuse; mutual agreement, severance packages, everyone to hand in their ID passes and equipment. Full stop. Nearly twenty journalists lost their jobs that day, and the same number the next. In two days, Radio Liberty’s Moscow office was shut down. Not a thank you, not a goodbye. End of the story. Curtains. Nearly twenty years of working for the station finished.”

CUSIB notes that Russian human rights activists concluded that even the KGB was not able to inflict as much damage on Radio Liberty and America’s image in Russia as did RFE/RL management by its most recent actions.

CUSIB also notes that the loss of the AM transmitter in Moscow and the shift to Internet, where Radio Liberty is already well-established, did not require abandonment of vigorous broadcasting, which will be impossible without the carefully built-up pool of talent. Streaming and podcasting are widely accepted now and used by Radio Liberty. Furthermore, hybrid text and sound websites are well-established models which Radio Liberty already follows. None of those models require cutting loose the journalists that have won Radio Liberty a distinguished reputation and loyal audience.

CUSIB is appalled by accusations of slander against some of these fired employees for criticizing the actions of RFE/RL management. President Putin has recently signed a law reimposing large fines for slander. Such accusations alone stifle free debate.

CUSIB appeals to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to intervene on behalf of these brave men and women, who were subjected to a humiliating treatment by their American mangers, and to defend the sense of mission and reputation of this U.S. taxpayer-supported institution.

The letter of protest, signed by Russia’s most famous human rights leaders, was sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Congress.

The letter was also addressed to Senator Benjamin Cardin who is Co-Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which also is referred to as the U.S. Helsinki Commission. The commission is a U.S. Government agency that monitors progress in the implementation of the provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords and works to address and assess democratic, economic, and human rights developments. Its other Co-Chairman is Rep. Chris Smith.

For further information, please contact:

Ann Noonan, co-founder and Executive Director

Tel. 646-251-6069


Ted Lipien, co-founder

Tel. 415-793-1642

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. www.cusib.org

As co-founder and director of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) and Free Media Online, independent journalist and former Voice of America (VOA) acting associate director, I am deeply troubled by news reports — which VOA has not denied — that a Broadcasting Broad of Governors (BBG) official, Voice of America Executive Editor Steve Redisch, has written to the United Nations requesting that the U.N. press accreditation of independent journalist Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press be reviewed.

I take no position on any professional or private disputes between Mr. Matthew Russell Lee and a Voice of America correspondent and other reporters at the U.N. I am concerned, however, by Mr. Matthew Russell Lee’s complaint that a U.S. government official did not attempt to redress a grievance from this U.S. citizen-journalist but instead tried to influence the United Nations to withdraw his press access.

It is a rare occurrence these days for an official of the United States government to interfere with the independent media. It is unprecedented for an executive of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Voice of America — the U.S. federal agency set up to defend freedom of the press abroad and its premier news organization that speaks to the world on behalf of all Americans — to request that any journalist, American or foreign, be denied easy access to sources and information.

I am concerned that such actions harm Voice of America’s decades-strong reputation as a supporter of freedom of expression and undermine morale among VOA employees who are proud of their mission in defense of free media. If successful, these actions will hamper Mr. Matthew Russell Lee’s well-documented ability to report on government and private sector corruption and to advocate on behalf of the poor and the oppressed in the United States and abroad.

I respectfully urge the Board members, the BBG’s International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Director Richard Lobo and Voice of America Director David Ensor to look into this matter and take appropriate actions to reconfirm the Agency’s and VOA’s commitment to media freedom and transparency. I also urge that Mr. Matthew Russell Lee’s First Amendment rights be fully respected, including his right to petition the government without a fear of reprisals.

Ted Lipien
Co-Founder and Director
Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting

Smith-Mundt Act Modifications Lack Protections Against Abuse

by Ted Lipien

While the independent, nonpartisan Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting supports some changes in the Smith-Mundt Act, we and many other media freedom advocates share grave concerns that officials of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) will use the new legislation to abandon some foreign audiences under the rule of repressive regimes in other countries to focus more on the US media market and on domestic public relations. This bill empowers government bureaucrats without placing on them any meaningful restraints or offering clear rules on how the law should be implemented. If it is not modified, the proposed law can potentially lead to tremendous abuse, diminished ability to inform and influence foreign public opinion and, above all, to wasting of taxpayers’ money.

The lack of clarity in the current bill presents a real threat because of the BBG’s track record in seeking easy higher audience ratings abroad by downplaying hard news and human rights reporting. BBG officials have been eliminating or trying to eliminate Voice of America (VOA) broadcasting services to countries like Russia and China and are focusing instead on providing lifestyle and educational content. The new legislation will make it easier for these officials to divert money and other resources from serving foreign audiences with comprehensive analysis of current events to producing easy to place programs, not just for foreign but also for domestic broadcasters.

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting believes this is not how US taxpayers want their money to be spent. Most taxpayers are willing to support uncensored newscasts to help victims of human rights abuses living under oppressive regimes in other countries, especially if they know that these programs also enhance US national security. We doubt that they would also want to pay for producing lifestyle programs for either international or domestic audiences at the expense of news. Taxpayers should not be paying for marketing of such programs, even overseas, if they are not part of a comprehensive broadcast focused primarily on news and current affairs. When news broadcasts are being eliminated by BBG officials to pay, for example, for English teaching videos, US taxpayers have a good reason to be concerned.

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting is also concerned that the same officials will try to place restrictions on how BBG programs can be reused domestically. Currently, Voice of America programs are in the public domain, but Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) content is not. The proposed legislation should clearly state that all BBG programs, including those produced by the so-called “grantee” organizations like RFE/RL but paid for entirely by American taxpayers, are in public domain and can be used free of charge if they can be obtained from the Internet and directly from satellite, or when they are picked up from terrestrial radio and television transmissions.

These concerns about transparency and accountability are not merely academic. BBG officials are already trying to weaken public and Congressional scrutiny by, for example, attempting to eliminate the requirement that the new proposed CEO position at the BBG be subject to Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. They also want to bureaucratize the surrogate-grantee broadcasters, including RFE/RL and Radio Free Asia (RFA), by forcing them to merge. There is already a very strong push by BBG officials to limit public monitoring of their performance.

Who will keep an eye on the BBG if the agency is allowed to broadcast, publish and advertise in the US?

There is also the possibility that more rebroadcasts on US domestic stations may expose, for example, a pro-Kremlin bias in VOA Russian programs, which was reported last year in a BBG’s own analysis commissioned from an independent media scholar and pro-democracy journalist living in Russia. If BBG broadcasts are good, their domestic use, on the other hand, can increase their visibility and win greater public support for US international broadcasting. That would be a good thing, in our opinion. But the Smith-Mundt Act modifying legislation in its current form gives government bureaucrats far too much power without placing any restraints on how they can use it. And it is not just the Broadcasting Board of Governors that is affected by this bill, but also the Pentagon and the State Department.

There is a real danger that some of the provisions of this law will be misused by the Broadcasting Board of Governors officials. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA) has recently written a letter to some of his colleagues in Congress accusing the BBG of being “opaque in its decision making and incredibility tone deaf to Congressional priorities.” Rep. Rohrabacher was commenting on the BBG decision to replace two hours of live VOA Mandarin radio broadcasts with repeat programming with no live newscasts while the fate of blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng was still hanging in the balance. BBG officials had assured his staff earlier that they would not be making any substantive changes in VOA Mandarin programs. Rep. Rohrabacher is not alone in criticizing BBG officials for their lack of transparency and accountability. Other Republicans and Democrats in Congress have voiced similar criticism.

The Smith-Mundt Act modifying legislation should make it clear that the BBG is not allowed to actively market their programs domestically, target any specific groups of Americans, and spend taxpayers’ money on domestic advertising. The legislation should also make it clear that the BBG should not be allowed to claim any domestic audiences in their performance reports or to conduct market research in the US using public funds. If they are allowed to feed and measure the domestic market, that is where taxpayers’ money will go rather than serving international audiences. The law and subsequent regulations should also make it absolutely clear that the BBG is not allowed to own or operate any domestic stations,  to favor one station over another or to sign rebroadcasting agreements with domestic broadcasters. 

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting, however, supports the idea that Americans should have full, unrestricted access to BBG programs if they want them. In fact, the current law does not prevent individual American citizens and US broadcasters from using Voice of America programs if they can find them. Most are on the Internet, and the argument that the current law prevents a station in Minnesota from rebroadcasting VOA Somali radio programs to the local Somali expatriate community is somewhat misleading. The current law does prevent the BBG from making these programs available to those who request them, but they can still legally use them if they can find them on their own, for example, by downloading them from the Internet.

Still, that part of the current law that prevents the BBG from assisting those in the United States who request these programs should be changed. The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting also supports a clarification that all BBG-produced content is in public domain and can be used by anyone abroad or in the United States free of charge.

But allowing the BBG to market their programs in the US without any restrictions is a dangerous idea because it counts on government bureaucrats to restrain themselves on their own. There is a real danger that they will take advantage of this law, if it passes, to divert public money from critical news and information projects in countries lacking free and balanced media to use for their own domestic PR projects and on themselves. If not modified, this bill will lead to wasting of taxpayers’ money at home and to weakening US public diplomacy and national security interests abroad.

Ted Lipien
Former Voice of America Acting Associate Director
Co-founder and Director of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting
CUSIB – www.CUSIB.org
Free Media Online Founder and President
www.freemediaonline.org

“I always love reading your very insightful posts.  You have great information!!

I’ve been struck by the frequent references to the former CNN employees now running BBG.

Has anyone at BBG looked at CNN’s ratings recently?  Is that really the model BBG wants to emulate???

Keep up the good work.”

CNN’s ratings may also explain why so many CNN employees have ended up at BBG. That, and former BBG Chairman and former CNN CEO Walter Isaacson.

This may also explain the current push for creating a CEO position at the BBG and to avoid filling it with a presidential appointee who would require a Senate confirmation. That job was being initially created for Isaacson’s former CNN associate Steven Korn who became president of RFE/RL. His “old white guys” comment and management practices at RFE/RL, such as replacing journalists in all top managerial positions with non-journalists, may have doomed his chances. But former CNN employees already hired are in turn hiring their former CNN colleagues as government workers and contractors. We don’t refer here to VOA Director David Ensor, also formerly with CNN. Ensor is an accomplished journalist who has a reputation of being an honest and fair manager.

Mrs. Lantos’s April 4, 2012 letter to the BBG begins:

“I write in support of Voice of America radio and television broadcasting, particularly to China, Tibet and Russia. In addition, I write in support of the efforts of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting. The CUSIB works to ensure that U.S. government-funded broadcasts promote respect for human rights and freedom of the press, especially in nations where these basic freedoms are under attack.”

Annette Lantos is the Chairman of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice.

Her late husband Tom Lantos (February 1, 1928 – February 11, 2008) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 until his death and a powerful champion of human rights around the world. In speaking before the House of Representatives after his death, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that Lantos “devoted his public life to shining a bright light on the dark corners of oppression. . . He used his powerful voice to stir the consciousness of world leaders and the public alike.” U2 lead singer Bono called him a “prizefighter,” whose stamina would make him go “any amount of rounds, with anyone, anywhere, to protect human rights and common decency.”

The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice describes Annette Lantos’ role as her late husband’s partner in the struggle for human rights:

“For almost 30 years, Tom and Annette Lantos worked together in the Congress, fighting for the human rights and dignity of people in every corner of the world. This commitment to human rights was a shared passion, born out of their joint experience as Holocaust survivors. With colleagues on both sides of the aisle, they co-founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and waged many important legislative battles. After his death, Congress permanently established the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which continues the work of The Human Rights Caucus.”

Click here for more information about Mrs. Lantos’ pro-human rights activities.

Annette Lantos

228 Justice Court, NE #B Washington, DC 20002

Members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors

330 Independence Avenue
Washington, DC 20237

To Whom It May Concern:

I write in support of Voice of America radio and television broadcasting, particularly to China, Tibet and Russia. In addition, I write in support of the efforts of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting. The CUSIB works to ensure that U.S. government-funded broadcasts promote respect for human rights and freedom of the press, especially in nations where these basic freedoms are under attack.

I write to you on a personal basis to express dismay that Voice of America radio and television broadcasts to Russia ceased in 2008. I am deeply concerned that although last year’s proposed cuts of VOA Mandarin and Cantonese radio and television programs were halted, this year’s proposal includes the elimination of VOA Cantonese services and VOA Tibetan Radio Services, at a time when there is significant unrest in Tibet. I urge you to continue the Cantonese and Tibetan broadcasts, and to restore them to Russia.

I well remember as a girl in Nazi-occupied Hungary, how every Sunday afternoon my family would draw the shades, close the curtains, and gather around the shortwave radio, pressing our ears close so that we could catch each precious word of freedom and hope that poured out of that radio receiver like manna from heaven. We had to strain to hear over the static caused by Nazi attempts to block the signal, but we were grateful to do so, because these words of truth were pure gold in the ubiquitous mire of Nazi propaganda. The VOA and BBC broadcasts were our one connection to freedom, our one connection to hope, and our lifeline that gave the resistance the courage to endure to the end. The VOA broadcasts fanned the fires of resistance in the brave underground fighters who sought to destroy the brutal Nazi totalitarianism from within. To cut off the VOA broadcasts would have been to cut off the very legs of the resistance. The same is true today in nations ruled by totalitarian regimes.

Now, the people of China and Tibet are suffering at the hands of a brutal, heartless regime. They also cannot speak openly without fear of punishment. The Chinese Communist Party seeks to maintain complete control over the information available to the people of China and Tibet. The CCP blocks the Internet and controls the flow of information, distorting the truth and promoting distrust of America. VOA has been the voice of freedom and democracy in China for 70 years. It is highly respected, even venerated, in China. Human rights activists like Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo and Chinese campaigner for women’s rights Chen Guangcheng languish in prison and under house arrest. VOA broadcasts may be the only link with the free world for their families and supporters.

Millions of Cantonese speaking and Mandarin speaking Chinese people depend on VOA daily as their lifeline to the light of truth, freedom and hope. Millions of Tibetans also depend upon VOA’s Tibetan radio broadcasts. Radio reaches hundreds of millions who are too poor to afford television or the Internet, especially in rural China and Tibet.

Further, VOA radio and satellite television serve to counter anti-American propaganda in the most powerful way, giving a positive view of America, which is so necessary during this time of increasing Chinese militarism and anti-American militancy. Thus, these broadcasts are important to our national security.

I know that my late husband, Congressman Tom Lantos, would have fought to save the VOA Russian, Tibetan, and Cantonese Broadcast Services — to use all available means to deliver uncensored news, hope and encouragement to those seeking freedom. How could I do any less?

Recent pro-democracy protests around the world and attempts to suppress them show that giving up radio and television broadcasting to rely exclusively on the Internet would be a mistake, because the Internet can so easily be monitored and blocked. I commend the CUSIB’s efforts to urge the Broadcasting Board of Governors to maintain broadcasting – especially Voice of America radio and television broadcasting – into China and Tibet, and to restore it to Russia.

Sincerely,

Annette Lantos

To read the entire letter by Annette Lantos click here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ted Lipien

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

Voice of America is celebrating its 70th anniversary amid devastating programming cuts being imposed by the Broadcadting Board of Governors. One of the programs scheduled for elimination are VOA radio broadcadts to Tibet. The BBG also wants to close down the VOA Cantonese Service.

The VOA HISTORY was written in the early 2000s by the VOA external affairs office.

VOA HISTORY

In 1939, the American playwright Robert Sherwood, who would become a speechwriter for President Franklin Roosevelt and later, the “father of the Voice of America,” predicted the impact of international broadcasting when he said:

“We are living in an age when communication has achieved fabulous importance. There is a new decisive force in the human race, more powerful than all the tyrants. It is the force of massed thought-thought which has been provoked by words, strongly spoken.”

In that year, the United States was the only world power without a government-sponsored international radio service. The Netherlands had been the first country to direct regularly-scheduled broadcasts beyond its own borders, inaugurating shortwave programming to the Far East in 1927. Seeing radio as an instrument of foreign policy, the Soviet Union built a radio center in Moscow and was broadcasting in 50 languages and dialects by the end of 1930. Italy and Great Britain started their respective “empire services” in 1932, followed by France the next year. Nazi Germany built a massive network of transmitters in 1933 and began to beam hostile propaganda into Austria. The same year Berlin started shortwave broadcasts to Latin America. Meanwhile, Japan was using radio to promote its national ambitions in the Far East.

Despite the efforts of many prominent figures, including New York Congressman Emmanuel Celler (who introduced bills in 1937, 1938, and 1939 to create a government station that could respond to German propaganda), the United States entered the 1940s with no plans to establish an official U.S. presence on the international airwaves. The United States’ shortwave resources consisted of just over a dozen low-powered, commercially owned and operated transmitters.

In 1941, several of these private transmitters were leased by the U.S. Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs (CIAA) to broadcast to Latin America. In mid-1941, President Roosevelt established the U.S. Foreign Information Service (FIS) and named speechwriter Sherwood as its first director. Driven by his belief in the power of ideas and the need to communicate America’s views abroad. Sherwood rented space for his headquarters in New York City, recruited a staff of journalists, and began producing material for broadcast to Europe by the privately-owned American shortwave stations. Sherwood also talked with officials in London about the prospect for relaying FIS material over the facilities of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

With Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany’s declaration of war against the United States, Sherwood moved into high gear. He asked John Houseman, the theatrical producer, author, and director, to take charge of FIS radio operations in New York City.

In December 1941, FIS made its first direct broadcasts to Asia from a studio in San Francisco. On February 24, 1942–just 79 days after the United States entered World War II–FIS beamed its first broadcast to Europe via BBC medium- and long-wave transmitters. Announcer William Harlan Hale opened the German-language program with the words: “Here speaks a voice from America.” The name took hold, and within a few months, it became the signature introduction on all Foreign Information Service broadcasts. From that moment, America had found its “voice” abroad. 
 

LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD

From the beginning, VOA promised to tell its listeners the truth, regardless of whether the news was good or bad. As John Houseman said later, “In reality, we had little choice. Inevitably the news that the Voice of America would carry to the world in the first half of 1942 was almost all bad. As Japanese invasions followed one another with sickening regularity and the Nazi armies moved ever deeper into Russia and the Near East, we would have to report our reverses without weaseling. Only thus could we establish a reputation for honesty which we hoped would pay off on that distant but inevitable day when we would start reporting our own invasions and victories.”

By June 1942, VOA was growing rapidly and had a new organizational home–the Office of War Information (OWI). Twenty-three transmitters had been constructed and 27 language services were on the air when the Allied summit took place in Casablanca. 
 

THE POST-WAR BLUES

As the war drew to a close, however, many of VOA’s broadcast services were reduced or eliminated. Then in late 1945, a State Department-appointed committee of private citizens chaired by Columbia University professor Arthur McMahon advised that the U.S. Government could not be “indifferent to the ways in which our society is portrayed to other countries.” Consequently, on December 31, 1945, the VOA’s and CIAA’s broadcast services to Latin America were transferred to the Department of State, and Congress reluctantly appropriated funds for their continued operation in 1946 and 1947.

The reluctant support for international broadcasting disappeared in 1948. That year, members of Congress were heavily influenced by the escalation of the Cold War and hostile international broadcasting by the Soviet Union and Soviet-controlled countries. The Berlin Blockade in 1948 confirmed the need for an American radio voice to the world. The enactment of the Smith-Mundt Act that year permanently established America’s international informational and cultural exchange programs, a function VOA had already been carrying out for the past six years on its own. 
 

A VOICE OF FREEDOM OR FEAR

For the next two years, officials in the U.S. Government debated the proper role of America’s official international broadcasting service. Was it to report the news and reflect America, or was it to be used as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy and as a “weapon” against the Soviet Union? Congress saw it increasingly as fulfilling the latter role. With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, VOA added new language services and developed plans to construct transmitter complexes on both the east and west coasts of the United States.

In early 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy chaired several weeks of hearings to investigate programming and engineering practices at VOA and allegations that there were “subversives on the staff guilty of negligence favoring communism.” The inquiry also examined management practices and plans to build new VOA transmitters. While the charges of subversive activity were never proven, widespread dismissals and resignations followed. In the wake of the congressional hearings, VOA’s budget was reduced, the transmitter construction program was halted and a number of language services were terminated. 
 

A NEW BEGINNING

Even before the McCarthy hearings ended, however, a commission appointed by President Eisenhower had begun a review of U.S. foreign information activities, including the Voice of America. The commission, chaired by former President Herbert Hoover, concluded that these programs should be separated from the Department of State. On August 1, 1953, the United States Information Agency was established, and VOA became its single largest element. A year later, VOA moved its headquarters from New York City to its present site on Independence Avenue, S.W., not far from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

The crises in Hungary and Suez, the beginnings of American-Soviet summitry and the dawning of the space age in the late 1950s and the early 1960s offered new opportunities for VOA to provide reliable and comprehensive reporting of world events. New and creative programming reflecting America was introduced. In 1959, VOA inaugurated Special English-slow-paced, simplified English broadcasts-to facilitate comprehension for millions of listeners. 
 

THE STAMP OF APPROVAL

In 1960, USIA Director George Allen endorsed the VOA Charter that had been drafted by VOA staff members between 1958 and 1959 to put in writing a formal statement of principles that would govern VOA broadcasts. It reads:

The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio. To be effective, the Voice of America must win the attention and respect of listeners. These principles will therefore govern Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts.

(1) VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive.

(2) VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.

(3) VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.

In July 1976, Representative Bela Abzug and Senator Charles Percy sponsored legislation making the VOA Charter Public Law 94-350. President Gerald Ford signed the legislation on July 12, 1976. 
 

ACCEPTING THE CHALLENGE

A complete roster of the men and women who formed and nourished the Voice of America in its infancy, John Houseman recalled, “would reveal a collection of U.S.-born and foreign luminaries in their various fields-journalists, publishers, executives, actors, directors, economists, philosophers, poets, artists, musicians, educators, and financiers–of such celebrity in their past and future lives that it is almost impossible to believe they were all ever assembled under one ‘roof.’”

Twenty-five years later, former Director John Chancellor wrote, “There’s a peculiar sort of ramshackle excellence about the Voice of America. I came to work there with the standard conceptions and misconceptions of an outsider. I did think of it as a calm and dignified group of broadcasters. To my surprise, I found that I had misjudged the spirit-indeed, the clamor-that exists inside the Voice. It was like walking into a stately building to find the residents holding up the walls with broomsticks while carrying on a terrific argument. There is a fine, antic sense of madness about the place and after a year and a half of taking my turn at the broomstick, I view the Voice and its employees with a feeling of pride and affection.” He continued, “They are, to a remarkable degree, people of spirit and intelligence, whose passion is to represent the United States in the best possible manner.” 
 

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

In the 1960s and 1970s, VOA took giant steps toward becoming the world’s leading international broadcaster. During the tenure of Director Henry Loomis from 1958 to 1965, the VOA Charter was written, and technical facilities and programming for every part of the world were expanded.

When NBC newsman John Chancellor took up the reins in 1965, he promised that VOA broadcasts “would swing a little.” VOA began to produce livelier and more creative programs in both English and its language broadcasts. News-gathering resources were increased, making possible more live, on-the-scene reporting. In 1969, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, nearly 800 million people were tuned to the Voice or to the hundreds of stations around the world that were relaying VOA’s live coverage. In 1977, VOA became the first international broadcaster to use a full-time satellite circuit to deliver programming from its own studios to an overseas relay station-in this case, the VOA Arabic programs from Washington to the Voice transmitters on the Greek island of Rhodes.

During Kenneth Giddens’ tenure as director from 1969 to 1977, the longest of any VOA director, VOA dramatically enhanced its credibility through its straightforward reporting of two events that traumatized the nation–the war in Vietnam and the constitutional crises posed by Watergate. VOA’s reporting not only drew praise from the American press, but also from listeners in every part of the world, as tens of thousands wrote to express their admiration for VOA’s comprehensive and objective coverage.

The cessation of Soviet and Soviet-bloc jamming, which took place throughout the Cold War; an expanding audience in China; and the introduction of new and expanded programming for listeners in Iran, Afghanistan, and Poland were opening up vast new audiences for VOA. As Giddens had predicted, however, VOA’s potential to reach an ever-increasing number of the world’s citizens was being handicapped by insufficient resources. As the 1970s came to an end, the gap between VOA’s extensive programming requirements and the level of funding had led to serious deficiencies in both personnel and facilities. Almost every language service was short-staffed. It was not unusual to find translator-announcers working two and three weeks without a day off. VOA’s antiquated studios and master control complex were breaking down with increasing frequency despite the best efforts of a dedicated technical staff skilled in fabricating spare parts no longer manufactured.

Listeners in many parts of the world were complaining that VOA signals sounded weak and distorted. By the early 1980s, many VOA transmitters were more than thirty years old and some were over forty. Few were capable of producing the 500,000-watt signals being generated by VOA’s leading competitors. And the competition itself was increasing. In the mid-1980s, some 160 stations were crowding the international spectrum with upwards of 25,000 hours of programming a week. 
 

NO BETTER TIME THAN THE PRESENT

In 1983, VOA launched a $1.3 billion program to rebuild and modernize VOA programming and technical capabilities. However, due to government-wide budget constraints at the time, VOA was forced to reduce the funds devoted to this project. Despite less funding, major new and upgraded radio transmission facilities were completed in Botswana, Morocco, Thailand, Kuwait, and Sao Tome over the next several years. In Washington, nineteen “state-of-the-art” studios were constructed, a new Master Control complex was installed and a Network Control Center was built to coordinate and direct VOA’s domestic and overseas relay transmitter stations.

In 1985, Congress established a special service to Cuba known as Radio Marti, which broadcast news of that country. Although Radio Marti followed VOA editorial guidelines, it operated separately from the Voice and had its own Washington studios. A television service, TV Marti, went on the air in 1990, and in 1996, Radio and TV Marti began to transfer their operations to Miami. The move was completed in 1998.

VOA Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts were increased in 1989 to bring tens, and perhaps hundreds, of millions of Chinese listeners accurate reports of the pro-democracy movement that filled Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and the streets of dozens of Chinese cities. In the fall and winter, VOA reported the historic changes that were sweeping Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union-changes that some have ascribed, at least in part to the Voice and other western international broadcasters. And with the arrival of the 1990s, VOA Russian covered the attempted August 1991 coup against then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the same year.

Following the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S.) and the collapse of communist governments throughout Eastern Europe, VOA continued a daily flow of news and information to the region. All of these newly formed governments have been trying, with varying degrees of success, to embrace democracy and its underlying principles. East European leaders such as the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel asked the West to help them understand how to establish the infrastructure of democratic institutions. VOA responded with programming designed to explain how democracy works in the West and how market economies function.

While there was a great need to maintain VOA broadcasts to the C.I.S. and Eastern Europe, the Voice of America continued to provide news and information to people in other parts of the world. On March 25, 1991, VOA launched a 15-minute Tibetan program, which the Chinese government promptly started to jam. Kurdish-language broadcasts to listeners in Iraq and Iran went on the air on April 25, 1992. Somali broadcasts started on December 27, 1992, but were discontinued shortly after the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from that country.

In response to the breakup of the former Yugoslavia into several republics in 1991, VOA divided its Yugoslav Service into two separate language services–Croatian and Serbian–on February 21, 1993. Both services expanded their broadcast hours to the region and, along with VOA’s Slovene Service, maintained a constant flow of news and information to listeners in the Balkans. A Bosnian Service was added in 1996 and a Macedonian Service in 1999.

VOA also established a network of Croatian and Serbian local radio stations to carry VOA-produced programming. On October 1, 1996, Radio 101 FM began to carry VOA Croatian, making it the first station in Zagreb to include programming from an international broadcaster in its schedule. That same year, VOA Serbian increased its daily broadcasts to two and a half hours when it added a 30-minute, medium wave broadcast.

A live 15-minute VOA Bosnian “feed” service, which was transmitted to local radio stations via satellite, was established on April 22, 1996. VOA later increased the Bosnian-language program to 30 minutes and launched the direct broadcasts in Bosnian late the same year.

When the Milosevic government in Belgrade banned broadcasts of Radio B-92 and other independent local radio stations on December 3, 1996, VOA included reports on its newscasts from stringers in Belgrade, many of whom also worked for Radio B-92. Realizing that it could not stifle the flow of information, the Milosevic government allowed Radio B-92 to resume broadcasts two days later on December 5. On the same day that B-92 resumed its broadcasts, VOA began pilot simulcasts on radio and TV of its 11:30 p.m. (Serbian local time) newscast. The program is relayed by Serbian independent TV stations with a potential viewership of four million.

On July 15, 1996, the Voice of America added broadcasts in Tigrigna and Oromiffa–its 49th and 50th languages–for listeners in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Tigrigna is one of the working languages of the independent nation of Eritrea, and Oromiffa is spoken by the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. The two languages joined VOA Amharic, which has been on the air since 1982.

On the same day, VOA introduced Kirundi- and Kinyarwanda-language programming for listeners in conflict-ridden Central Africa. VOA, which was already broadcasting in English, French, and Swahili to the region, increased its audience. With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the two services–VOA’s 51st and 52nd languages–went on the air on July 15, 1996 with a 30-minute weekday program. The following November they expanded the show to seven days a week and one month later increased their Saturday and Sunday programs to one hour.

VOA also established refugee hotlines in both the Balkans and Central Africa in 1996. VOA Serbian and Croatian launched their hotline on August 14, and Kirundi and Kinyarwanda on November 30. VOA language broadcasts to both regions offered listeners a means through which they could be reunited with friends and family separated by war and personal hardship.

When citizens in Tirana and other Albanian cities protested the proliferation of illegal financial schemes in February 1997, VOA Albanian broadcasts were a prime source of news for the people of that country. By March 1997, the crisis had deteriorated into civil conflict, and the Albanian government cut off VOA Albanian program feeds to local affiliate stations in Tirana, Elbasan, Gjirokaster, Shkoder, and Kukes for a short time. VOA expanded its broadcast hours both on shortwave and medium wave at the height of the crisis to provide the maximum news possible to the people of Albania.

In 1997, an agreement signed between the International Broadcasting Bureau and Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company (AsiaSat) gave the Voice of America and other U.S. Government civilian international broadcasters access to AsiaSat 2, a satellite with a footprint reaching more than sixty percent of the world’s population. Now, by satellite, VOA, WORLDNET Television and Film Service, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty provide 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service to listeners and viewers in more than 53 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Australia, and much of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Affiliated stations and listeners and viewers using small satellite dishes are able to receive stereo radio and television programming. 
 

THE CHANGING FACE OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING IN THE 1990S

Starting in 1990, all U.S. Government international broadcasting services began to work more closely together. That year the U.S. Information Agency, then VOA’s parent Agency, established the Bureau of Broadcasting to consolidate its three broadcasting services–the Voice of America, WORLDNET Television and Film Service, and Radio and TV Marti–into one cohesive and efficient element, supported by a single Office of Engineering and Technical Operations.

In 1991, the Bureau created the Office of Affiliate Relations and Audience Analysis (later renamed the Office of Affiliate Relations and Media Training in 1996) to establish and maintain a network of “affiliated” radio and TV stations around the globe that would broadcast VOA- and WORLDNET-produced programs. Today, more than 1,200 radio and TV stations receive programming through the Office of Affiliate Relations.

The Office of Business Development was established in 1994 to work with the private sector on a wide range of ventures, including the possible privatization of VOA language services, procurment of corporate underwriting for broadcasts, co-productions with major broadcast networks and fundraising from various foundations. (These initiatives benefit not only VOA, but also WORLDNET Television and Film Service and Radio and TV Marti.) From 1994 through 1996, the office raised $4 million.

U.S. Government international broadcasting was consolidated even further when President Clinton signed the International Broadcasting Act (Public Law 103-236) on April 30, 1994. The legislation established the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) within the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and created a Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) with oversight authority over all non-military U.S. government international broadcasting. The Voice of America, WORLDNET Television and Film Service and Radio and TV Marti–the three federally-funded services of the former Bureau of Broadcasting–along with the Office of Engineering and Technical Services, comprise the IBB. The bipartisan BBG includes the USIA Director (ex officio) and eight members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The first Broadcasting Board of Governors was sworn in on August 11, 1995.

The BBG oversees VOA, the WORLDNET Television Service, Radio and TV Marti, and the Office of Engineering and Technical Services along with two grantee international broadcast services–Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA). (RFA was established under the 1994 legislation.) RFE/RL and RFA are private, non-profit corporations that receive annual congressionally appropriated grants from the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

The International Broadcasting Act also centralized the Office of Engineering and Technical Services within IBB, making it responsible for planning and maintaining broadcast facilities for VOA, WORLDNET, and Radio and TV Marti as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. Transmitter sites that had formerly broadcast RFE/RL programs to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were integrated into a single network operated by the IBB Engineering.

In 1998, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act (Public Law 105-277), mandating the the Broadcasting Board of Governors become an independent federal entity on October 1, 1999 and giving it supervisory authority over the International Broadcasting Bureau, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia. The legislation also abolished the U.S. Information Agency, whose functions were merged into the U.S. State Department.

INNOVATIONS FOR A NEW CENTURY

Although historically an international radio broadcaster, VOA began to simulcast programs on radio and TV in the mid-1990s. The first, China Forum TV, aired on September 18, 1994. This one-hour Mandarin telecast was beamed into the Peoples’ Republic of China by satellite. Two years later, VOA’s Arabic Branch teamed up with WORLDNET Television Service and the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC) in London to launch Dialogue With the West. The success of these two programs encouraged VOA, with the assistance of WORLDENT Television, to build the new TV Studio 47 at its headquarters. The first program telecast from Studio 47 on October 18, 1996 was a Farsi simulcast. Today, VOA simulcasts programming in Albanian, Bosnian, Chinese (Mandarin), English, Farsi, Serbian and Spanish.

In 1994, the Voice of America became the first international broadcaster to offer its material through the Internet. Initially, the site offered information through two simple text-based formats, and in 1996, VOA added a Web Page. Today, the VOA Web site offers the VOA newswire, program schedules (times, frequencies, and satellite circuits), VOA Chinese-language program scripts, and background information about VOA language services and other civilian U.S. Government broadcast services. The site also contains audio files for all 53 VOA language services. 
 

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

VOA will continue to examine new technologies and refine its programming to reflect the needs of its listeners. One goal remains, however, for the hundreds of professionals who make up the Voice of America-to deliver comprehensive, timely truthful information. The VOA will continue to broadcast the sounds of freedom and serve as a beacon of hope for its millions of listeners around the world. 
 

VOICE OF AMERICA DIRECTORS

The Voice of America’s first organizational home was the U.S. Foreign Information Service, which later became the overseas branch of the Office of War Information. FIS’ first director was Robert E. Sherwood; Joseph Barnes was his deputy and chief of the New York Office. 
  
  

JOHN HOUSEMAN 
February 1942 – July 1943

LOUIS G. COWAN 
August 1943 – August 1945

JOHN OGILVIE 
September 1945 – January 1946

CHARLES THAYER 
January 1948 – October 1949

FOY DAVID KOHLER 
October 1949 – September 1952

ALFRED MORTON 
October 1952 – April 1953

LEONARD ERIKSON 
July 1953 – April 1954

JOHN R. POPPELE 
May 1954 – July 1956

ROBERT E. BUTTON 
July 1956 – July 1958

HENRY LOOMIS 
July 1958 – March 1965

JOHN CHANCELLOR 
August 1965 – June 1967

JOHN CHARLES DALY 
September 1967 – June 1968

KENNETH R. GIDDENS 
September 1969 – April 1977

R. PETER STRAUS 
July 1977 – October 1979

MARY BITTERMAN 
March 1980 – January 1981

JAMES CONKLING 
August 1981 – March 1982

JOHN HUGHES 
March 1982 – August 1982

KENNETH TOMLINSON 
December 1982 – September 1984

GENE PELL 
June 1985 – October 1985

RICHARD W. CARLSON 
November 1986 – September 1991

CHARLES UNTERMEYER 
September 1991 – January 1993

GEOFFREY COWAN 
March 1994 – November 1996

EVELYN S. LIEBERMAN 
March 1997 – May 1999

SANFORD J. UNGAR 
June 1999 – July 2001

ROBERT R. REILLY 
October 2001 –

This official VOA History was written in the early 2000s.

VOICE OF AMERICA LANGUAGE SERVICES

Today, VOA broadcasts in 53 languages to listeners in every world region. Other language programs are produced for transmission via satellite to foreign stations. Languages that predate February 1942 began under the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs and the Foreign Information Service.

* indicates a language currently on VOA’s broadcast schedule.

** indicates a VOA feed service, which provides VOA-produced programming to local radio stations

Afan Oromo* 1996 to present 
Afrikaans 1942 to 1949 
Albanian* 1943 to 1945; 1951 to present 
Amharic* 1982 to present 
Amoy 1941 to 1945; 1951 to 1963 
Annamese See Vietnamese 
Arabic* 1942 to 1945; 1950 to present 
Armenian* 1951 to present 
Azerbaijani* 1951 to 1953; 1982 to present 
Bangla* 1958 to present 
Bosnian* 1996 to present 
Bulgarian* 1942 to present 
Burmese* 1943 to 1945; 1951 to present 
Byelorussian 1956 to 1957 
Cambodian See Khmer 
Cantonese* 1941 to 1945; 1949 to 1963; 1987 to present 
Chinese See Mandarin and Cantonese 
Creole* 1987 to present 
Croatian* 1943 to present 
Czech* 1942 to present 
Danish 1942 to 1945 
Dari* 1980 to present 
Dutch 1944 to 1945 
English* 1942 to present 
Estonian* 1951 to present 
Farsi* 1942 to 1945; 1949 to 1960; 1964 to 1966 (radio feed service); 1979 to present 
Finnish 1942 to 1945; 1951 to 1953 
Flemish 1942 to 1945 
French* (to Africa) 1960 to present 
French (to France) 1942 to 1961 
Georgian* 1951 to present 
German 1942 to 1960; 1991 to 1993 
Greek* 1942 to present 
Gujarati 1956 to 1958 
Hakka 1951 to 1954 
Hausa* 1979 to present 
Hebrew 1951 to 1953 
Hindi* 1951 to 1953; 1954 to present 
Hungarian* 1942 to present 
Icelandic 1944 
Indonesian* 1942 to present 
Italian 1942 to 1945; 1951 to 1957 
Japanese 1942 to 1945;1951 to 1962 
Javanese See Indonesian 
Khmer* 1955 to 1957; 1962 to present 
Kirundi* 1996 to present 
Kinyarwanda* 1996 to present 
Korean* 1942 to present 
Kurdish * 1992 to present 
Lao* 1962 to present 
Latvian* 1951 to present 
Lithuanian* 1951 to present 
Malayan 1951 to 1955 
Malayalam 1956 to 1961 
Mandarin* 1941 to present 
Macedonian* 1999 to present 
Nepali 1992 to 1993 
Norwegian 1942 to 1945 
Pashto* 1982 to present 
Persian See Farsi 
Polish* 1942 to present 
Portuguese* (to Africa) 1976 to present 
Portuguese* (to Latin America) 1941 to 1945; 1946 to 1948 (contracted private radio stations to produce and transmit programs to Latin 
America); 1961 to 2001 
Portuguese (to Portugal) 1942 to 1945; 1951 to 1953; 1976 to 1987; 1987 to 1993 (VOA-produced programs for placement on local radio stations) 
Romanian* 1942 to present 
Russian* 1947 to present 
Serbian* 1943 to present 
Shanghai (Wu) 1944 to 1946 
Slovak* 1942 to present 
Slovene* 1944 to end of World War II; 1949 to present 
Somali 1992 to 1995 
Spanish* (to Latin America) 1941 to 1945; 1946 to i 948; and 1953 to 1956 (VOA contracted private radio stations to produce and transmit programs for Latin America); 1961 to present Spanish* (Radio Marti) 1985 to present 
Spanish (to Spain) 1942 to 1955; 1955 to 1993 (VOA provided placement programming for local Spanish radio stations) 
Swahili* 1962 to present 
Swatow 1951 to 1953 
Swedish 1943 to 1945 
Tagalog 1941 to 1946 
Tamil 1954 to 1970 
Tatar 1951 to 1953 
Telegu 1956 to 1958 
Thai** 1942 to 1958; 1962 to 1988; 1988 to present 
Tibetan* During 1950s on VOA Mandarin broadcasts; 1991 to present 
Tigrigna* 1996 to present 
Turkish* 1942 to 1945; 1948 to present 
Ukrainian* 1949 to present 
Urdu* 1951 to 1953; 1954 to present 
Uzbek* 1958; 1972 to present 
Vietnamese* 1943 to 1946; 1951 to present 
Wu See Shanghai

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ayish, Muhammad I. “The VOA Arabic Service: A Study of News Practices and Occupational Values.” Gazette, 40, no. 2 (1987): 121-130.

Borra Rajan. “The Problem of Jamming in International Broadcasting.” Journal of Broadcasting II, no. 4 (Fall 1967): 355-368.

Browne, Donald R. “The Voice of America Policies and Problems.” (Journalism Monographs, no. 43), Lexington, KY, Association for Education in Journalism, 1976.

Carlson, Richard W. “No More Static.” Policy Review (Winter 1988): 80-83.

Chancellor John. “The Intimate ‘Voice.’” Foreign Service Journal (February 1967): 19-22.

Coffey, Fred A. “Voice of America: A Viable Communications Instrument of Foreign Policy and National Security?” Research Paper, National War College, 1977.

Elliott, Kim A. “Too Many Voices of America.” Foreign Policy (Winter 1989/90): 113-131.

Fitzgerald, Merni Ingrassia. The Voice of America. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987.

Grey, Robin (pseud.). “Inside the Voice of America.” Columbia Journalism Review, 21 (May/June 1982): 23-30.

Handlery, G. “Propaganda and Information: The Case of U.S. Broadcasts to Eastern Europe.” East European Quarterly, 8 (January 1975): 391-412.

Houseman, John. Front and Center. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Inkeles, Alex. “The Soviet Characterization of the Voice of America.” Columbia Journal of International Affairs, 4, no. 1 (Winter 1950): 44-55.

Jurey, Philomena. A Basement Seat to History. Washington, .D.C.: Linus Press, 1995.

Kelly, Sean. “The VOA Correspondent: Journalist or Diplomat?” Foreign Service Journal, 44 (April 1978): 13-15, 39-41.

Kretzmann, Edwin M. J. “McCarthy and the Voice of America.” Foreign Service Journal, 44 (February 1967): 26-27, 44-49.

Matlack, Carol. “America’s Voice.” Government Executive, 23, no. 7 (July 1991): 10-11, 13.

McKenna, Paul R. “Vagabond Able.” (“Vagabond Able” was the S.S. Courier; a Coast Guard cutter stationed in Rhodes, Greece from 1952-1964, as a floating VOA radio station. It transmitted programs in sixteen languages to the Middle East and behind the Iron Curtain.) Naval History (Spring 1991): 25-29.

Piresein, Robert William. “An International Radio History… the VOA.” Foreign Service Journal, 44 (February 1967) 23-25; 50.

Piresein, Robert William. The Voice of America: a History of the International Broadcasting Activities of the United States Government 1940-1962. (Originally presented as the author’s thesis, Northeastern University, 1970.) New York: Arno Press, 1979.

Roberts, Chalmers M. “New Image for Voice of America.” New York Times Magazine (April 13, 1980): 107-112, 114.

Shulman, Holly C. “John Houseman and the Voice of America: American Foreign Propaganda on the Air.” American Studies (1988): 23-40.

Shulman, Holly Cowan. The Voice of America: Propaganda and Democracy 1941-1945. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.

Solzehitsyn, Aleksandr. “The Soft Voice of America.” National Review (April 30, 1982): 477-481.

“Voice of America at the Crossroads: A Panel Discussion of the Appropriate Role of the VOA.” Panel Proceedings. Washington, D.C., Media Institute (1982): 70.

Washburn, Philo C. “Voice of America and Radio Moscow Newscasts to the Third World.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 32, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 197-218.

Wada, Hadiza I. M. “Voice of America: an Inside Look at Its Africa Division.” M.A. Thesis, University of Kansas, 1989. 
  
  
 

The Voice of America–along with WORLDNET Television and Film Service, Radio and TV Marti, and the Office of Engineering and Technical Services–comprises the International Broadcasting Bureau, under the authority of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is a nine-member board, eight of whom are presidentially appointed, that oversees the International Broadcasting Bureau and two non-profit grantee corporations-Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. 
  
  

Produced by the 
Voice of America 
Office of External 
Affairs 
Writer/Editor 
George Mackenzie 
Art Director 
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In a Digital Journal news commentary, Op-Ed: America’s radios dancing to Putin’s tune in Moscow, former Voice of America acting associate director and journalist Ted Lipien revealed that Voice of America and Radio Liberty, funded by US taxpayers to promote media freedom abroad, self-censor news on two stations in Moscow to comply with Russian media law prior to Russia’s presidential elections on March 4.

Lipien reports that US government-funded media freedom broadcasters, Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, RFE RL), have resorted to self-censorship of their news to keep broadcasting on two leased radio stations in Moscow in the days leading up to Russian presidential elections.

Self-censorship affects only their radio newscasts on two AM Moscow transmitters, which are leased and paid for by the US government to rebroadcast VOA and RL programs. It does not extend to their other program delivery options, such as their websites.

Lipien reported that the newscasts on these stations were changed in response to a request from Russian operators of the transmitters who had warned that broadcasting political programming or poll results several days before the elections would violate Russian media law.

Because uncensored VOA and RL newscasts are still available online and, in the case of Radio Liberty, also through shortwave radio transmissions, a spokeswoman for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages and funds these two broadcasters, said that

the restrictions “do not interfere with the ability of the Voice of America or Radio Liberty to cover the elections or to carry on with their other duties.”

In the case of the Voice of America, however, removing news even from some broadcasts may violate Public Law 94-350, also known as the VOA Charter, which mandates that

“VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.” Furthermore, the law, also known as the VOA Charter, stipulates that “VOA news will be accurate, objective, and comprehensive.”

Removing certain news from certain Voice of America newscasts or eliminating newscasts altogether undermines the law’s requirement that VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news, BBG Watch concluded.

The BBG’s newly-hired director of communications Lynne Weil said in a response to an inquiry from Free Media Online, a US-based media freedom NGO, that

“the BBG and its content providers, including the many individuals who risk their lives to shine the light of truth on some of the world’s darkest corners, are fiercely protective of their journalistic independence and integrity, and vigilant about any obstacles – real or potential – to getting their work done.”

Lynne Weil further explained that

“The VOA Russian Service intends to report on the elections and update its website and blogs throughout the election cycle, without any restriction on its activities, BBG spokeswoman said. The VOA Russian Service prepares, however, a 30 minute radio program that gets broadcast Monday through Friday on another AM station in Moscow. The rest of VOA’s programming on the Moscow medium-wave station is in English.  Because the frequency is on a local lease, it is subject to the Russian law.  To comply, in the five days before the election the VOA English Service is making a  change to the 24/7 stream sent to Moscow —  replacing its five-minute hourly newscast with a pre-recorded segment that invites audiences to go online to VOANews.com for news and information about Russia and the world,” Lynne Weil said. “The remainder of English stream to Moscow is unchanged.”

Read Lipien’s full op-ed in Digital Journal Op-Ed: America’s radios dancing to Putin’s tune in Moscow

Link to Washington Examiner op-ed by Ted Lipien.

Ted Lipien, a former Voice of America (VOA) acting associate director, has been warning for some time that marketing and staffing policies pushed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) executives have changed the focus of VOA and other BBG broadcasters from serious, accurate and well balanced journalism to ratings-chasing entertainment and sloppy reporting produced by inexperienced, poorly paid, otherwise exploited, unsupervised and unedited contractors, many without any background in American life and media.

In his latest op-ed in The Washington Examiner, Lipien makes this point again. Anticipating the expected line of defense of BBG bureaucrats, who refuse to acknowledge the problem and dismiss a recent “fake” interview on the VOA Russian website and charges of “pro-Putin bias” as atypical, Lipien cites a study by a prominent independent Russian journalist and new media scholar Dr. Nikolay Rudenskiy who found not just one but many examples of the Voice of America Russian Service website giving prominence to pro-Putin and pro-Kremlin views and failing again and again to provide an American perspective on human rights and media freedom violations in Russia.

Lipien was also interviewed by NPR’s Michele Kelemen who reported that a recent webcast on the VOA Russian Service site included a long statement from a Putin supporter in Russia without an effective attempt to counter or balance his pro-Kremlin views.

U.S. taxpayers funding pro-Putin VOA programs – Ted Lipien – Washington Examiner
If American taxpayers had any idea what kind of messages Voice of America (VOA) is sending in their name and at their expense to Russia, they would be hopping mad.

Opposition leaders and independent journalists in Russia have warned that the VOA Russian website has a pro-Putin bias and downplays human rights reporting, but the latest scandal brings the harm to a new level. The VOA site posted a fake interview and embarrassed a leading Russian pro-democracy figure.

The VOA is funded by Americans to broadcast information programs to countries without free media. A leading Russian anti-corruption lawyer and Putin critic, Alexei Navalny, wrote a scathing Twitter comment accusing VOA of “going nuts.”

He dismissed the purported interview with him on the Russian website as “100 percent fake.” He further suggested that someone in Washington should start listening and “let all these guys go.”

The VOA Russian Service removed the interview and apologized to Navalny, no doubt hoping the scandal would soon blow over.

But the story was picked up by RIA Novosti news agency and other Russian media, which reported on it in Russian and English. Significantly, the VOA English website ignored the whole incident.

What we have here is not just an isolated journalistic flop. Russian opposition leaders have known for quite some time there is something fundamentally wrong with the VOA Russian website.

In early 2011, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a federal agency that runs VOA, commissioned a study from a highly respected independent journalist living in Russia.

He warned that the website favored a pro-Putin line. It even downplayed a human rights speech delivered in Moscow by Vice President Joseph Biden.

The BBG bureaucrats did not highlight this damning assessment to members of the bipartisan board or to the new VOA director, David Ensor. They told them instead that the Russian Service was doing a terrific job.

On the day the Russian Service editors were getting ready to post their apology, Ensor praised them for being a model of innovation.

The fake interview was obtained by a newly hired contractor from Russia through an exchange of emails.

Someone should have known that pro-Kremlin activists have broken into email accounts of many anti-Putin leaders, but an editor, also recently hired as a contractor, gave his approval instead of doing further checking.

Even after the Russian Service apologized to Navalny, some of its staffers continued a whispering campaign accusing him of giving the interview and then lying about it.

A pro-Putin bias and scurrilous accusations against a courageous human rights activist may explain what kind of journalists the BBG has been hiring recently to manage the Russian website.

Some of them had worked for the pro-Putin media in Russia. To make room for these poorly vetted and poorly paid contractors, BBG executives retired experienced editors.

These officials also told the Russian Service not to be too harsh on the Kremlin because, according to BBG audience surveys, most Russians don’t like it. And that’s bad for ratings, they said.

They allowed VOA websites to be hacked a number of times. And, they failed to tell the Board promptly about the latest incident.

The same BBG officials are also responsible for drafting a plan to restructure U.S. international broadcasting that will be soon presented to Congress.

And, guess what, it would give them more control and turn the agency into an NPR-like structure with both international and domestic programs. It amounts to asking American taxpayers to continue paying for Putin’s propaganda.

Their latest proposal calls for ending VOA radio broadcasts to Tibet. Congressional committees with oversight functions need to step in and clean the place up before these failed bureaucrats do even more damage to America’s reputation abroad.

Ted Lipien is a former VOA acting associate director and co-founder of the nongovernmental Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – www.CUSIB.org).

Link to the original article >> U.S. taxpayers funding pro-Putin VOA programs – Ted Lipien – Washington Examiner

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

In an article published in American Diplomacy, a quarterly electronic journal of commentary, analysis, and research on American foreign policy and its practice, the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) director Ted Lipien warns against diminished public stake in U.S. international broadcasting.

Lipien, a former acting associate director of the Voice of America, argues that de-federalizing VOA and limiting the independence and specialization of the surrogate broadcasters like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty would make them less effective in projecting American opinions and values overseas. Lipien wrote that the current culture at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which manages U.S. government-funded international broadcasts, at the top executive level favors salesmanship more than hard-hitting journalism in defense of human rights which many broadcasters try to practice.

In his article, Lipien describes the State Department’s interference with VOA radio programs to Poland in the early decades of the Cold War. While opposing any kind of government censorship of journalists, Lipien believes that U.S. international broadcasting can be more effective as part of a broader public diplomacy effort by the U.S. government that reflects long-term American interests, supports media freedom and human rights, and is subject to public scrutiny.

Read the original article here:

Interweaving of Public Diplomacy and U.S. International Broadcasting: A Historical Analysis by Ted Lipien

American Diplomacy also published an article by a former VOA executive Alan L. Heil Jr:

All Quiet on the Western Front? 2012 Challenges and Opportunities in the Five-Year Strategic Plan for U.S. International Broadcasting by Alan L. Heil Jr.

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.

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.

As these BBG bureaucrats undermine critical programs, weaken U.S. public diplomacy media outreach abroad and eliminate American jobs, they collect large salaries and pay themselves hefty bonuses. BBG official claim that countries like Croatia, a NATO member, do not need U.S. information programs provided by VOA, but they have also tried to cut or reduce such programs to countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China.

BBG Watch wants to thank one of our supporters who provided us with information how American taxpayers can easily check on the salaries and bonuses of BBG officials.

Link to salaries of federal employees, including BBG officials.

“If you go to the website datauniverse.com, then to Federal Employees in the Public Payroll section, then to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, you can see the salary of every employee and, more importantly, if they received bonuses. Nearly every manager on the 3rd floor (that is where most BBG executive offices are located in Washington, D.C.) received a large cash award for FY2010. Seriously, some of these guys make $170,000 a year and then take a 10-thousand dollar bonus! It is shameful.”

BBG executives close down Voice of America broadcasting services, pay themselves hefty bonuses

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) executives, who have closed down the Voice of America (VOA) Croatian radio, TV, and Internet broadcasting service the day before Thanksgiving, have paid themselves tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses over the last two years and are expected to receive more such payouts this year. The BBG has also asked OPM for approval to hire a public relations guru at a salary of about $150,000. The BBG already has a well-staffed public and Congressional relations department.

BBG Watch has also learned that one of the main architects of the closures of foreign language broadcasting services at VOA is to receive soon a $10,000 pay raise. He is a member of the team of executives responsible for an unprecedented bipartisan rebuke to the BBG in the U.S. Congress. Congressional committees blocked the plan to terminate VOA radio and TV broadcasts to China and charged that the BBG lacks good judgement and transparency.

But the Voice of America’s Croatian Service, which did not receive similar attention in Congress, signed for the last time Wednesday, after 19 years of broadcast history that began during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Rather than to keep broadcasting to Croatia even at a reduced level to serve U.S. public diplomacy needs, BBG officials closed down the service. VOA Director David Ensor is new to his job and may not yet fully realize that this latest move is part of a strategy of undermining Voice of America’s special role as a news and public diplomacy channel for the United States. One of the BBG’s earliest moves after the 9/11 terror attacks was to eliminate all Voice of America programs in Arabic.

While VOA has each year fewer and fewer broadcasts to be managed, not a single highly-paid VOA or BBG manager has been asked to leave or to take a pay cut. Instead, their numbers keep growing with the money for their salaries and bonuses generated by cutting essential programs and eliminating broadcasting positions within the organization.

A VOA press release states that “VOA Croatian’s five-minute TV NewsFlash was broadcast daily on eight affiliate stations and focused on American news of relevance to Croatian audiences, including business, science, American culture, and politics. The popular Breakfast Show, a roundup of US, Croatian and world news, aired on radio for 19 years, without a single day of interruption. An evening radio show aired on shortwave and ten affiliate FM stations in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

Executives who ordered the termination of VOA radio and TV broadcasts to China and Croatia have been rated in government-wide employee surveys among the worst managers in the federal workforce. They chose Valentine’s Day to inform VOA Chinese language service journalists that 45 of them will lose their jobs and picked the day before Thanksgiving to close down the Croatian service. They are well known for their holiday surprises for Voice of America employees

Called “VOA Silencers” for trying to fire 45 VOA journalists specializing in human rights reporting at the time of intensified Chinese government crackdown of freedom of expression, BBG executives are likely to collect yet another round of bonuses on top of their large salaries. One of the chief policy planners, who is paid over $150,000 a year, will be getting a $10,000 on top of $2,500 bonus received in FY2010. However, due partly to the fiasco in Congress over the China proposal, he is rumored to be asked to essentially do nothing but to collect his salary. Another official received $160,000 in salary and a $7,500 bonus in FY2010. A marketing specialist made over $165,000 and received an $7,500 bonus. Their boss, whose salary in FY2010 was $170,000, received a $10,000 bonus in addition to all the usual generous benefits that come with federal employment, including subsidized health insurance, vacation, and retirement.

The same officials are denying basic employment benefits to full time contract employees who now constitute 45 percent of VOA workforce. Because some of these executives switch jobs between the BBG, which is a federal agency, and private broadcasting 501(c)3 entities managed by the BBG, some collect hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in combined salary and retirement benefits, all paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

At the time when the U.S. economy is struggling, millions of Americans are unemployed, and millions more could only wish to be making even a small portion of what the Broadcasting Board of Governors executives are making, these officials have been eliminating American jobs and giving money to Internet companies that outsource their work overseas. They are also signing contracts with foreign advertising agencies in countries like Russia to help drive visitors to their websites while firing broadcast journalists and engineers employees by the BBG in the United States. They are planning to shut down the BBG Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina, and to put dozens of Americans out of work at this and at other broadcasting facilities and units.

BBG officials have also signed a contract with the giant consulting firm Deloitte, potentially worth $1.3 million. The contract is designed to give a blessing for their strategic plan, which they had already gotten BBG members to approve. It includes $150,000 in travel expenses. They also want to privatize the Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti. This action would put them in charge of yet another bureaucracy which would operate with fewer government restrictions and less oversight from Congress. Radio and TV Marti broadcast news to Cuba. The Cuban regime would welcome their privatization as a sign of the Obama Administration’s diminished support for democracy in Cuba.

BBG executives’ more immediate plan is to eliminate some of the journalistic and administrative independence that made U.S. government-funded stations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty successful in delivering highly-targeted news and defending human rights abroad. The merger plan would create a large corporate bureaucracy that would manage the BBG’s surrogate broadcasters: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Alhurra TV, and Radio Sawa. A top-ranking BBG official referred to some of the architects of RFE/RL’s surrogate radio operations as “old white guys” and wished for their quick departure.

Some of the members serving on the bipartisan Board, however, have begun to question the advice they are getting from the BBG executive staff. A senior Republican member, Ambassador Victor Ashe, expressed his opposition to extravagant spending by BBG bureaucrats while critical broadcasting operations are being eliminated or reduced and employees are denied basic benefits. During open BBG meetings, he received some support from a Democratic member Michael Meehan. Ashe announced that he plans to visit the Greenville transmitting station despite the objections of BBG officials who want to close it down.

BBG Chairman and former CNN executive Walter Isaacson, who was busy writing a biography of Steve Jobs, has allowed BBG bureaucrats to run the show without much supervision from the part-time Board. They developed a strategic plan to reflect Isaacson’s vision of privatizing the BBG and turning it into a CNN-like news agency. Critics say that the centralization of news gathering proposed under this plan would destroy the independence and the human rights focus of surrogate broadcasters like RFE/RL and Radio Free Asia (RFA).

Critics also say that privatization of the Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti would destroy their effectiveness as authoritative voices of the American government and the American people. American taxpayers would still have to pay for this new NPR-like structure, since the BBG staff wants to ask Congress to repeal the Smith-Mundt Act’s restrictions on the domestic distribution of BBG programs while still relying entirely for funding on Congressional appropriations. This is likely to cost U.S. taxpayers even more money than the current arrangement. Critics say that the BBG plan will weaken overseas broadcasts in support of democracy and human rights which are considered one of the essential non-military contributions to the war on terror and to countering anti-American propaganda.

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VOA/BBG Press Release:

VOA Ends Croatian Broadcasts

Washington, D.C., November 23, 2011 — Voice of America’s Croatian Service signs off for the last time Wednesday, after 19 years of broadcast history that began during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and ends with Croatia’s emergence as a democratic member of the European community.

VOA Director David Ensor called the service “a model of journalistic integrity that provided the people of Croatia with fair and impartial news during the dark days of civil war in the Balkans.” Ensor commended the service, which he said, “served as a vital source of independent reporting and insight into American policy.”

Voice of America established its Croatian Language Service on February 20, 1992, a time when the most brutal war since World War II was raging in the Balkans. Spun off from the former Yugoslav Service which had been broadcasting to the area since 1943, VOA Croatian broadcasts began on radio, but were quickly expanded into television. The service was one of VOA’s first to establish an online presence.

VOA Croatian’s five-minute TV NewsFlash was broadcast daily on eight affiliate stations and focused on American news of relevance to Croatian audiences, including business, science, American culture, and politics. The popular Breakfast Show, a roundup of US, Croatian and world news, aired on radio for 19 years, without a single day of interruption. An evening radio show aired on shortwave and ten affiliate FM stations in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In addition to news coverage, VOA Croatian served as a source of entertainment and cultural programming for more than a decade. Nearly 700 episodes of Saturday’s American Cultural Magazine were aired, with stories on leading entertainers, from blues guitar legend B.B. King, to Los Lobos, the Grammy-winning Los Angeles band that performed in Zagreb in 2010.

VOA Croatian Service Chief Zorz Crmaric called going off the air a “bittersweet moment” that comes as the country begins a new chapter in European integration. He noted Croatia is now a NATO member and is scheduled to join the European Union in 2013.

John Lenczowski, who as President Reagan’s Soviet affairs adviser was instrumental in increasing funding for Voice of America and Radio Free Europe broadcasts to Poland during Solidarity’s struggle for democracy, wrote in a Washington Times op-ed that by proposing to end VOA radio and TV transmissions to China, the Broadcasting Board of Governors “is about to renounce the most powerful form of ‘soft power’ we have over China: our ability to inform, inspire and connect with the Chinese public – the ordinary people whom the regime fears more than anything else – and help the Chinese people communicate with one another.

“As China’s increasing economic, espionage and military might threaten ever-greater influence over the United States, why would we even consider junking our most cost-effective leverage over the future of Chinese policy?,” asks John Lenczowski. He argues that if permitted to stand, the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors‘ proposal to eliminate Voice of America shortwave radio and satellite TV broadcasts to the Chinese people will harm our national security posture.

Lenczowski counters BBG arguments by pointing out that Radio Free Asia has a different mission than VOA. “It, like Radio Free Europe, is designed to serve as a ‘surrogate domestic free press’ whose programming concerns developments within China itself – news and information suppressed by the communist regime.”

The VOA has a separate and equally important mission, writes Lenczowski. “It explains U.S. policy and helps foreign audiences understand America. Both missions are essential and cannot effectively be melded into a single station.”

Lenczowski also quotes Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s and Lech Walesa’s comments on the importance of U.S. broadcasts. The Russian dissident said they were “the mightiest weapon that the United States possesses to create mutual understanding between America and the oppressed Russian people.” The Solidarity trade union leader had this to say after he became the first democratically-elected Polish President since WWII when asked about the impact of U.S. broadcasts on the pro-democracy movement in communist-rulled Poland: “Would there be life on earth without the sun?”

John Lenczowski is president of the Institute of World Politics, an independent graduate school of national security and international affairs in Washington, D.C. He is author of “Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy” (Lexington Books, 2011).

Read John Lenczowski’s op-ed “Don’t junk critical leverage over Beijing” in The Washington Times.