All posts tagged FSB

BBC to End Radio Broadcasts in Russian

By FreeMediaOnline | January 26, 2011 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

Русская служба Би-би-си существенно сократит количество радиопрограмм

The Russian Service of the BBC, which provides news and information to Russian-speaking audiences not only in Russia but also in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Ukraine and the Baltic States, will end its on-air radio broadcasts as part of a budget cutting move. The BBC announcement was made shortly after the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in Belarus and the terrorist attack in Moscow.

The British broadcaster’s decision follows a similar move by the U.S. international radio station, the Voice of America (VOA), which was forced by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) — a government agency managing U.S. international broadcasts — to end on-air VOA Russian radio programs in July 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military incursion into Georgia. As a result of this move, VOA lost most of its pre-2008 audience in Russia. Due to criticism from media freedom activists, the Broadcasting Board of Governors in the U.S. had subsequently agreed to allow VOA to resume a 30 minute Monday through Friday online radio broadcast in Russia. The British announced that the BBC will distribute some Russian-language radio programs online.

As part of the planned budget cuts, the BBC has also announced the complete closure of five language services – Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa and Serbian languages; as well as the English for the Caribbean regional service.

Neither VOA nor BBC have been able to maintain a significant radio audience in Russia due to the actions of the FSB, the Russian security service, which forced radio stations using VOA and BBC programs to stop local rebroadcasts. The FSB also used the same tactics against the BBG-funded U.S. broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

While destroying their ability to develop a significant audience in Russia, the FSB stopped short, however, of driving Western broadcasters out of the country altogether. In an apparent effort to avoid retaliation, which would have been in any case highly unlikely, and to maintain their ability to distribute Russia Today satellite television news (RT) and the Voice of Russia (VOR) programs on local channels in the West, the Russian authorities allowed VOA, BBC, and RFE/RL to continue using low-power AM transmitters, which provided only limited and poor reception in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Despite the weak signal, the Russian authorities have been demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars from the BBC and the BBG each year for the use of these transmitters.

Other than the Internet, the only other option to distribute news programs in Russia outside of the control and interference from the FSB is through the use of outside-based high-power shortwave and AM radio transmitters or through the use of satellite delivery of audio and video. Audiences to shortwave radio broadcasts have been declining sharply in recent years. Still, shortwave broadcasts are the only reliable medium for distributing radio programs, especially during political emergencies. The Russian security services sabotaged and blocked websites in Georgia during the 2008 military incursion and the Belarus KGB blocked social media sites and sabotaged human rights NGO websites during the pro-democracy protests last December.

Satellite TV is also a more secure way of delivering news to Russian-speaking audiences, but neither the BBC nor the BBG, which runs the Voice of America, have been willing to invest in developing regular satellite TV news programming in Russian. The BBG had terminated regularly-scheduled VOA satellite TV newscast in Russian several years ago while allowing the VOA Russian Service to produce short video news reports for placement on YouTube. The BBC Russian Service also produces video news reports for online placement.

Ted Lipien, former acting associate director of the Voice of America who now runs media freedom NGO Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), said that the BBC decision to end its Russian-language radio programs will further weaken independent journalism in Russia, Belarus, the Caucasus, and in Central Asia at the time when the local secret police agencies are more determined than ever to control the flow of news and information in an effort to maintain the power of dictatorial, authoritarian, and corrupt regimes. Unfortunately, neither the BBC nor the Broadcasting Board of Governors in the U.S. had reacted forcefully when the Russian authorities systematically limited their ability to distribute programs in Russia in cooperation with independent Russian broadcasters, most of whom have since been driven off the air or forced to follow the Kremlin line, Lipien said.

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From the BBC press release:

BBC World Service will cease all radio programming – focusing instead, as appropriate, on online, mobile and television content and distribution – in the following languages: Azeri, Mandarin Chinese (note that Cantonese radio programming continues), Russian (save for some programmes which will be distributed online only), Spanish for Cuba, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian.

From the BBC Russian Service website:

Русская служба Би-би-си перенесет вещание в интернет

Русская служба Би-би-си существенно сократит количество радиопрограмм и будет вещать исключительно через интернет.

BBC Press Release

BBC World Service cuts language services and radio broadcasts to meet tough Spending Review settlement

Date: 26.01.2011

Category: BBC; World Service

BBC World Service gave details of its response to a cut to its Grant-in-Aid funding from the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office today.

BBC World Service is to carry out a fundamental restructure in order to meet the 16 per cent savings target required by the Government’s Spending Review of 20 October last year.

To ensure the 16 per cent target is achieved and other unavoidable cost increases are met BBC World Service is announcing cash savings of 20 per cent over the next three years. This amounts to an annual saving of £46m by April 2014, when Grant-in-Aid funding comes to an end as BBC World Service transfers to television licence fee funding, agreed as part of the domestic BBC’s licence fee settlement announced on the same day.

In the first year, starting in April 2011, the international broadcaster will be making savings of £19m on this year’s operating expenditure of £236.7m (2010/11).

The changes include:

five full language service closures;
the end of radio programmes in seven languages, focusing those services on online and new media content and distribution; and
a phased reduction from most short wave and medium wave distribution of remaining radio services.
BBC Global News Director Peter Horrocks said: “This is a painful day for BBC World Service and the 180 million people around the world who rely on the BBC’s global news services every week. We are making cuts in services that we would rather not be making. But the scale of the cut in BBC World Service’s Grant-in-Aid funding is such that we couldn’t cope with this by efficiencies alone.

“What won’t change is the BBC’s aim to continue to be the world’s best known and most trusted provider of high quality impartial and editorially independent international news. We will continue to bring the BBC’s expertise, perspectives and content to the largest worldwide audience, which will reflect well on Britain and its people.”

BBC World Service also plans spending reductions and efficiencies across the board, targeted in particular in support areas where there will be average cuts of 33 per cent.

BBC World Service also expects to generate additional savings from the new ways of working after the move to the BBC’s London headquarters at Broadcasting House in 2012, and also by the transfer of BBC World Service to television licence fee funding in April 2014.

Under these proposals 480 posts are expected to close over the next year.

By the time the BBC World Service moves in to the licence fee in 2014/15 we anticipate the number of proposed closures to reach 650. Some of these closures may be offset by new posts being created during this period.

It is expected that audiences will fall by more than 30 million from the current weekly audience of 180 million as a result of the changes this year.

The changes have been approved by the BBC Trust, the BBC Executive and, in relation to closure of services, The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague, as he is required to do under the terms of the BBC’s agreement with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The changes in detail are:

Full language service closures
There will be the complete closure of five language services – Albanian, Macedonian, Portuguese for Africa and Serbian languages; as well as the English for the Caribbean regional service.

End of radio programming
BBC World Service will cease all radio programming – focusing instead, as appropriate, on online, mobile and television content and distribution – in the following languages: Azeri, Mandarin Chinese (note that Cantonese radio programming continues), Russian (save for some programmes which will be distributed online only), Spanish for Cuba, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian.

Reductions in short wave and medium wave radio distribution
There will be a phased reduction in medium wave and short wave throughout the period.

English language short wave and medium wave broadcasts to Russia and the Former Soviet Union are planned to end in March 2011. The 648 medium wave service covering Western Europe and south-east England will end in March 2011. Listeners in the UK can continue to listen on DAB, digital television and online. Those in Europe can continue to listen online or direct to home free-to-air satellite via Hotbird and UK Astra. By March 2014, short wave broadcasts of the English service could be reduced to two hours per day in Africa and Asia.

BBC World Service will cease all short wave distribution of its radio content in March 2011 in: Hindi, Indonesian, Kyrgyz, Nepali, Swahili and the Great Lakes service (for Rwanda and Burundi).

These radio services will continue to be available for audiences by other means of distribution such as FM radio (direct broadcasts and via partners); online; mobiles and other new media devices.

Short wave broadcasts in remaining languages other than English are expected to end by March 2014 with the exception of a small number of “lifeline” services such as Burmese and Somali.

English language programmes
There will be a new schedule for World Service English language programming – a focus on four daily news titles (BBC Newshour, BBC World Today, BBC World Briefing, and BBC World Have Your Say); and a new morning programme for Africa. There will be a new daily edition of From Our Own Correspondent; and an expansion of the interactive World Have Your Say programme.

There will be a reduction from seven to five daily pre-recorded “non-news” programmes on the English service. This includes the loss of one of the four weekly documentary strands. Some programmes will be shortened. Titles such as Politics UK, Europe Today, World Of Music, Something Understood, Letter From…, and Crossing Continents will all close. There will also be the loss of some correspondent posts.

Audience reduction
Audiences will fall by more than 30 million as a result of the changes announced on 26 January 2011. Investments in new services are planned in order to offset further net audience losses resulting from additional savings in the 2012-14 period.

Professional Services
There will be a substantial reduction in an already tight overhead budget. Teams in Finance, HR, Business Development, Strategy, Marketing and other administrative operations will face cuts averaging 33 per cent.

Job losses
Under these proposals 480 posts would be declared redundant; of these 26 posts are currently unfilled vacancies. BBC World Service is proposing to open 21 new posts. Therefore the net impact of these proposed changes could result in up to 433 posts being closed this financial year against a total staff number of 2400.

By the time the BBC World Service moves in to the licence fee in 2014/15 we anticipate the number of proposed closures to reach up to 650. Some of these closures may be offset by new posts being created during this period.

Notes to Editors
BBC World Service is currently an international multimedia broadcaster delivering 32 language and regional services, including: Albanian, Arabic, Azeri, Bengali, Burmese, Cantonese, English, English for Africa, English for the Caribbean, French for Africa, Hausa, Hindi, Indonesian, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mandarin, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese for Africa, Portuguese for Brazil, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Somali, Spanish for Latin America, Swahili, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

It uses multiple platforms to reach its weekly audience of 180 million globally, including shortwave, AM, FM, digital satellite and cable channels. Its news sites, which received 7.5 million weekly visitors in November 2010, include audio and video content and offer opportunities to join the global debate. It has around 2,000 partner radio stations which take BBC content, and numerous partnerships supplying content to mobile phones and other wireless handheld devices. For more information, visit bbcworldservice.com. For a weekly alert about BBC World Service programmes, sign up for the BBC World Agenda e-guide at bbcworldservice.com/eguide.

BBC World Service is part of BBC Global News. BBC Global News brings together BBC World Service – funded by Grant-in-Aid by the UK Government; the commercially funded BBC World News television channel and the BBC’s international facing online news services in English; BBC Monitoring – which is funded by stakeholders led by the Cabinet Office, and a range of public and private clients; and BBC World Service Trust – the BBC’s international development charity which uses donor funding. No licence fee funds are currently used in any of these operations.

BBC World Service Press Office

This report was first published by FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, January 26, 2011.

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The Murder of Georgi Markov: The Mystery Remains | Richard H. Cummings

By BBGWatcher | September 8, 2010 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org, September 8, 2010 –Thirty-two years ago this week, on September 7, 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian émigré journalist, who lived and worked in London, was assaulted in broad daylight on London’s Waterloo Bridge and later died. In February 2010, Time magazine ranked the murder of Georgi Markov at number 5 of the “top 10 assassination plots”, just below the murder of Leon Trotsky in 1940 and the attempt on Adolph Hitler in World War Two. Georgi Markov had been a prolific and successful literary figure in Bulgaria before defecting to the West in 1969. He settled in England and became a broadcast journalist for Radio Free Europe, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), and the German international broadcast service Deutsche Welle.

Anyone curious about the workings of the Soviet and now Russian secret police and the impact of fear on journalists should read a very well-documented book Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989 by Richard H Cummings who for 15 years was the Director of Security for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL in Munich, Germany, and later was a security and safety consultant for RFE/RL in Prague until 1998. Mr. Cummings has also updated with new information and photos his previously published online article in Historytimes.com about the 1978 Georgi Markov murder in London.

The Murder of Georgi Markov: The Mystery Remains.

In the Markov’s case, the Bulgarian interior minister requested KGB assistance in the killing of the journalist. Russian spy and security services have had a long history of recruting, intimidating and sometimes murdering journalists and others who have run afoul of the Kremlin. This concern was largely forgotten during the Yeltsin years when the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a mismanaged Federal US agency in charge of US government-funded international civilian broadcasting, placed Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty – RFE/RL) Russian language facilities and staff at a large news bureau in Moscow right under the nose of the FSB, the successor to the KGB.

Markov’s murder happened during the Cold War, but in more recent years the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and of numerous other journalists in Russia, as well as the assassination in London of former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who became a vocal critic of Mr. Putin, have brought into focus the question of how safe it is in the post-Cold War world to criticize Russian leaders, especially for journalists living in Russia, but also for anybody living in the West who has ties to Russia. You can read more about the dangers faced by Radio Liberty journalists in the September 2009 FreeMediaOnline.org article The Murder of Georgi Markov: The Mystery Remains – Are Radio Liberty Journalists Now Safe?

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From Russia with Censorship

By BBGWatcher | September 16, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Kremlin

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, September 16, 2009, San Francisco — Censorship from Russia and China comes home to America in profit-oriented and staying-in-the-market-at-any-cost decisions by American businesses and sometimes even US government agencies, as FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit, has been documenting and reporting. Read more…

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RFE RL Points to Comprehensive Coverage

By FreeMediaOnline | September 15, 2009 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, September 15, 2009, San Francisco — We have reported earlier that Radio Liberty’s Russian Service, Radio Svoboda, website had ignored for a number of days the news story of Conde Nast censorship of a critical article about Mr. Putin by Scott Anderson. The article was banned by Conde Nast executives in New York from the Russian edition of the GQ magazine in Russia and from GQ websites, including its American website.

After FreeMediaOnline.org published its report pointing out limited coverage by Russian websites of both Radio Liberty and the Voice of America, VOA, both broadcasting stations devoted a lot of attention to the GQ story, albeit several days after it had been first reported by NPR on September 4, and after independent bloggers in the US and in Russia had already translated Read more…

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How Self-Censorship Works – Putin, GQ, Radio Liberty

By BBGWatcher | September 15, 2009 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

President Bush and President Putin, July 15, 2006
TedLipien.comCensorship and self-censorship have become a permanent feature of the media scene in Russia under Mr. Putin’s rule. Many Americans, however, were surprised last week that this kind of censorship with origins in Moscow has now reached corporate boardrooms in their own country and even put limits on news generated by US taxpayer supported Radio Liberty, which broadcasts to Russia. Read more…

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How Self-Censorship Works – Putin, GQ, and US Taxpayer-Supported Radio Liberty

By tedlipien | September 14, 2009 | International Broadcasting, Russia | 2 Comments
censored

President Bush and President Putin, July 15, 2006
TedLipien.comCensorship and self-censorship have become a permanent feature of the media scene in Russia under Mr. Putin’s rule. Many Americans, however, were surprised last week that this kind of censorship with origins in Moscow has now reached corporate boardrooms in their own country and even put limits on news generated by US taxpayer supported Radio Liberty, which broadcasts to Russia.

 

There is clear evidence that censorship at Conde Nast was aimed not only at readers in Russia but also at consumers of news media in the United States and throughout the world. The publishers of the GQ magazine not only prevented the printing in Russia of Scott Anderson’s article about Prime Minister Putin but also banned it from the Internet. It cannot be read even on the GQ’s American website.

 

Obviously, Conde Nast executives were afraid that they could be prevented by the Russian authorities from selling their magazines and generating future advertising revenues in Russia. Perhaps they were also concerned about their Russian employees losing their jobs, or worse, being sued for libel or physically attacked. These things have happened to other publishers and journalists in Russia, but by now most have learned their lesson. If corporate executives in New York can be so easily intimidated, it’s not surprising that the vast majority of Russian media outlets also hold on to their publishing profits and protect jobs by practicing similar self-censorship.

 

Americans with some knowledge of these things may have thought that at least Radio Liberty and the Voice of America, which are funded by the US Congress, are not guided by commercial concerns and are still broadcasting uncensored news to Russia quickly and extensively. If they assumed that to be true in recent years, they would be sadly mistaken.

 

The Russian websites of both stations completely ignored the GQ censorship story for a number of days after it broke in the mainstream US media with an NPR report on Friday, September 4. VOA and the RFE/RL Russian website waited several days to report on the story and did it only after FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit, exposed their silence and pointed out that independent bloggers in the US had already translated the banned article into Russian and posted it online.

 

One should ask why would Radio Liberty Russian Service ignore such a story on its news website for several days and would not offer a full translation or at least extensive excerpts from the banned article?

 

The answer to this question lies with the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a bipartisan board which manages Radio Liberty and the Voice of America. The BBG made a decision several years ago to operate in Russia the same way as Conde Nast and other Western commercial media. It opened a large news bureau for Radio Liberty in Moscow, hired hundreds of local reporters, and declared that the US radios’ success in Russia will be measured by the size of their audience. There was no plan B — and there still isn’t any — to protect Radio Liberty journalists and their news operations in Russia from intimidation by the FSB and from self-censorship.

 

I was not surprised at all to see that no one among those responsible for editing Radio Liberty’s Russian language website wanted to be the first one to write about the GQ story involving Prime Minister Putin and the FSB. There are many stories that Radio Liberty reporters can safely write about, and they do — some of them critical of the Kremlin and the human rights situation — but many of us in the NGO community have noticed during the last few years a remarkable reluctance among some BBG members and Radio Liberty managers to publicly criticize Mr. Putin and the Russian government, even when faced with most serious violations of media freedom. The only explanation can be that they do not want to threaten their continued presence in Russia.

 

FreeMediaOnline.org reported for example that shortly after the brutal assassination of anti-Kremlin investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in October 2006, Radio Liberty’s Russian Service managers have expressed hope that the Kremlin will allow them to report and broadcast. These comments, which seemed clearly motivated by fear of the Russian authorities, were made despite overwhelming evidence of President Putin’s’ growing crackdown on independent media.

 

RFE/RL Moscow bureau chief said at the time that this optimism was based on her belief in the common sense of the current Russian leadership. Radio Liberty Russian Service director at the RFE/RL home office in Prague also expressed confidence that Radio Liberty’s future in Russia looks good. The Moscow-based manager said that the work of local Radio Liberty journalists cannot cause Russia any harm since they are Russian citizens who respect and love their country.

 

Members of the human rights and media freedom community in Russia and in the US were appalled by these self-serving and apologetic comments coming so close after the murder of a prominent opposition journalist. This happened after veteran journalists who had opposed BBG-imposed programming changes at Radio Liberty were either fired or forced out. BBG-hired consultants advised less emphasis on human rights, culture, and intellectual discussions and more on programs that would please an average Russian listener who is highly nationalistic and pro-Putin. Not surprisingly, after these programming changes were put into place, Russian human rights activists criticized Radio Liberty for giving extensive airtime to a Russian nationalist politician known for his racist views and warned that such programs promote violence against Africans and other foreigners. Read about a similar development at the BBG-managed Alhurra Television for the Middle East.

 

None of this could not have been predicted. If US taxpayer-supported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has a large number of reporters who are Russian citizens and live in Russia without any protection from their employer; if the radio station maintains extensive news gathering facilities in Russia; and if its governing body declares that the station can only be successful if it can reach a wide audience in Russia and must have a large presence there and use local media channels — the Broadcasting Board of Governors should have anticipated that under such arrangements and the corporate culture they helped to create, many Radio Liberty employees would chose their safety, their families, their jobs, their pay and benefits, and continued employment in Russia over the need to fight censorship by exposing crimes of high-level FSB and other government officials, especially if these officials have the legal power to order them to cooperate or to arrest them.

 

The BBG has not only failed to protect their reporters who are Russian citizens, it deprives them of some of the same protections and benefits which it grants to RFE/RL’s American and Czech employees, thus making them more likely victims of the FSB. Third-country journalists working for RFE/RL in the Czech Republic can be dismissed at any time. It’s hardly surprising that faced with a radioactive news story about Mr. Putin, they did not want to take risks that both the BBG and the Russian authorities might find for different reasons unwelcome.

 

The question is why the Broadcasting Board of Governors did not see this and why American taxpayers should continue to give it hundreds of millions of dollars if the NGO media freedom community and independent bloggers have to do the job that BBG-managed broadcasters have been paid to do but are afraid to do it.

 

As one of my contacts with links to Radio Liberty pointed out in response to my question: “Why the Russian Web Desk at Radio Liberty ignored GQ?” — “Do you really think that the present RFE/RL is more adventurous than Conde Nast, having a bureau in Moscow that can be closed at the whim of, say, pozharnika?” The last word refers to Russian fire safety inspectors whom the FSB uses to put out of business radio and TV stations that run afoul of the Kremlin.

 

Even though they were left far behind on this story by independent American and Russian bloggers, America still needs uncensored and effective Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America. NGOs have no resources to match local languages radio and TV broadcasting by RFE/RL and VOA, nor can they speak as an authoritative voice of the US government and the American people, which VOA is by law required to do. It is unfortunate that when censorship is growing in Russia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America are not doing what American taxpayers hired them to do.

 

Another ironic twist to this story is that the BBG has been cutting budgets for radio and TV broadcasting in favor of Internet journalism and ignoring the fact that the FSB has a major operation designed to block offending websites in case of a political or military emergency, which they demonstrated during the Russian-Georgian war.

 

Of course, not everybody at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been affected to the same degree by the FSB and the BBG broadcasting strategy. The RFE/RL English-language website, which exists largely to generate support for the station on Capital Hill, did report quickly on the GQ-Putin-FSB story. Unfortunately, this is not the website most Russians turn to for uncensored news and information.

 

The Voice of America’s role in this journalistic fiasco is somewhat different. VOA is based in Washington, DC and its reporters cannot be easily intimidated by the FSB. But they also cannot be fully protected from the BBG’s misguided models, which were taken from commercial broadcasting but which cannot be used to fight censorship. The Broadcasting Board of Governors has the power to do what it wants. In August 2008, it terminated all VOA Russian radio broadcasts just 12 days before the Russian military launched an military attack on Georgia. After going through BBG-ordered program and staff reductions, VOA is no longer able to sustain a 24/7 news operation and was not able to respond to the GQ censorship story in a timely and effective manner.

 

FreeMediaOnline.org has learned that no experienced editor was available for duty at the VOA Russian Service over the Labor Day weekend to write an in-depth report for the web on this or any other sensitive news story. After being criticized by FreeMediaOnline.org, the Russian Service managed to place on its website a short news item about Scott Anderson’s article one day earlier than Radio Liberty, but in-depth coverage had to wait until Monday and Tuesday, more than three days after the NPR story and the posting of the full article in Russian translation by independent bloggers in the US.

 

It is also interesting to examine what happened after criticism from Free Media Online. Russian services at both VOA and RFE/RL went overboard in reporting on the story — posting interviews with Scott Anderson (both RFE/RL and VOA) and with his main source, a former FSB officer turned critic (VOA) — but in the rush to rectify their earlier sins of omission, they were not as sophisticated as they should have been in pointing out which charges against Mr. Putin are real, which are unproven, and which may simply be advanced without any proof by Mr. Berezovsky and others among Mr. Putin’s political rivals whom he had imprisoned or forced to leave Russia.

 

VOA’s and RFE/RL’s subsequent reporting also lacked a measure of sophistication in explaining how the FSB could have manipulated the terrorist bombings to Mr. Putin’s advantage without any direct orders from the Kremlin. Again, independent bloggers in the US and in Russia have done a much better job than either of the Congressionally-funded US broadcasters. And again, American taxpayers should not be surprised. The US Government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been consistently rating the Broadcasting Board of Governors as one of the worst-managed Federal agencies.

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The Murder of Georgi Markov: The Mystery Remains – Are Radio Liberty Journalists Now Safe?

By tedlipien | September 8, 2009 | Cold War, International Broadcasting, Russia | 1 Comment

Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989 by Richard H. CummingsTedLipien.comThirty-one years ago this week, on 7 September 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian émigré journalist who wrote for Radio Free Europe, BBC and Deutsche Welle, was assaulted in broad daylight on London’s Waterloo Bridge. Markov’s murder happened during the Cold War, but in more recent years the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and of numerous other journalists in Russia, as well as the assassination in London of former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who became a vocal critic of Mr. Putin, have brought into focus the question of how safe it is in the post-Cold War world to criticize Russian leaders, especially for journalists living in Russia, but also for anybody living in the West who has ties to Russia.

 

As the Markov’s case illustrates, Russian spy and security services have a long history of recruting, intimidating and sometimes murdering journalists and others who have run afoul of the Kremlin. This concern was largely forgotten during the Yeltsin years when the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a mismanaged Federal US agency in charge of US government-funded international civilian broadcasting, placed Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty – RFE/RL) Russian language facilities and staff at a large news bureau in Moscow right under the nose of the FSB, the successor to the KGB.

 

Some of us who had worked in Russia at the time observed a marked increase in the intimidation and infiltration of the Russian media by the FSB right about the time Mr. Putin, a former KGB spy, consolidated his power. Seeing how FSB officers forced owners of private radio statios to stop using news programs from the Voice of America and Radio Liberty, we wondered what kind of threats they were making in confidential conversations with Radio Liberty reporters and other employees who are Russian citizens living in Russia. It was difficult to get more information about the extent of FSB media manipulation because Russian law prevented Russian citizens approached by the state security services from disclosing these contacts. Still, some of our Russian friends told us in confidence about being visited and threatened by the secret police.

 

During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was based in Munich, West Germany, and RFE/RL journalists were not allowed to travel to the Soviet Union as a measure of protection against arrest, intimidation and possible recruitment by the KGB. As the Cold War ended, the BBG moved RFE/RL headquarters to Prague, the Czech Republic, and decided it was safe to have a larger number of employees and news gathering operations based in Russia.

 

Whether this is still a safe option has been brought into question by a number of recent events in Russia, including murders of prominent anti-Kremlin journalists. Obviously a news organization like Radio Liberty can no longer operate without some presence in Russia if it wants to be an effective news source, but many of us have argued that the BBG should have taken strong measures to protect its Russian employees from intimidation by the FSB and to make sure that Radio Liberty programs are not subject to self-censorship.

 

That self-censorship brought on by intimidation and justifiable fear of the FSB has affected Radio Liberty’s Russian radio and web content seems obvious to many of us who are monitoring these programs and reports for the web originating by RFE/RL staff in Moscow and in Prague. The most recent example was Radio Liberty’s failure for a number of days to post on its Russian-language website any in-depth reports about the banning in Russia of Scott Anderson’s “GQ” magazine article, which was highly critical of Mr. Putin and accused the FSB of instigating terrorist attacks to help his rise to power.

 

Russian officials strongly deny the charges that FSB agents have been involved in any terrorist attacks, but the topic remain a taboo for journalists in Russia who want to keep their jobs and stay out of trouble with the authorities. This might explain why Conde Nast, the publisher of “GQ” kept Scott Anderson’s article out of the Russian edition and why it took days for Radio Liberty’s Russian editors to notice the story.

 

Anyone curious about the workings of the Soviet and now Russian secret police the impact of fear on journalists should read a very well-documented book Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989 by Richard H Cummings who for 15 years was the Director of Security for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL in Munich, Germany, and later was a security and safety consultant for RFE/RL in Prague until 1998. He has also published online an article about the murder of Bulgarian journalist Georgi Markov in London in 1978.

 

The Murder of Georgi Markov: The Mystery Remains

 

Thirty-one years ago this week, on 7 September 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian émigré, who lived and worked in London, was assaulted in broad daylight on London’s Waterloo Bridge.

 

Georgi Markov had been a prolific and successful literary figure in Bulgaria before defecting to the West in 1969. He settled in England and became a broadcast journalist for Radio Free Europe, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), and the German international broadcast service Deutsche Welle.

 

Markov had a large listening audience in Bulgaria, who listened to his prime-time Sunday-night broadcasts over Radio Free Europe. He dared to tell his audience that Bulgarian President and Communist Party chief Todor Zhivkov wore no clothes.

 

In June 1977, Communist Party Chairman Zhivkov chaired a Politburo meeting, and stated he wanted the activities of Markov stopped. The Interior Minister reacted and requested KGB assistance in the killing of Markov. Though he wanted Markov killed, he wanted no trace to Bulgaria. The Chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, agreed to the assassination, as long as there would be no trace back to the Soviets. Thus, the Bulgarians and Soviets were operating under a double case of “plausible denial. “

 

A former KGB general has publicly admitted his role and the role of the KGB in supplying the Bulgarian intelligence service with both the weapon and the poison. Purportedly, the highly secret KGB laboratory known as the “Chamber” developed both the weapon, concealed in a US-manufactured umbrella, and biotoxin ricin impregnated in a wax-coated pellet the size of a pinhead.

 

Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989 by Richard H Cummings

 

During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcast uncensored news and commentary to people living in communist nations. As critical elements of the CIA’s early covert activities against communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Munich-based stations drew a large audience despite efforts to jam the broadcasts and ban citizens from listening to them. This history of the stations in the Cold War era reveals the perils their staff faced from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Romania and other communist states. It recounts in detail the murder of writer Georgi Markov, the 1981 bombing of the stations by “Carlos the Jackal,” infiltration by KGB agent Oleg Tumanov and other events. Appendices include security reports, letters between Carlos the Jackal and German terrorist Johannes Weinrich and other documents, many of which have never been published.

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The Murder of Georgi Markov: The Mystery Remains – Are Radio Liberty Journalists Now Safe?

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

Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989 by Richard H. CummingsTedLipien.comThirty-one years ago this week, on 7 September 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian émigré journalist who wrote for Radio Free Europe, BBC and Deutsche Welle, was assaulted in broad daylight on London’s Waterloo Bridge. Markov’s murder happened during the Cold War, but in more recent years the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and of numerous other journalists in Russia, as well as the assassination in London of former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who became a vocal critic of Mr. Putin, have brought into focus the question of how safe it is in the post-Cold War world to criticize Russian leaders, especially for journalists living in Russia, but also for anybody living in the West who has ties to Russia.

As the Markov’s case illustrates, Russian spy and security services have a long history of recruting, intimidating and sometimes murdering journalists and others who have run afoul of the Kremlin. This concern was largely forgotten during the Yeltsin years when the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a mismanaged Federal US agency in charge of US government-funded international civilian broadcasting, placed Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty – RFE/RL) Russian language facilities and staff at a large news bureau in Moscow right under the nose of the FSB, the successor to the KGB.

Some of us who had worked in Russia at the time observed a marked increase in the intimidation and infiltration of the Russian media by the FSB right about the time Mr. Putin, a former KGB spy, consolidated his power. Seeing how FSB officers forced owners of private radio statios to stop using news programs from the Voice of America and Radio Liberty, we wondered what kind of threats they were making in confidential conversations with Radio Liberty reporters and other employees who are Russian citizens living in Russia. It was difficult to get more information about the extent of FSB media manipulation because Russian law prevented Russian citizens approached by the state security services from disclosing these contacts. Still, some of our Russian friends told us in confidence about being visited and threatened by the secret police.

During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was based in Munich, West Germany, and RFE/RL journalists were not allowed to travel to the Soviet Union as a measure of protection against arrest, intimidation and possible recruitment by the KGB. As the Cold War ended, the BBG moved RFE/RL headquarters to Prague, the Czech Republic, and decided it was safe to have a larger number of employees and news gathering operations based in Russia.

Whether this is still a safe option has been brought into question by a number of recent events in Russia, including murders of prominent anti-Kremlin journalists. Obviously a news organization like Radio Liberty can no longer operate without some presence in Russia if it wants to be an effective news source, but many of us have argued that the BBG should have taken strong measures to protect its Russian employees from intimidation by the FSB and to make sure that Radio Liberty programs are not subject to self-censorship.

That self-censorship brought on by intimidation and justifiable fear of the FSB has affected Radio Liberty’s Russian radio and web content seems obvious to many of us who are monitoring these programs and reports for the web originating by RFE/RL staff in Moscow and in Prague. The most recent example was Radio Liberty’s failure for a number of days to post on its Russian-language website any in-depth reports about the banning in Russia of Scott Anderson’s “GQ” magazine article, which was highly critical of Mr. Putin and accused the FSB of instigating terrorist attacks to help his rise to power.

Russian officials strongly deny the charges that FSB agents have been involved in any terrorist attacks, but the topic remain a taboo for journalists in Russia who want to keep their jobs and stay out of trouble with the authorities. This might explain why Conde Nast, the publisher of “GQ” kept Scott Anderson’s article out of the Russian edition and why it took days for Radio Liberty’s Russian editors to notice the story.

Anyone curious about the workings of the Soviet and now Russian secret police and the impact of fear on journalists should read a very well-documented book Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989 by Richard H Cummings who for 15 years was the Director of Security for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL in Munich, Germany, and later was a security and safety consultant for RFE/RL in Prague until 1998. He has also published online an article about the murder of Bulgarian journalist Georgi Markov in London in 1978.

The Murder of Georgi Markov: The Mystery Remains

Thirty-one years ago this week, on 7 September 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian émigré, who lived and worked in London, was assaulted in broad daylight on London’s Waterloo Bridge.

Georgi Markov had been a prolific and successful literary figure in Bulgaria before defecting to the West in 1969. He settled in England and became a broadcast journalist for Radio Free Europe, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), and the German international broadcast service Deutsche Welle.

Markov had a large listening audience in Bulgaria, who listened to his prime-time Sunday-night broadcasts over Radio Free Europe. He dared to tell his audience that Bulgarian President and Communist Party chief Todor Zhivkov wore no clothes.

In June 1977, Communist Party Chairman Zhivkov chaired a Politburo meeting, and stated he wanted the activities of Markov stopped. The Interior Minister reacted and requested KGB assistance in the killing of Markov. Though he wanted Markov killed, he wanted no trace to Bulgaria. The Chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, agreed to the assassination, as long as there would be no trace back to the Soviets. Thus, the Bulgarians and Soviets were operating under a double case of “plausible denial. “

A former KGB general has publicly admitted his role and the role of the KGB in supplying the Bulgarian intelligence service with both the weapon and the poison. Purportedly, the highly secret KGB laboratory known as the “Chamber” developed both the weapon, concealed in a US-manufactured umbrella, and biotoxin ricin impregnated in a wax-coated pellet the size of a pinhead.

Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989 by Richard H Cummings

During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcast uncensored news and commentary to people living in communist nations. As critical elements of the CIA’s early covert activities against communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Munich-based stations drew a large audience despite efforts to jam the broadcasts and ban citizens from listening to them. This history of the stations in the Cold War era reveals the perils their staff faced from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Romania and other communist states. It recounts in detail the murder of writer Georgi Markov, the 1981 bombing of the stations by “Carlos the Jackal,” infiltration by KGB agent Oleg Tumanov and other events. Appendices include security reports, letters between Carlos the Jackal and German terrorist Johannes Weinrich and other documents, many of which have never been published.

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Broadcasting Board of Governors Refuses to Vote on Restoring Voice of America Radio to Russia

By FreeMediaOnline | September 11, 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo. FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, September 11, 2006, San Francisco — FreeMediaOnline.org has learned that several members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors refused to take a vote Thursday to restore Voice of America radio programs to Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and other countries. VOA radio to Russia was shut down by the BBG on July 26, just 12 days before Russian troops attacked Georgia. At least two of the Democratic members of the BBG are strongly opposed to the restoration of VOA programs to Eurasia but tried to avoid having their opposition documented with a vote. The BBG executive director Jeff Trimble had tried earlier to prevent the proposal for a vote from being introduced. 

According to FreeMediaOnline.org sources, during the BBG meeting in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, two Democratic Board members: Jeff Hirschberg and Edward Kaufman blocked the motion to have a vote, which was introduced by a Republican member, radio broadcaster Blanquita Cullum. Faced with the opposition from Hirschberg and Kaufman, the remaining BBG members did not support Cullum’s request.

The two Democratic members rejected Cullum’s arguments that there is urgent need not only for restoring but  also enhancing VOA radio broadcasting to Russia, Georgia, and Ukraine. Supported by their budget director Janet Stormes, they countered that the BBG could not afford to pay for Cullum’s initiative, calling it irresponsible. Both were dismissive of the argument made at the Thursday meeting that the resumption of radio broadcasts would send a message to Mr. Putin, letting him know that the U.S. will not abandon its support for free media.

Hirschberg and Kaufman are said to favor several expensive but highly questionable Internet projects, which depend strongly for their success on the acquiescence of the Putin government. FreeMediaOnline.org has obtained a copy of the “VOA Russian Options Paper” focusing on the Internet and plans to review it. A quick reading by an expert with direct knowledge of Russian media and politics has revealed that the proposed project is vastly overpriced and based on a number of  highly questionable and politically naive assumptions.

Hirschberg, Kaufman, and Trimble also want all radio broadcasting to Russia to be done exclusively by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a semi-private entity based in Prague and in Moscow. They all have strong personal or political links to the station, which has been steeped lately in controversy about its ability to maintain independence and support for democratic values while operating within a close reach of Russia’s security services. Human rights groups and media freedom activists have criticized RFE/RL for airing comments expressing confidence in Mr. Putin’s leadership and for giving airtime to local extremist politicians known for their racist views.

According to FreeMediaOnline.org sources, both Hirschberg and Kaufman were unmoved by Cullum’s arguments that Russia’s attack on Georgia requires the BBG to take extraordinary steps. She was quoted as saying that recent events have proven that the BBG was completely misguided in approving the termination of VOA Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian and  other programs. Cullum is said to be the only BBG member who has consistently opposed these cuts.

VOA director Dan Austin was said to have shown little concern about the BBG decision to take away from VOA radio broadcasting to a major world power. He was described as a weak leader who did not put up any fight when the original decision was made or during the most recent unsuccessful attempt by Blanquita Cullum to have it reversed.

According to FreeMediaOnline.org sources, Jeff Hirschberg, Edward Kaufman, and the BBG executive director Jeff Trimble worked closely over the summer with the Senate staff of Senator Joe BBG Website Logo.Biden to quickly and quietly implement the shutting down of VOA radio to Russia in late July without alerting other members of Congress. Many in Congress have been strongly opposed to this move on national security grounds and see it as a blow to media freedom in Russia.  However, due to the skillful  bureaucratic maneuvering by Trimble, Hirschberg, and Kaufman, and the strong support from Senator Biden’s staff, other Republican and Democratic members of Congress have been unable this year to stop the BBG from eliminating Voice of America radio presence in Russia.

Hirschberg and Kaufman were also said to be unimpressed with arguments that the U.S. policy toward Moscow has changed after the Russian military attack on Georgia. Vice President Cheney visited both Georgia and Ukraine, and President Bush announced last week a $1 billion aid package to Georgia, but the White House has not been focusing on international broadcasting to areas other than the Middle East. It is not clear whether the White House wants to do anything or could do anything to force Hirschberg and Kaufman to restore VOA radio programs to Russia and other countries.

Ted Lipien, president of media freedom nonprofit FreeMediaOnline.org, who formerly served as Voice of America  acting associate director, pointed out that there appear to be clear conflicts of interest in how some of the Board members and their staff have been dealing with Russia. Lipien said that these conflicts of interest have contributed to depriving the United States of safe and journalistically sound Voice of America radio broadcasting to Russia from Washington, D.C. He also said that the same conflicts of interest have exposed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalists working in Russia to intimidation by the secret police and Mr. Putin’s associates. Using the FSB security service agents, the Kremlin now monitors and controls nearly all broadcast media in that country.

The apparent conflicts of interest at the BBG are personal, bureaucratic, and political, according to Lipien, and have resulted in decisions, which Mr. Putin would highly approve of but which are harmful to American interests and U.S. public diplomacy.

Jeff Trimble is a former acting president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which would benefit from the shutting down of VOA Russian-language and Ukrainian-language programs. RFE/RL is incorporated in Senator Biden’s home state. Kaufman, was formerly Senator Biden’s chief of staff and is now helping him with his campaign in the run for the White House. D. Jeffrey Hirschberg, partner and managing director of Kalorama Partners, was Director of the US-Russian Investment Fund (appointment of President Clinton), Director of the US-Russia Business Council (ten years) and US-Russia Center for Entrepreneurship.

Jeff Trimble and Jeff Hirschberg had traveled in previous years to Russia, where they conducted negotiations with Russian officials and associates of President and now Prime Minister Putin. They reportedly discussed the status of RFE/RL large news bureau in Moscow, which still operates while most independent Russian broadcasters have been silenced.

The Moscow Human Rights Bureau, a pro-democracy NGO, has recently criticized Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for giving extensive airtime to an extremist politician who is known for making racist comments about immigrants and other groups. Last year, shortly after the murder of independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the head of RFE/RL bureau in Moscow had  publicly expressed  her confidence in “the common sense of the Russian leadership.” Human rights activists criticized RFE/RL for airing these comments shortly after Politkovskaya’s brutal murder. In her reporting, Politkovskaya had been critical of Mr. Putin’s policies.

Lipien also said that while he was helping the BBG place VOA and RFE/RL programs on independent radio stations in Russia a few years ago, the Russian management of the RFE/RL bureau in Moscow tried to force these affiliates to reveal themselves to the Russian authorities and to register these rebroadcasts. They were supported by the RFE/RL’s top American managers in Prague. Many independent affiliates saw this as a cynical attempt by RFE/RL to assist the security services in tracking them down in order to protect their Moscow bureau. 

Ted Lipien has warned that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalists working and living in Russia are subject to intimidation by the Russian secret police and that their  safety and their work has been put in  severe jeopardy by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Lipien has called for immediate restoration of VOA Russian-language radio broadcasts as a matter of great urgency for U.S. national security and public diplomacy.

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Surrogate Broadcasting 101 — Why BBG and RFE/RL Are Failing in Russia

By FreeMediaOnline | September 7, 2008 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

FreeMediaOnline.org Logo.FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog,  Commentary by Ted Lipien, September 8, 2008, San Francisco — A country like Russia either needs surrogate broadcasting or it doesn’t. Many countries, however, need balanced and objective news from the Voice of America that surrogate broadcasters living overseas are not trained to provide.  If a country also needs a genuine surrogate broadcaster – as it is the case now with Russia – surrogate broadcasting should not be hostage to Mr. Putin’s good will and the machinations of his secret police.

Surrogate broadcasters should be totally independent and protected from being intimidated, recruited by foreign intelligence services, or controlled by U.S. diplomats. They should not feel pressured by unreasonable expectations to achieve high audience ratings, or else they are likely to become like the rest of the local media –  intimidated, subject to self-censorship, and reflective of the local prejudices of the worst kind. The policies of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which manages U.S. international broadcasting, have forced the semi-private, U.S.-funded surrogate broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to lose much of its independent surrogate status and become more like yet another domestic Russian broadcaster fearful of the Kremlin.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors and the RFE/RL management will no doubt argue that their broadcasters in Russia are fearless and completely independent. If that is the case, it would be a great achievement, even a miracle, considering that at least 292 journalists have been murdered or have disappeared in Russia since 1990, all other broadcasting entities have been placed under the control of the Kremlin or practice self-censorship, and Mr. Putin’s is using highly effective tactics in dealing with his media critics by unleashing on them his former colleagues in the KGB.

When I worked as a journalist and later as director of VOA Polish Service, we relied on two indicators to measure our effectiveness: how many times the communist government’s spokesman condemned our broadcasts and how many times American diplomats at the Embassy in Warsaw complained in confidential cables that we were too belligerent. (The State Department tried unsuccessfully to censor our telephone interviews with the Solidarity leader Lech Walesa while he was out of prison but still under secret police surveillance. The “belligerent” label was used to describe comments by our interviewees like Walesa. VOA journalists generally avoided expressing their personal views.) We have not heard lately of similar criticism or protests about RFE/RL broadcasts in Russia. It is no accident that RFE/RL is not being condemned or kicked out of Russia, and it is not because Mr. Putin wants to be unusually nice to the American-funded broadcaster while he silences other journalists.

I will give some examples so that readers can judge for themselves whether the Broadcasting Board of Governors has indeed pulled a miracle and managed to create in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty a super-hero surrogate broadcaster that even an ex-KGB officer like Mr. Putin does not know how to handle. Does RFE/RL still offer fearless criticism of the Kremlin from its studios in Moscow located in close proximity to Lubyanka, the headquarters of Russia’s secret police? Are they so effective in exposing the taking over of the country’s political, economic, and media resources by Mr. Putin and his friends that the Kremlin wants to close them down? We may also want to ask whether Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty can replace the Voice of America – which is safely based in Washington, D.C. — as the only on air radio voice of the American people in Russia?  The BBG would want us to believe that the answer to all of these questions is “yes.”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “surrogate” as “to choose in place of another, substitute.” According to my sources, the new Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty president Jeffrey Gedmin has tried to ignore some of the more questionable directives from the Broadcasting Board of Governors and move the emphasis at RFE/RL from the BBG-driven marketing focus back to program content. But he has been doing this quietly and does not want to admit publicly that because of the BBG actions, RFE/RL is no longer an effective external “surrogate broadcaster.” Nor will he admit publicly that his organization faces serious programming and security problems in Russia. In fact, he insists that RFE/RL continues to be a model surrogate broadcaster in Russia.

The BBG’s preference for overseas-based private broadcasters rather than Washington-based and Congressionally-chartered Voice of America has put American broadcasting resources at risk in a number of countries in Eurasia by exposing them to pressures from the local regimes and local stations rebroadcasting U.S. sponsored programs, which are now almost always under tight regime control. By operating safely from Munich in West Germany during the Cold War, RFE/RL engaged in highly effective ”surrogate broadcasting” to Russia, and was largely protected from reprisals by the KGB. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case with RFE/RL as it operates now in response to directives from the BBG and in pursuing its own bureaucratic interests.

Throughout most of the Cold War, RFE/RL journalists were not allowed by their management to travel behind the Iron Curtain and for good reasons. But as a result of decisions made by the BBG, most of RFE/RL Russian radio programs now originate in Russia. The majority of Radio Liberty Russian broadcasters are Russian citizens who live in Russia with their families. I’m not arguing that RFE/RL journalists should no longer work in Mr. Putin’s Russia under any circumstances, or that it is completely unsafe for them to travel there. I’m merely arguing that it is dangerous for them to work there under the conditions imposed on them by the BBG. Effective surrogate broadcasting to a country whose regime controls domestic program distribution channels and skillfully intimidates the local media cannot depend mostly on the size of the audience and the good will of the local leader. It must depend on the alternative nature of its message, high quality of its program content, and the ability to make the local regime highly uncomfortable. One cannot achieve this if one must worry about protecting local news bureaus and rebroadcasting arrangements worth millions of dollars. 

Despite the murders and disappearances of at least 292 journalists in Russia since 1990, the Broadcasting Board of Governors continued to support the expansion of RFE/RL operations in Russia and its large Moscow bureau while reducing and eventually eliminating all Voice of America Russian radio broadcasts from Washington. This policy continued even as Russian President and later Prime Minister  Vladimir Putin kept closing down Russian media outlets critical of his policies, and more independent journalists were being killed.

Independent Russian Journalist Anna Politkovskaya Who Was Murdered in 2006.Shortly after independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in Moscow in an execution-style hit in 2006, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty managers made public statements strongly suggesting an attempt on their part to appease Mr. Putin. In an apparent effort to protect their presence in the country, the head of RFE/RL Moscow bureau, Elena Glushkova, said in an on-air discussion in October 2006 that the work of Radio Liberty journalists cannot cause Russia any harm. She insisted that RFE/RL reporters respect and love Russia. She also pointed out that all Radio Liberty reporters who work in Russia are Russian citizens and said that her optimism despite the murder of Ms. Politkovskaya is based in her belief in “the common sense of the current Russian leadership.” Maria Klain, Russian Service director at the RFE/RL home office in Prague, also expressed confidence that the radio’s future in Russia looks good. These comments surprised and offended pro-democracy activists in Russia who were still in mourning after Anna Politovskaya’s murder.

There is no reason to believe that RFE/RL journalists in Russia can be safer from the secret police than any other Russian journalist. If anything, they would be prime targets of the FSB operations. In an interview for the Association for International Broadcasting “Channel “ magazine, Dr. Gedmin said that “In Russia, three years ago we had about 30 affiliates, today we have about 5. The Russians have used much softer, shrewder tactics, they will send a health inspector or a fire inspector.”

Actually there was nothing soft or shrewd about these tactics. What Dr. Gedmin should have said was that the officers of the secret police, the FSB (the new KGB),  called in for questioning station managers who were using RFE/RL and VOA programs and told them to stop their cooperation with U.S. broadcasters or be closed down by health inspectors. Much more serious threats were also used. I know this because I had placed RFE/RL programs on these stations and some of their owners told me in strict confidence about the talks they had with the FSB. (They could be prosecuted for revealing state secrets if they went public with their stories of threats from the secret police, as would any Russian citizens now working for RFE/RL in Russia.)

Owners of these stations also told me that the directives they kept receiving from the RFE/RL Moscow bureau to register their rebroadcasts with the Russian authorities convinced them that it was time to stop their cooperation with RFE/RL and VOA and that the FSB was already on their trail. They did not see these warnings as motivated by a concern for them at all.

RFE/RL management, however, is still committed to preserving their Moscow bureau operation rather than admitting that the BBG strategy for Russia represents a major programming liability and actually prevents RFE/RL from doing  effective surrogate broadcasting. Some might argue that many RFE/RL journalists refused to follow this model, and many did just that. But the overall situation has reached a critical point, and the BBG and the RFE/RL management refuse to admit it.

Here is another example which shows how the BBG started thinking that RFE/RL can somehow operate in Russia differently than all other Russian broadcasters who were being intimidated by the Kremlin and the secret police. BBG member Jeff Hirschberg, a Washington lawyer who is a director of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, negotiated with Russian officials to keep the RFE/RL Moscow bureau operating while other media outlets in Russia were being taken over by Mr. Putin’s associates.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors was also responsible for forcing RFE/RL to change its program content to become more appealing to the audience in the vain hope that local rebroadcasting could increase RFE/RL’s radio ratings. Consultants hired by the BBG conducted surveys and told RFE/RL that their programs appear anti-Russian. RFE/RL managers were told to change their program content and those who resisted were fired. Here is another example of what this strategy has produced.

The Moscow Human Rights Bureau has recently criticized RFE/RL for giving an entire hour of airtime to a former Russian Parliament deputy Andrey Savel’yev. The Russian human rights organization said that Mr. Savel’yev’s “chauvinist and racist views are well-known.”

In criticizing RFE/RL for giving airtime to Mr. Savel’yev, the Russian human rights organization said the station was guilty not only  of enabling such people “to spread their poisonous views,” but also of legitimizing their ideas “in the minds of many impressionable radio listeners.” The appeal, written by the organization’s head Aleksandr Brod, argues that stations, which “in their pursuit of higher ratings” invite such “nationalist radicals,” are giving these enemies of democracy a larger audience and exacerbating ethnic tensions.

The BBG policies in combination with the risks of operating within close reach of the Kremlin’s secret police have made RFE/RL more like a local Russian media outlet than a surrogate broadcaster the American taxpayers would expect it to be. It seems inconceivable that a broadcasting entity that works under the watchful eye of Mr. Putin’s secret police and gives airtime to extreme nationalists who promote racism should from now on be the only on air radio voice of the American people in Russia.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors had shut down all Voice of America radio broadcasts to Russia just 12 days before the Russian troops attacked Georgia. This phenomenal blunder needs to be immediately corrected. But the BBG should also change its policies so that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty can once again become an effective surrogate broadcaster in Russia for as long as Russia needs Western-originated surrogate broadcasting. Russian journalists working at RFE/RL need to be protected from intimidation by the Kremlin’s security services and not dependent on Mr. Putin’s good will.  

 

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

 

He worked in Washington, D.C. and spent eight years as a regional  media marketing director for the BBG based at the RFE/RL headquarters in Prague. He often travelled to Moscow and met there with RFE/RL Moscow bureau’s local managers and journalists.

 

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

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