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…
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…
Censorship 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…
Censorship 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.
Thirty-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.
Thirty-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.
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog September 19, 2008, San Francisco — Both Republicans and Democrats on the Broadcasting Board of Governors showed remarkable bipartisanship in destroying Voice of America Russian-language radio in late July, shortly before Russia attacked Georgia. BBG executive director Jeffrey Trimble then advised VOA to pursue Internet-only strategy in Russia. But this former Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty manager did not have the same advice for the semi-private broadcaster based in Moscow and Prague. RFE/RL has been so afraid to lose its Moscow bureau that its managers practice self-censorship and express confidence in Mr. Putin’s leadership. Trimble made sure, however, that while VOA would do nothing but the Internet, RFE/RL would continue radio broadcasts, their Internet presence, and even video production in Russian.
The attack on Georgia did not change the BBG’s plans for VOA in Russia. Granted, in the aftermath of the Russian military attack, the BBG sponsored a workshop designed to show that the Internet is subject to censorship and sabotage from authoritarian regimes. But apparently, the threat is not so great as to prevent their desire to limit the Voice of America to nothing but an Internet-only option in Russia.
Having destroyed VOA radio in Russia, they still somehow managed to get Under Secretary of State Paula J. Dobriansky to address their Internet censorship workshop. (I wonder if she knows that Governor Steven J. Simmons, who introduced her at the workshop, had voted earlier with most of his BBG coleagues to terminate VOA radio broadcasts to Ukraine.)
When the BBG members met the next day, September 11, they rejected an appeal from Governor Blanquita Cullum to resume VOA radio to Russia and to rescind permanently their decision to end VOA radio broadcasts to Ukraine and Georgia. (VOA Georgian radio will continue “for the foreseeable future,” according to a BBG press release, but their intention of eventually terminating VOA radio in Georgia apparently has not changed.)
You can view here our online presentationon the BBG’s actions in Russia.
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 
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.
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, September 11, 2006, San Francisco — Sources at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) have told FreeMediaOnline.org, a media freedom nonprofit, that at least one of the Board members, most likely Blanquita Cullum, has requested a formal vote Thursday on restoring the Voice of America radio broadcasts to Russia, Ukraine, and other countries. A source told FreeMediaOnline.org that BBG executive director, Jeff Trimble, tried to prevent the vote from taking place on the restoration of broadcasts requests, but as of now it is still scheduled to be taken on Thursday.
Jeff Trimble was said to have worked with Senator Biden’s Senate staff over the summer 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. 12 days after the VOA program went off the air, Russian troops attacked Georgia. Since then, Vice President Cheney visited both Georgia and Ukraine. President Bush announced a $1 billion aid package to Georgia.
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. One of the BBG members, Edward E. Kaufman, was formerly Senator Biden’s chief of staff.
Jeff Trimble and another BBG member, Jeff Hirschberg, who is also a director of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, had traveled to Russia in previous years and 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 despite the closing down of most independent Russian broadcasters. Most of the major electronic media outlets in Russia are now in the hands of Mr. Putin’s associates and other media is subject to secret police monitoring and intimidation.
FreeMediaOnline.org president Ted Lipien has warned that Prague and Moscow-based RFE/RL cannot be a replacement for VOA Russian-language radio broadcasts from Washington, D.C. 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 also criticized RFE/RL for airing these comments shortly after the brutal murder the most prominent journalist who was critical of Mr. Putin.
Ted Lipien has also 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.
According to FreeMediaOnline.org president, if the BBG vote takes place on Thursday as expected, the BBG members will be on record as either supporting or opposing the restoration of VOA radio programs at a time of growing nationalism and militarism in Russia. They will have a chance to reverse their earlier decisions made before the Russian attack on Georgia. If they don’t, the shutting down of VOA Russian radio broadcasts could become an election campaign issue because of Senator Biden’s presumed role in that decision, and is likely to be examined in Congressional hearings this fall.
FreeMediaOnline.org, August 25, 2008, San Francisco — 
Let me preface this post by saying that I’ve heard good things about Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty president Jeffrey Gedmin. According to my sources, he tries to ignore some of the more questionable directives from the Broadcasting Board of Governors and move the emphasis from the BBG-driven marketing focus back to content. But he has been doing this quietly and does not want to admit publicly that because of BBG actions, RFE/RL is no longer an effective external “surrogate broadcaster” or that his organization faces serious programming and security problems in Russia. In fact, he insists that RFE/RL continues to be a surrogate broadcaster in Russia.
To admit that these problems exist would undermine efforts to secure more federal money for RFE/RL, including its Moscow bureau, which costs U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars each year — money that could be much better spent on expanding a network of independent reporters. This kind of public discussion tends to undermine the requests being made to the BBG and the Congress for continued funding of RFE/RL’s extensive administrative operation in Moscow. It could also totally undermine recently implemented plans for RFE/RL to take over radio broadcasting to Russia from the Washington-based Voice of America (VOA).
(In a future post, I’ll explain how the RFE/RL Moscow bureau actually contributed to speeding up Mr. Putin’s secret police action to close down RFE/RL and Voice of America affiliates in Russia, and how the BBG bears most of the responsibility for this state of affairs. The actions ordered by Mr. Putin against independent media could not have been stopped regardless of what RFE/RL did or did not do, but the RFE/RL Moscow Bureau, some BBG members and their advisors actually believed they could influence Mr. Putin. I’ll write more about this in a new post.)
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. I think Dr. Gedmin knows it, but he did not want to say it. What he 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.)
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.
In the “Channel” magazine interview, Dr. Gedmin said “The argument will always be ‘we are operating in the framework of the rule of law’ but the law is either inconsistent with our objectives to practise free journalism or the law is applied in such a way that makes it very difficult for us to do our job or the affiliates to cooperate with us.”
These are good comments from Dr. Gedmin, but what is the BBG doing about this? For one thing, they shut down safe and reliable radio broadcasts to Russia originated by VOA journalists and broadcasters in Washington, D.C.
Interestingly, in his interview Dr. Gedmin did not focus on Russia but on Armenia, even though in Russia the problem is far more serious for his concept of surrogate broadcasting. The RFE/RL Moscow bureau is actually practicing what Dr. Gedmin calls “surrogate broadcasting,” and what should be more accurately called “internal broadcasting under the watchful eyes of the secret police.” Even Mr. Gedmin’s comments tend to confirm that RFE/RL is not an independent player in Russia, which the Voice of America, broadcasting from Washington, D.C., has been because of its Congressional Charter, American-trained staff, and location.
Here are some examples from RFE/RL Russian programs, which illustrate why I think RFE/RL faces serious problems in Russia:
Shortly after the murder in 2006 of independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the head of RFE/RL Moscow bureau Elena Glushkova said in an on-air that the work of Radio Liberty journalists cannot cause Russia any harm. According to Ms. Glushkova, RFE/RL reporters respect and love Russia. She also pointed out that all Radio Liberty reporters who work in Russia are Russian citizens. There is nothing wrong with these comments until one considers their timing (they were made in reaction to the brutal murder of an independent investigative journalist), and one reads comments that followed:
Speaking after Politkovskaya’s murder, RFE/RL Russian Service managers expressed hope that the Kremlin will allow them to report and broadcast in Russia despite President Putin’s’ crackdown on local independent media and international broadcasters. Ms. Glushkova said that her optimism was based on her belief in the common sense of the current Russian leadership. Maria Klain, 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.
These comments by Radio Liberty managers surprised and offended some pro-democracy activists in Russia who were still mourning the death of prominent investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Even Dr. Gedmin admitted in the interview for the “Channel” magazine that “journalists [are] intimidated” in Russia. I assume he also meant RFE/RL journalists, but he was not specific on this point and did not dwell on this problem, which has enormous consequences for the RFE/RL’s mission in Russia.
I have questioned whether Radio Liberty can effectively report on controversial events when most of its reporters work and live in Russia, where they are subject to intimidation and pressure from Russia’s secret police and intelligence services. A Moscow-based human rights organization has recently criticized Radio Liberty for giving “air time to racists and ‘ultra-right’ extremists.” But in the Channel magazine interview, RFE/RL president Jeff Gedmin, expressed confidence in the value of “surrogate broadcasting” as “giving people news and information that their own governments deny them, mostly domestic news.”
I think these comments tell the whole story of “surrogate broadcasting” in Russia as it was developed by RFE/RL in response to directives from some of the BBG members. Much of the blame for this rests with the BBG.
Ted Lipien, FreeMediaOnline.org President
Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin was named president of RFE/RL, Inc. on February 2, 2007. Immediately prior to his appointment, Dr. Gedmin had served since November 2001 as director of the Aspen Institute Berlin. Previously, Dr. Gedmin was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also served as executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative.
RFE/RL operates under the oversight of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent, autonomous entity responsible for all U.S. government and government-sponsored, nonmilitary, international broadcasting. Under IRS rules, RFE/RL is a private, nonprofit Sec. 501(c) 3 corporation. Chartered in Delaware, it receives federal grants as a private grantee.
Opinia.US
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