International Broadcasting Archives

Ted Lipien with his mentor, anti-Nazi underground Home Army radio coder in German-occupied Poland, journalist Zofia Korbońska, at the Voice of America Polish Service in Washington, DC, circa 1974.

Cold War, Congress, Featured, Hamas, Highlights, International Broadcasting, Poland, Radio, RFE, Russia, Terrorism, The Hill, USAGM, VOA

Tarnishing the Legacy of Cold War Winners

By Ted Lipien November 19, 2024

Ted Lipien with his mentor, former anti-Nazi underground Home Army radio coder in German-occupied Poland, journalist Zofia Korbońska, at the Voice of America Polish Service in Washington, DC, circa 1974. Faulty research by three British academics distorts the history of the Cold War. Tadeusz “Ted” Lipien This postcard was sent from Poland to the Voice of America Polish Service in…

Congress, Featured, Highlights, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia, The Hill, Ukraine, USAGM, VOA

How Voice of America’s poor leadership entangled it in a spy scandal | Ted Lipien | THE HILL

By Ted Lipien November 13, 2024

Before Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, I wrote an op-ed for THE HILL on how the dangerous loopholes in security vetting of Voice of America (VOA) talent employed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) led to the hiring of an alleged Russian spy to produce news reports for VOA from countries of the former Soviet Union. The alleged…

Congress, Featured, Highlights, International Broadcasting, Israel, The Hill, USAGM, VOA

Urgent reform needed to stop anti-Trump hate by VOA’s partisan journalists | Ted Lipien | THE HILL

By Ted Lipien November 13, 2024

Before Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, I wrote an op-ed for THE HILL on partisan journalism at U.S. taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA) managed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Lacking competent leadership, VOA cannot effectively counter Vladimir Putin’s disinformation. It even employed known former Russian propagandists who had worked for Putin’s state media, defended his invasion of…

Featured, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA, Washington Times

How hatred of a Trump official blinded Voice of America to Putin’s spying | my op-ed in The Washington Times

By Ted Lipien August 24, 2024

Former Voice of America (VOA) Russian-Spanish freelance news reporter Pablo Rubtsov González was greeted in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin after exchange for American journalists imprisoned and held as hostages in Russia. Had I stayed at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty #RFERL, I would have continued to work for the release of imprisoned reporters and warned others in no uncertain…

Congress, Highlights, International Broadcasting, Russia, VOA

End the culture of corruption at the US Agency for Global Media | Ted Lipien | THE HILL

By Ted Lipien June 25, 2024

In my new op-ed in THE HILL, I explain how U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) leaders and their careless or calculated personnel policies and disregard for employee and institutional security have undermined an institution that helped to win the Cold War. I was part of the winning team as a journalist and media executive. Since then, the agency’s leaders,…

Congress, Featured, Hamas, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Israel, Media, Newspaper Articles, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia, Terrorism, Ukraine, VOA

The Hill Op-ed Against Anti-Semitism in Media and Walter Durnaty-Style Journalism at USAGM’s Voice of America (VOA)

By Ted Lipien December 29, 2023

USAGM Watch Commentary In his latest op-ed in The Hill, former Voice of America (VOA) acting associate director Ted Lipien, who also served briefly in 2020-2021 as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) president, quotes his former VOA Polish Service colleague, Jewish-American writer Henryk Grynberg: “the president of a leading American university cannot apologize for her lack of basic human values”…

Voice of America bans calling Hamas terrorists illustration by Linas Garsys /

Congress, Featured, Hamas, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Israel, Media, Newspaper Articles, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Radio, Russia, Terrorism, Ukraine, VOA

Why I can’t be silent when Voice of America bans calling Hamas ‘terrorists’ | Washington Times op-ed by Ted Lipien

By Ted Lipien November 22, 2023

I cannot remain silent because those who refuse to expose terrorism or delay condemning it today will find themselves unable to stop it later. Ted Lipien, former Voice of America Polish Service chief during the Solidarity trade union movement’s peaceful and successful struggle for national independence and democracy in Poland. Washington Times, November 21, 2023. USAGM Watch Media Commentary If…

A clip from raw footage posted by the Voice of America in 2017 without any balance.

Congress, Featured, International Broadcasting, Media, VOA

Voice of America’s refusal to call Hamas attackers ‘terrorists’ helps to perpetuate violence | Ted Lipien in The Hill

By Ted Lipien November 12, 2023

A clip from raw footage posted by the Voice of America in 2017 without any balance. VOA’s refusal to call Hamas attackers ‘terrorists’ helps to perpetuate violence | BY TED LIPIEN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR FOR THE HILL Here is some background reading for my latest op-ed in The Hill, in which I react to how Voice of America (VOA) senior journalists,…

Cold War, Congress, Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Iran, Poland, Radio, RFE, RL, Russia, Ukraine, VOA

Why are US-funded USAGM journalists defending Russia, Iran over the Hamas massacre? – Ted Lipien Op-Ed in The Hill

By Ted Lipien October 13, 2023

My new op-ed in The Hill includes comments on the latest barbaric attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israeli civilians—defenseless Jewish women, children, and the elderly. I discuss the hard-to-understand and explain defense of propaganda and disinformation from Iran and Russia by U.S. government-managed and funded U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) journalists, including federal employees working for the Voice of America (VOA). They went…

Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia, Video, VOA

Ted Lipien Comments About Prof. Richard Pipes for a Polish Documentary Film

By Ted Lipien July 1, 2023

A documentary film, Najważniejsza jest wolność (The Most Important Thing Is Freedom), about Prof. Richard Pipes, an American academic specializing in Russian and Soviet history, who in 1981 and 1982 served as a member of the National Security Council and advisor to President Ronald Reagan, has been released in Poland. Its creators are Polish filmmakers—director, co-writer, and camera operator Roman Anusiewicz—and…

Congress, Highlights, International Broadcasting, Poland, Ukraine, VOA

VOA’s Russian influence crisis calls for congressional intervention | The Hill op-ed by Ted Lipien

By Ted Lipien June 6, 2023

Featured, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Poland, Russia, VOA, Women

WWII Pro-Soviet U.S. Government Propaganda in Polish Was Spread in Pamphlets and Voice of America Radio Broadcasts

By Ted Lipien April 6, 2023

WWII Pro-Soviet U.S. Government Propaganda in Polish Was Spread in Pamphlets and Voice of America Radio Broadcasts During World War II, the Office of War Information (OWI) produced and distributed printed propaganda material in the United States and abroad and was also responsible for the Voice of America (VOA) shortwave and medium-wave radio broadcasts for worldwide audiences. Sometime in 1942…

Cold War, Featured, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, RFE, VOA

From Risking Life As A Young Anti-Nazi Scout In Poland To A Cold War Broadcasting Career At Radio Free Europe and Voice of America

By Ted Lipien February 11, 2023

By Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum Marek Walicki, the former journalist of the Polish Service of Radio Free Europe and the Polish section of the Voice of America, is the author of Z Polski Ludowej do Wolnej Europy (From People’s Poland to Free Europe), Bellona, Warsaw, 2018, a memoir of his life and radio career. During World…

“Radio Broadcast Sent To Russia By State Department” photograph from the National Archives, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Description: Interior view of seven men and women taken during a radio broadcast sent to Russia from the State Department’s studios in New York. Identified as left to right: Boris Brodenov, Kathrine Elene, James Shigorin, Vladmir Postman, Mrs. Lucy Bates, Victor Franzusoff, and Mrs. Tatiana Hecker, all American citizens. Lettering on top of microphone is in Russian language. (Charles Thayer supervised the programs.) Date(s): ca. February 1947.

Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Radio, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA

Why Voice of America and BBC Had No Russian-Language Broadcasts Until After WWII?

By Ted Lipien December 29, 2022

Cold War Radio Museum By Ted Lipien A partial answer to the question of why the Voice of America (VOA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had no Russian-language radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union until after the end of World War II can be found in the biography of William Benton by Sidney Hyman. William Benton (1900–1973) was a…

Cold War, Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Religion, Russia, VOA, VOA80

Religious Programs at the Voice of America

By Ted Lipien December 8, 2022

Anti-communist atheist Bertram D. Wolfe discovered that Voice of America (VOA) English writers could not write persuasively about religion in communist-ruled nations in the early 1950s. Religious programming was then and continues to be a challenge for VOA’s American-born officials and broadcasters, partly because of the wrongly perceived separation of church and state concerns and partly because of a certain…