FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, May 02, 2010, San Francisco — Armenian genocide and Holocaust denials in radio and TV reports generated by private contractors working for the Broadcasting Board of Governors are linked to mismanagement and flawed programming policy at this US taxpayer-funded Federal agency, says FreeMediaOnline, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization which works to promote independent journalism…
“The BBG is the most worthless organization in the federal government,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, told The Cable in an interview. “It’s full of people who know nothing about media or foreign policy. All they are doing is spending money and somebody’s got to look into it.” Read more in The Cable, Foreign Policy magazine blog.
Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia
Obama Failed to Notice the Hitler-Stalin Pact but Remembers The Elbe Anniversary
President Obama announced his decision to scrap the U.S. missile defense system in Central Europe on September 17, 2009, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. He then signed an arms control agreement with Russia in Prague, the prime site of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. On the day of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s funeral, he…
Obama’s Public Diplomacy Katabasis in Poland President Obama may very well kiss the Polish American vote good bye after committing yet another public diplomacy blunder which gave Vice President Biden, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee A. Feinstein and some Congressional Democrats plenty of reasons to be pulling their hair out in utter frustration over his insensitive behavior toward an important…
Scoring public diplomacy points, President Medvedev flew to Poland to attend President Kaczynski’s funeral, and the Poles used a plane to fly the bodies of Kaczynski and his wife from Warsaw to Krakow. The White House Blog The President’s Statement on Poland Posted by Jesse Lee on April 17, 2010 at 03:18 PM EDT The President releases a statement on…
Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): The Obama administration’s new approach to foreign policy has been more successful overseas than at home, Spencer Ackerman contends. Dignity promotion, initially derided as an attempt to dilute the Bush administration’s commitment to promoting democracy, has helped shift ownership of democracy struggles from the U.S. See original here: Promoting dignity –…
The White House has announced that President Barack Obama will attend Sunday’s state funeral for Polish President Lech Kaczynski, killed last week in a plane crash. Mr. Obama’s press secretary says he will travel to Krakow to express the depth of U.S. condolences to an important and trusted ally. More from VOA Sourced from: Opinia.US
April 11, 2010 America Mourns with Poland – U.S. Embassy Warsaw American officials and Americans around the world are expressing their condolences to Poland. After his phone call with Prime Minister Donald Tusk, President Barack Obama said, “President Kaczynski was a distinguished statesman who played a key role in the Solidarity movement, and he was widely admired in the United…
International Broadcasting
Czech politician accuses U.S. of discrimination against foreign journalists
A member of the Czech Senate has written a strongly-worded letter to key U.S. senators complaining of discriminatory personnel policies aimed against foreign journalists employed by the U.S. Government-funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). U.S. taxpayer-funded RFE/RL has its headquarters in the Czech Republic and broadcasts radio programs to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and some of the former Soviet…
TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — One group of U.S. Government employees that has not received much media scrutiny in the aftermath of the failed terrorist attack are U.S. diplomats who had issued and failed to cancel Mr. Abdulmutallab’s U.S. visa. U.S. Consular Officers at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Robin R. Sanders, and Foreign Service…
Russians lap up the tale of a shadowy spy couple – latimes.com Posted using ShareThis
FreeMediaOnline.org and GovoritAmerika.us republished this European Parliament press release to underscore the point that the Obama Administration has not protested the Russian police action and has been mostly silent on many other human rights abuses in Russia. Buzek: The EP appeals for the release of 2009 Sakharov Prize Winner Lyudmila Alexeyeva and other Russian human rights activists Brussels – 01/01/2010…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, December 22, 2009, San Francisco — The BBG has long been considered one of the worst managed Federal agencies. The current Bush-era members of the bipartisan Board in charge of U.S. international broadcasting are expected to be replaced soon by President Obama’s nominees who now await confirmation by the U.S. Senate. (You would not know…
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — An article in the U.S. semi-official military newspaper Stars and Stripes suggests that the Obama administration’s plan for placing a limited number of Patriot missiles in Poland has no military significance and is being implemented largely for diplomatic reasons to appease Warsaw after President Obama scrapped President Bush’s far more ambitious anti-ballistic missile defense system. Stars…
International Broadcasting
Cleaning house at the BBG; former CNN CEO to manage U.S. international news programs
FreeMediaOnline.org, 
Free Media Online Blog, November 18, 2009, San Francisco — 
One of the worst managed U.S. federal agencies will have a new leadership. President Obama has announced his intention to nominate former CNN chairman and CEO Walter Isaacson, a Democrat, to chair the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG,