By Ted Lipien Published March 2, 2012 by Digital Journal Moscow – Voice of America and Radio Liberty, funded by US taxpayers to promote media freedom abroad, self-censor news on two stations in Moscow to comply with Russian media law prior to Russia’s presidential elections on March 4. US government-funded media freedom broadcasters, Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe and Radio…
The BBG-managed Voice of America (VOA) websites were hacked on February 21, 2011, apparently by the “Iranian Cyber Army,” as reported by PiratesWeek and Kim Andrew Elliott, a Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) employee who publishes his own private international broadcasting website, In 2009, VOA websites were out of comission for at least two full days during President Obama’s official…
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…
Update: America.gov restored my comment.
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, December 27, 2010 — On the day the U.S. Senate voted to approve the new arms reduction treaty with Russia, I found an article on the State Depatment’s website, America.gov, which gave a long list of the START treaty’s benefits lauded by the Obama administration but failed to note any of the objections from some key Republican lawmakers and other critics. I posted a short comment that a website devoted to public diplomacy, with a name that implies that it represents the views of the entire American government and the American public, should try to present a more balanced perspective and mention some of the difficulties in getting the U.S.-Russian agreement approved by the Senate.
FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, December 23, 2010 — Free Media Online Commentary: According to Voice of America Russian Service insiders, the rosy picture painted in the recent VOA press release on the media situation in Belarus during the disputed presidential elections may not be as good as it seems. The VOA press release makes a claim that “dramatic first-hand accounts…
FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, December 19, 2010 — In their eagerness to promote the Obama Administration policies to overseas audiences, the Voice of America (VOA) English Service reporters and editors have been toeing the White House line on the proposed START arms reductions treaty with Russia and failing to report in a balanced way on the substantial Republican opposition to the treaty, as they are required to do by U.S. law which governs their journalistic work.
FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, December 02, 2010 — A court in the Czech Republic has ruled that a former Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Armenian broadcaster Anna Karapetian should not have been fired using RFE/RL’s personnel procedures which deprive non-American and non-Czech employees of some of the protections of Czech labor laws. RFE/RL is a semi-private entity funded and…
Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): It was thirty years’ ago, on 31 August 1980, that strikers from Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard forced the communist regime to recognize Solidarnosc as an independent trade union, release political prisoners, end media censorship and accept the right to strike. The regime later imposed martial law and Solidarity was forced underground before being…
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…
An unknown hacker has posted a pornographic video on the VOA LiveJournal blog. The image seen on the VOA site showed a naked woman in a sexually suggestive pose. The post was titled “sexy.” The image was not removed from the site for at least several hours. It was seen and saved by Free Media Online at 4:16 PM PT.…
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,
Opinia.US In a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) said he was disappointed in the manner in which President Obama’s decision to revise a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe was communicated to NATO allies, Poland and Czech Republic. Calling the handling of the missile decision a “major public relations and public diplomacy blunder,” Senator Voinovich…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Media analysis by Ted Lipien, August 21, 2009, San Francisco –A title of a recent report on the Voice of America Russian Service website caught my attention: “Сговор Сталина с Гитлером – «единственное средство самообороны»?” “Stalin’s Pact with Hitler – «The Only Means of Self-Defense»?” The story posted in Russian was the…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, August 18, 2009, San Francisco — Ever since the United States Information Agency (USIA) was dismantled in a foolish post-Cold War cost-cutting move, the U.S. State Department and American diplomats abroad have not been able to present a coherent message to foreign audiences quickly and effectively. The latest example is…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, August 18, 2009, San Francisco — Ever since the United States Information Agency (USIA) was dismantled in a foolish post-Cold War cost-cutting move, the U.S. State Department and American diplomats abroad have not been able to present a coherent message to foreign audiences quickly and effectively. The latest example is…