The following is my op-ed for Digital Journal. Republishing is allowed. September 17, A Wrong Date for Obama White House to Snub Poland President Obama’s announcement on September 17 that the US is shelving its plans to build a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Central Europe is likely to raise painful historical memories in Poland. By making the announcement…
Stratfor global intelligence analysis website reports that “rumors are flying late Sept. 16 that the United States could be shelving its plans to build a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Poland and Czech Republic. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reportedly will hold a news conference on the issue sometime Sept. 17 or Sept. 18, and U.S. security officials are…
By Ted Lipien
Published September 16, 2009 by Digital Journal
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.
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
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.…
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…
Update: Radio Liberty Russian website finally produced reports on the GQ story on Monday, full three days after the story broke in the mainstream media in the US, NPR no less. VOA Russian website had a very brief news item on the story by Sunday. Only on Tuesday, did the VOA Russian Service post an interview with Scott Anderson. The…
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…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, September 6, 2009, San Francisco — Neither the Voice of America nor Radio Liberty, both US government-funded international broadcasters, provided Internet users and radio listeners with a Russian translation of an article about Vladimir Putin which sparked a major controversy over censorship both in Russia and in the US. Conde Nast, the publisher of…
The popular New York blog site Gawker is reporting that “in an act of publishing cowardice, Condé Nast has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent Russians from reading a “GQ” article criticizing Vladimir Putin.” Condé Nast publishes such widely read magazines as “Vanity Fair,” “The New Yorker,” and “Vogue.” In Russia, it publishes “GQ,” “Glamour,” “Tatler,” and “Vogue.” The Manhattan…
Buzek – Poland has a clear conscience over WW II President of the European Parliament and former Polish prime minister Jerzy Buzek, thought some of Vladimir Putin’s comments at WW II anniversary ceremony in Poland were “offensive”. Read full Polish Radio report…
Helle Dale has written two articles on how the Obama Administration is still unable to get its public diplomacy act together. I don’t think that there was a deliberate attempt to snub Poland over the 70th anniversary observances of the start of World War II, but as the Heritage Foundation scholar points out, Poland has a lot of reasons to…
The New York Times correspondent in Moscow Michael Schwirtz reported that many Poles saw the low-level U.S. representation at the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II observances in Gdansk as a snub from the Obama Administration. Russia sent Prime Minister Putin, whose statement that the Hitler-Stalin Pact “can be condemned” was misleadingly reported by most international media…
The BBC, the Voice of America (VOA) and other international media reported that in in an apparent effort to defuse tensions on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “expressly condemned” the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the treaty of non-aggression between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. BBC News headline read:…
This post by Jonathan Liedl of the Heritage Foundation on the SZONE.US Forum includes several links to FreeMediaOnline.org reports. With VOA Left Voiceless, Obama Fails to Reach Russian Public President Obama’s foreign policy thus far has been marked by an emphasis on public diplomacy. As a result, successfully engaging foreign publics has become a top priority of his administration. The…