[Swprograms] More Crisis at VOA News

[Glenn Hauser <wghauser@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From upcoming DX LISTENING DIGEST 4-102:

** U S A. Controversy at VOA continues in the wake of the decision by the VOA
Director, with possible support from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, to
remove VOA News Director Andre DeNesnera.

The Hill newspaper, a publication on Capitol Hill, reported that VOA staff
members had sent a petition to members of Congress protesting the action, and
accusing the BBG of "dismantling the nation's radio beacon." [below]

The petition itself was being assessed by some key members of the House of
Representatives, including the Chairman of the House International Relations
Committee, Henry Hyde, as well as others who have been involved BBG
appropriations on Capitol Hill.

As this story was developing, VOA staff received the following from Ted Iliff,
the former CNN manager who came to VOA in early 2004, now head of Central News,
and Alex Belida, announced in last week's note
from VOA Director David Jackson, as the new Supervisory Editor of VOA News
Center:

To the News Division staff:

In the coming weeks, we intend to provide you all with up-to-date
Broadcast schedules showing which languages are on the air, when and in what
medium. At the same time, we intend to pass along the latest
audience data. Anyone in Central News who believes they are working for a
global, English-language audience will see why change is necessary.

Our immediate aim is to increase our regional news output to provide our
language services with more content, especially CN items. Writers and editors
who may have in the past dismissed a possible item as ``not news`` should think
again, judging an item`s newsworthiness only after considering whether even a
single service would benefit from its
availability. They should also stop miming what is on CNN, or the BBC
or in the Times and Post, using the news judgments of those organizations as a
guideline for VOA`s news priorities. Those organizations can make their own
judgments about their audiences and their needs. We should focus on our
audiences and serve them.

At the same time, we want an integrated approach with greater
coördination between the newsroom and the language services. Some of
these services are generating interviews and other news items which
merit wider distribution. We will work with the services to create a
system for harvesting their news material.

There will also be closer coordination of the work of our
correspondents. Supervising editors will no longer be focused strictly
on the CN output. Instead they will be working with our assignments
staff to ensure correspondents and stringers are also targeting stories our
client services need. Correspondents will also be called on to work more
closely together to share information, passing along tips, quotes and facts for
insertion in another corresponden`s reports.

Our ``podland`` writers can expect to receive more direction in their
assignments, to ensure these too are coordinated with the overall news file.

Supervising editors will in addition be working with our TV staff,
ensuring packages of video material and scripts meld with the CN and CR output
to meet the video broadcast needs of our services.

There will no doubt be kinks that will need to be worked out. Full
implementation of our vision will also take time. In the meantime, we
want to hear your suggestions for how things can be done better. Please email
them to us both. Ted and Alex (via DXLD)

VOA STAFFERS SEEK HILL PROBE, By Tom Sullivan, July 6, 2004
http://www.thehill.com/news/070604/voa.aspx

Nearly half the staff of the Voice of America (VoA) has signed a petition that
will be sent to members of Congress today accusing the Broadcasting Board of
Governors of ``dismantling the nation?s radio beacon`` and calling on Congress
to investigate the board.

The petition also accuses the board, an independent entity responsible for all
government-sponsored broadcasting, of launching new services in the Middle East
with no editorial accountability at the expense of VoA programs serving the
same areas and cutting back on broadcasts to Eastern Europe and in English
around the world.

``We`re being bled white to support this expensive and ill-advised operation to
the Middle East,`` a VoA English-language editor and supervisor told The Hill.
The VoA employee, who said he feared reprisals if he were identified, added,
``It`s shameful and also very sad that we`re missing an opportunity to be doing
what we should be doing.``

More than 460 of an estimated 1,000 VoA staff members have signed the petition,
the editor said. A VoA spokesman said Friday that the agency would have no
comment since he had not yet seen the petition. 

The major complaints cited in the petition involve the board`s new services in
the Middle East ? Radio Sawa, al-Hurra and Radio Farda ? which the signatories
say provide inadequate news coverage and do not operate under VoA`s charter,
which guarantees balanced reporting.

The petition accuses the board of shutting down the VoA Arabic Service and
reducing resources to VoA television in the region and VoA service to Iran in
favor of the new broadcasting services. 

Defenders of Radio Sawa and Radio Farda have said their offerings, mainly music
with some news, appeal to younger listeners. But the VoA editor said reaching
educated people, the leaders and activists in a community, is just as
important.

He also said the board members, with their business backgrounds, place too much
emphasis on achieving market share. 

Alan Heil, a former VoA deputy director who helped distribute the petition,
agreed. ``It`s very, very important for the United States to have something on
the air that?s more food for thought and is part of the dialogue and not just a
pop music service,`` he said.

Both Radio Sawa and al-Hurra have not reported important breaking news stories,
according to the petition, including, in the case of Radio Sawa, the capture of
Saddam Hussein. What little news is reported is not produced in VoA`s newsroom
but in a separate place overseen only be the board itself, the VoA editor said.
``There is a lack of balance and a there is a lack of editorial oversight,`` he
asserted.

While the board is launching new services to the Middle East, VoA English
broadcasts are being crippled, the petition?s supporters say. The hours of
English-language broadcasts have been reduced from 24 hours a day to 19.
Because the service is dark at times it misses important stories, such as the
handover of power in Iraq, Heil said. 

The petitioners also expressed concerns about increasing politicization of the
VoA itself. Both Heil and another VoA journalist who spoke on the condition of
anonymity said reporters and editors are convinced that the demotion of Andre
DeNesnera as news director in a reorganization announced Thursday is evidence
that is happening.

``He was believed [to be acting], and correctly so, as the bulwark against
politicization of the news report,`` the journalist said.
DeNesnera could not be reached for comment (The Hill July 6 via DXLD)

Subject: Last random note . . . . . .

I am writing my last 'random notes from the shark tank' as News Director to
thank you all for your hard work and dedication these last four and a half
years. I have greatly appreciated your professionalism, commitment and
friendship.

The name for my office - the 'shark tank' - came, as you all know, from the
large glass wall with its view of the old newsroom. It could as easily have
been called 'the goldfish bowl' because everything that went on here was seen
and known by everyone. Transparency, both literal and figurative, has been my
leitmotif as News Director.

The last thing I would like to reiterate as I leave this job - though I know I
am preaching to the choir - is that our Charter is the
cornerstone of the work we do each day. We must continue to be
objective, to present all sides of a story and to tell the unflinching,
unvarnished truth. That is the basis of our credibility. We cannot permit
anyone to spin a story, omit a fact, slant a viewpoint. Though the government
pays our salary, it has never bought our conscience.

Over the years we have earned our reputation by our integrity. We
maintain it by our honesty. Our worldwide audience of listeners and
viewers knows when we're telling the truth and when we're not. Our
strength and steadfastness come from our Charter which requires us to
present the news in an objective, balanced and comprehensive manner. To do
anything less is self-deception and our audience will perceive it as moral
cowardice.

It goes without saying how honored I was to be nominated by my
colleagues for the Tex Harris Award for Constructive Dissent two years
ago - and to receive it from the American Foreign Service Association in the
diplomatic rooms at the State Department. But the highlight of my tenure as
News Director was accepting the University of Oregon's Payne Award for Ethics
in Journalism on behalf of VOA. As you know, the award itself is unusual - a
mirrored 'book' whose words can only be read by looking into the mirror. The
symbolism is eloquent. The reasons we were chosen for this accolade - courage,
ethics, honor - are the bedrock values of the people who work for VOA.

Though some, to this day, still cast us as a propaganda organization - a
mouthpiece of the U.S. government - the journalists in this building and
colleagues around the world know better, as does our audience. We must continue
to maintain our journalistic independence and at the Voice of America all
voices must be heard. There must always be a place here for constructive
dissent and we must brook no tolerance for anyone who would construe it as
disloyalty, or worse, make it a punishable action or a reason for retaliation.
To quote Edmund Burke, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good
men to do nothing." Or in the words of my countryman Voltaire: "I may not agree
with what you say but I will defend to my death your right to say it."

I will be joining you shortly in the newsroom. It has been an honor to
serve you and work with you (Andre DeNesnera, VOA, July 6 via DXLD)



		
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