Re: [Swprograms] Sanford Unger on the VOA's Status

[John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Not so sure about that, Scott.  The WS is carried overnight 
domestically by Radio 4 and 648 kHz. MW (main WS MW frequency for 
northwest Europe) is well heard throughout much of the British Isles.  
When the "Save BBC World Service" campaign was in full swing a few 
years ago, many UK residents wrote in messages of support and the 
British newspapers regularly carried letters from their readers 
commenting on WS policy.

John

On Mar 31, 2005, at 11:27 PM, Scott Royall wrote:

> Very interesting. I suspect that much of this article could be applied 
> to
> the BBC. They don't have the same legal restrictions as the VOA, but 
> I'd bet
> the BBCWS has an equally small domestic following.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: swprograms-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:swprograms-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John 
> Figliozzi
> Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 9:26 PM
> To: Shortwave programming discussion; dxld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; 
> edxp@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Swprograms] Sanford Unger on the VOA's Status
>
> An excerpt from an excellent and informative article titled "Pitch
> Imperfect" in Foreign Affairs quarterly by former VOA Director Sanford
> Unger (also earlier, of NPR's All Things Considered) on the
> increasingly dire status of the VOA.
>
> John Figliozzi
> Halfmoon, NY
>
> -------------------------
>
> 	"The Voice of America -- the United States' best tool of public
> diplomacy -- is being subjected to systematic cutbacks, even as the
> country's international image is suffering. Washington must reverse the
> trend or face even greater hostility abroad...."
>
> 	"...Unfortunately, the VOA is unlikely to get much support from
> anyone
> else in Washington. For all the admiration it enjoys overseas, the
> network has virtually no constituency inside the United States. The
> prohibition on its broadcasting at home has guaranteed that few, if
> any, members of Congress have ever heard a VOA program (even though
> they are now available at www.voanews.com). Most are unaware that VOA
> headquarters, complete with giant rooftop satellite dishes, sit a few
> blocks away from the principal office building of the House of
> Representatives. Votes on appropriations for the network are rarely
> noticed, let alone tracked, and they never affect a member of Congress'
> prospects for reelection. A few influential members of both houses
> have, in fact, made a particular effort to cut funding for the VOA,
> which they insist is an expensive relic of the Cold War.
>
> 	"Oblivious to irony, some prefer to bolster Radio Liberty (RL),
> Radio
> Free Europe (RFE), and Radio Free Asia (RFA), stations created to
> report domestic news in countries where, because of communism, no
> independent national broadcasters could. The distinction between these
> networks and the VOA may seem subtle to the casual observer, but it is
> real: whereas the VOA was intended as an international news source, RL
> and RFE were established by the CIA during the Cold War to counter
> communist propaganda in the Soviet Union and its satellite states,
> respectively, and RFA, the brainchild of Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.),
> was launched in 1996 to do the same in Asia. (None of these networks
> receives funding from the intelligence budget today, and none is
> officially part of the U.S. government, allowing them greater
> flexibility than the VOA has in hiring and firing staff.) Capitol Hill
> has even greater affection for the anti-Fidel Castro stations Radio
> MartÌ and TV MartÌ, even though Radio MartÌ is believed to have fewer
> listeners in Cuba than the Spanish service of the VOA and TV MartÌ has
> almost no audience, except at the American Interests Section in Havana
> and on a few Latin American cable channels. The Office of Cuba
> Broadcasting, which coordinates programming for the two stations, is
> the rare recipient of "no-year money," federal funds it can hold over
> indefinitely, and it usually gets more such funding than it can spend.
> (The Bush administration's budget for fiscal year 2006 includes a
> request for $10 million to acquire and operate an airborne transmitter
> that could supposedly evade Cuban jamming of TV MartÌ's signal.)
>
> 	"Some might argue that as a government-funded network, the VOA
> should
> be expected always to portray U.S. policies as righteous and
> successful; they might even claim that, in the right hands, such
> propaganda could help defuse anti-Americanism abroad. But experience
> demonstrates that the VOA is most appreciated and effective when it
> functions as a model U.S.-style news organization that presents a
> balanced view of domestic and international events, setting an example
> for how independent journalism can strengthen democracy. After all,
> these are the values that the network's charter sought to enshrine, and
> they are no less important today than before. Many still believe that
> the VOA delivered its finest performances in the midst of severe crises
> such as the Watergate scandal and the impeachment proceedings against
> President Bill Clinton, when it gave full and balanced accounts of the
> news.
>
> 	"The network still has a critical role to play in introducing
> American
> values to the rest of the world. It is no coincidence that in recent
> years some of the VOA's largest audiences have been in Afghanistan,
> Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Tanzania -- countries where the local media
> simply cannot be trusted to offer an accurate representation of what is
> happening domestically or around the world. It also is telling that,
> like the Soviets a few decades ago, the governments of Iran and North
> Korea now spend considerable effort trying to jam VOA broadcasts.
> Ironically, by taking English off some of the clearest shortwave
> frequencies, the BBG has rendered a certain amount of jamming
> unnecessary.
>
> 	"Some members of Congress have suggested that the VOA's job might
> best
> be left to the free market and cable services such as Fox and CNN,
> which have extensive networks of correspondents. But it is impossible
> to imagine these commercial operations mounting the effort and
> shouldering the expense necessary to provide, for both the radio and
> the Internet, in-depth international news in Burmese, Hausa,
> Macedonian, Swahili, or others of the 44 languages in which the VOA
> currently broadcasts. With an annual budget of approximately $150
> million, almost 100 million listeners worldwide every week, and
> increasing penetration in difficult regions thanks to both fm signals
> and shortwave frequencies, the VOA is still an astonishing bargain for
> the U.S. taxpayer. When the U.S. government hopes to open up channels
> of information in countries facing political or social crises, such as
> Indonesia or Zimbabwe, it first turns to the VOA to add broadcast
> hours. If those programs succeed in breaking through domestic barriers
> to the free flow of information, it is because they carry the VOA label
> and greater credibility than political speeches or flat declarations of
> U.S. policy..."
>
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