U.S. international broadcasting strategy again landed under congressional scrutiny in Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. Representative Brad Sherman (D–CA) wanted to know why the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) ignored the congressional mandate to keep broadcasting to Pakistan in several local languages. In spite of a specific $1.5 million …
The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) recently informed its workforce about sequestration cuts to Voice of America’s (VOA) shortwave and medium-wave broadcasting. Ironically, the Board is cutting the most cost-effective part of its organization: radio. It would be more rational to cut the bloated management and administration of the International …
Two new reports have delivered a one-two punch to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). One of the reports, by the State Department’s Inspector General (IG), focused narrowly on the functioning of the BBG itself, which it concluded is failing in its mandated duties, including implementation of key aspects of …
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Senate and House hearings on the terrorist attack on Benghazi, Libya, yesterday did not throw much more light on the affair or its aftermath. There was plenty of heat, though. Clinton’s totally inappropriate sarcasm and theatrics in response to a line of questioning by Senator …
Chinese advances on the cultural and informational fronts have not gone unnoticed in Washington. While U.S. international broadcasting continues to struggle with budget cuts, Chinese TV (CCTV) this year launched itself on the Washington scene with sparkling new office facilities close to Capitol Hill, and the Chinese news agency Xinhua …
An example of government waste and bad planning—the exorbitantly expensive Gallup Organization contract with the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)—is finally coming under a long-overdue review. At a time when language service after language service of Voice of America, this country’s primary public diplomacy tool, is under threat of being …
Americans deserve transparency about what their government is doing, as long as that transparency doesn’t threaten national security. Transparency should also be the guiding principle of the State Department’s public diplomacy and U.S. international broadcasting. But since 1948, the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act, also know as the Smith–Mundt …
Kudos to the House Appropriations Committee for protecting U.S. international broadcasting against the eviscerating cuts in language services and personnel contained in the President’s proposed fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget. If the budget passes—a big “if,” of course—it could reverse a direction that can only be described as self-defeating for American …
Well into the second year of the Obama administration, U.S. international broadcasting services remain in a leaderless state of vacuum. Nor are these important public diplomacy assets of the government likely to emerge from limbo anytime soon, which is deeply unfortunate given the intensifying global competition for information dominance. At …
