Quieting the Voice of America – Helle Dale, The Heritage Foundation


“More than 30 years have passed since Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about the “Soft Voice of America” in an article that first appeared in National Review on April 30, 1982. Incredibly, today we appear again to be headed in the direction bemoaned by Solzhenitsyn all those years ago. While the budget for international broadcasting has certainly grown since Cold War days, it is again in a downward trend as leadership contemplates budget cuts of $17 million to $720 million in the President’s FY 2013 budget.”

In her “Quieting the Voice of America” article, Dr. Helle Dale of the Heritage Foundation argues for strengthening U.S. international broadcasting to countries without free media and reforming the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal agency that manages VOA.

Link to the full article by Helle Dale, Heritage Foundation:

Quieting of the Voice of America

BBG Watch has also been warning for some time that under the Broadcasting Board of Governors priorities, its programming, marketing, and staffing policies, the Voice of America Russian Service has developed a “pro-Putin bias.” This bias was described in the BBG’s own study commissioned from a noted independent Russian journalist and new media scholar Dr. Nikolay Rudenskiy.

BBG Watch recommends reading Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1982 article in National Review, “Soft Voice of America”, and the 2011 study of the Voice of America Russian Service website done for the BBG by Dr. Nikolay Rudenskiy. Link to the Study.