Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) press release: Walter Isaacson: America’s Voice Must Be Credible And Must Be Heard September 29, 2010 (Washington, DC) Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Chairman Walter Isaacson tonight announced a new direction for U.S. international broadcasting that “seizes on the latest media tools and technology to stay one step ahead of those who seek to repress…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, June 26, 2009, San Francisco — Ronald Reagan’s strong response to the imposition of martial law against the independent Solidarity trade union in Poland in 1981 was distinctly different from President Barack Obama’s nuanced comments about the crackdown on demonstrators in Iran in the aftermath of the disputed Iranian presidential elections. While President Obama may have wanted to show his appreciation…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, June 04, 2009, San Francisco — President Obama’s recent announcement of a new Global Engagement Directorate that will combine “diplomacy, communications, international development and assistance” was short on specifics how this new structure might change the focus of U.S. public diplomacy and broadcasting initiatives. That’s hardly surprising, considering that the White House has to deal with many other seemingly more pressing problems.…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, June 3, 2009, San Francisco — Understanding Government website — undestandinggov.org — has published an in-depth report on charges of discrimination against foreign-born journalists at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which is managed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent Federal agency created by Congress to oversee U.S. international broadcasting operations. The report refers to the work of FreeMediaOnline.org…
Interview with Former Director of Radio Liberty’s Russian Service, Italian journalist, writer and Russian expert Mario Corti. In a nutshell, the station [Radio Liberty] has abandoned its uniqueness, its identity, its face. Mario Corti Those among the old KGB and the new FSB , who see the U.S. as an enemy rather than a valuable and generous partner of Russia, could only be…
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, May 11, 2009, San Francisco — The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency responsible for managing U.S. international broadcasts made a number of misleading statements in its Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Request to the U.S. Congress. The BBG repeatedly states that the Voice of America (VOA) Russian service responded with “comprehensive coverage”…
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, May 11, 2009, San Francisco — What viewers are subjected to during Alhurra’s version of primetime are three hours of mindless chatter interspersed with shallow assessments of selected current events and random feature stories (some of which are marginally entertaining). There is no depth in the news coverage, nor in the rest of the…
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, May 8, 2009, San Francisco — Understanding Government website — undestandinggov.org — has published an in-depth report on the management crisis at the Voice of America (VOA) and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which runs U.S. international broadcasting operations. The report refers to the work of FreeMediaOnline.org and GovoritAmerika.us in support of independent journalism in media-at-risk countries. WILL…
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, Commentary by Ted Lipien, April 15, 2009, San Francisco — When Anna Karapetian, an Armenian-born journalist, accepted a job offer in 1995 from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a U.S. government-funded radio station that promotes democracy and the rule of law mostly in the countries of the former Soviet Union, she could not have imagined that nearly 15…
No in-depth reports from the Voice of America or high-resolution photos from the State Department, but one can now find sexy images on the VOA Russian website. The Clinton-Lavrov meeting and the First Lady’s visit to the State Department revealed a sorry state of U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting. It took hours after Secretary Clinton and her Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Lavrov had finished their joint press conference in Geneva before the…