As a 36-year VOA professional who retired at the end of last century, I recall vividly a day when VOA’s then record weekly global audience reached around a hundred million followers. A Voice technician, in a conversation in a Voice corridor, noted an irony in this good news. Referring to the scarce coverage in the U.S.…
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During his career, George Gallup (1901-1984), the pioneer of opinion surveys and founder of the Gallup Poll, frequently commented on issues relating to Public Diplomacy. He was a member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information from 1973 to 1978. In a 1963 essay, he focused on the Soviet Union, but the principles Gallup advocated…
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Ambassador Linda Jewell, who died November 18, was treasurer of the Public Diplomacy Council and a longstanding board member, active up to the time of her passing. She was one of the most distinguished public diplomacy officers of that generation in charge when the U.S. Information Agency was abolished and incorporated into the State Department…
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In a few sentences, an older Public Diplomacy officer gave me a key insight about many of the “isms” since the French Revolution – Jacobinism, Marxism, militarism, fascism, Communism, and Islamism among them. And it came from his study of inanimate machines. Here’s the story: In 1985, Arthur J. McTaggart (1915-2003) — a USIA officer…
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Voice of America Director Amanda Bennett, in a wide-ranging conversation Nov. 6 with American University students and public diplomacy advocates, reminded her audience that VOA “is all about a free press.” Examples abound: A VOA multilingual VOA team has been in Hong Kong to report pro-democracy demonstrations in that Chinese territory. Objective journalism IS public…
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“Jingoist newspaper articles, or thoughtlessly provocative speeches in Congress, may become propaganda in reverse.” This was the 1963 observation of emeritus Princeton professor of politics John B. Whitton (1892-1977) in his book Propaganda and the Cold War (Washington, Public Affairs Press, 1963, pp. 10-11). His chapter on “The American Effort Challenged” included a subhead —…
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“The news may be good… the news may be bad, but we shall tell you the truth.” That was the solemn pledge a Voice of America program host in New York made to listeners at the opening of the first VOA broadcast in German to war-torn Europe early in the morning on February 1, 1942.…
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Our People and Our Values Are the Core of U.S. International Leadership A Statement by PDC and PDAA Boards of Directors October 31, 2019 As Board members of the Public Diplomacy Council and the Public Diplomacy Association of America, non-partisan organizations of professionals committed to U.S. global leadership, we support all public servants who…
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The disinformation, propaganda, and malign narratives that now trouble international relations reach beyond the traditional Public Diplomacy frames of “mutual understanding,” “winning hearts and minds” and “soft power.” They are tools of “sharp power,” defined by the National Endowment for Democracy as “authoritarian influence efforts” that “pierce,…
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In June 1970, the Marine Corps Gazette published the text of a talk, “Effective Press Relations,” given to students at the Command and Staff College earlier that year by legendary USIA officer Barry Zorthian. As Public Affairs Officer at the American Embassy in Saigon from 1964 to 1968, he set up the Joint United States…
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