By Alan Heil To those who follow and admire America’s five government-funded international broadcasting networks, June 14, 2017 — Flag Day in the U.S. — will be long remembered as an extraordinary and unique memorial celebration. On that day, the Broadcasting Board of Governors held a bimonthly meeting. The largely unrecognized danger its reporters face…
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By Alan Heil In a briefing to a record crowd at the First Monday forum of the Public Diplomacy Council and USC’s Annenberg School June 5, the State Department’s senior advisor to the Helsinki Commission laid out principles for meeting those challenges. As Scott Rauland put it: “Don’t expect to combat the firehose of falsehoods…
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Michael Pack, President and CEO of the Claremont Institute, was reported today to be the leading candidate to run U.S. international broadcasting, succeeding John Lansing, the current CEO. The report, in Politico, comes after weeks of rumors that Pack was favored for the post by the White House. See today’s Politico report at http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/michael-pack-candidate-broadcasting-board-of-governors-239022 Pack has…
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By Joe B. Johnson “Asserting U.S. leadership and influence” includes core public diplomacy programs, according to the White House budget for 2018. We don’t have a formal strategy or a reorganization plan from the new administration, but a budget may be the most important statement about its new directions. And this page from the State Department lays…
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VOA’s alleged mishandling of a Chinese insider’s interview shouldn’t overshadow the important work done by it and the other U.S. government-sponsored broadcasters. See my latest commentary in The American Interest: The Voice of America (VOA) celebrated its 75th anniversary in March, but it didn’t have much time to savor its diamond jubilee. Just a month later,…
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By Donald Bishop When my paper copy of the Foreign Service Journal arrives, I set aside time to go through it from cover to cover. There’s always something about foreign affairs that I haven’t seen in the various newspapers, newsletters and electronic sources I receive. The American Foreign Service Association has announced recently an electronic…
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In 1966 the Brookings Institution published a book by Charles Frankel entitled: The Neglected Aspect of Foreign Affairs – American Educational and Cultural Policy Abroad. Frankel argued that “in comparison with the sophisticated analysis devoted to U.S. military, economic, and diplomatic policy, little intellectual attention has been given to international cultural exchange”. Although more than…
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By Joe B. Johnson I still remember a very old New Yorker cartoon showing two dogs — one at a computer, remarking to its friend: “On the Internet, no one knows I’m a dog.” That’s no longer funny in a world where robots amplify propaganda messages and can even write news stories of their own.…
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Joe B. Johnson Donald J. Trump employs public diplomacy as much as any President we’ve seen. Yet his public diplomacy staff has not faced so much uncertainty in decades. The State Department, supposed leader for the United States outreach to the rest of the world, named a new press spokesperson this week: one of the…
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