The role of public diplomacy in statecraft; professional ethics; organizational principles; arguments for using public diplomacy
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,…
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…
A ceasefire in Yemen’s civil conflict, now in its fifth year, now appears, at last, to be coming into view. The conflict has cost tens of thousands of lives and been described by U.N. officials as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” “If the fighting continues through 2022,” a U.N. development report released October 10 said,…
When you’re my age, twenty years pass in the blink of an eye. On an autumn day in 1999, I was standing by a bank of elevators watching office furniture exiting the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) building in Southwest Washington, enroute to its new location in the State Department. I was deputy director of USIA’s…
October heralds the formation of a new management team overseeing the nation’s five taxpayer-funded networks that reach an estimated unduplicated 345 million users online, TV and radio listeners each week. The networks are the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE-RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), The Middle East Broadcast Network (NBN) in Arabic.…
Lou was one of the most thoughtful, dedicated, and politically savvy public diplomacy professionals of his generation. Louis T. Olom (1917-2019), a career civil servant, will be remembered for his many contributions to public diplomacy during the years in which it was gradually gaining acceptance as a field of professional practice in US diplomacy. Lou’s…
In 1988, the U.S. Information Agency’s Division for the Study of the United States published An Early American Reader for scholars outside the U.S. It was compiled and edited by Professor J. A. Leo Lemay (1935-2008), the du Pont Winterthur Professor at the University of Delaware. Lemay — also known as the “Ambassador of Early…
John Lansing, who has headed the five U.S. overseas taxpayer-funded networks since 2015, will become president and CEO of National Public Radio on October 1. The five U.S. networks are: Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), the Middle East Broadcasting Network in Arabic, (MBN) and Radio-TV Marti in…
Akbar Ayazi, who emigrated to the U.S. from his native Afghanistan in 1980, served as a distinguished broadcaster and executive for the Voice of America for 27 years and for a decade at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He passed away August 25 after a long battle with lung cancer. Mr. Ayazi is survived by his…
That will be the question tomorrow when the senior public diplomacy official, Michelle Giuda, appears before the Advisory Commission for Public Diplomacy to discuss the ongoing merger of two bureaus under her aegis. The Council is co-hosting this event with the Advisory Commission at at George Washington University Elliott School’s Lindner Family Commons, 1957 E…