“America must always lead” was the theme of President Obama’s speech at West Point on May 28, 2014. This essay – posted on the former website of the Public Diplomacy Council on June 3, 2014, now republished for reference – was a response. Five years later, the nation has a new president, but the four…
The following essay commented on President Obama’s September 29, 2015, speech at the Leaders Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism, held at the United Nations. It appeared on the former Public Diplomacy Council website as a “Commentary,” but it is no longer available on the web. It is here re-published for reference. Foreign policy…
What is public diplomacy? It’s a term used more widely than ever in the 21st century, as a leading scholar of the concept, the University of Southern California’s Professor Nicholas J. Cull explains: “Public diplomacy deals with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of a nation’s foreign policies.” Dr. Cull adds…
It was perhaps the largest gathering of public diplomacy advocates and international broadcasters and media scholars ever held in America. The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) organized a day-long conference May 7 at the U.S. Institute of Peace in an atrium within sight of the Lincoln Memorial. Highlight of the day: an address by…
America has five taxpayer-funded multimedia overseas broadcasters. Practically unknown, however, is fact that 18 field reporters of those networks have been killed or missing in the last seven decades because of their service in covering events in war-torn or totalitarian countries across four continents. On May 3, the chief executive of the five networks, John…
First published as a Public Diplomacy Council Commentary on March 18, 2014, this essay was addressed the new Secretary of State, John Kerry. Five years later, the threat of al-Qaeda has diminished, and other foreign policy problems compete with the war on terrorism. From the third paragraph, however, the essay reviewed issues that continue to…
It appeared to some to be the end of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) a month ago. That was when its last territorial holding in southeastern Syria, the town of Baghouz, was captured by largely Kurdish units of the Syrian Democratic Forces coalition forces. A network of underground tunnels where ISIS fighters…
Last week offered two glimpses of U.S. public diplomacy’s gradual evolution. The State Department received confirmation that a merger between two of its three public diplomacy bureaus will move ahead. International Information Programs and the Public Affairs bureau will become the Bureau of Global Public Affairs. A less visible but deeper change went public Thursday,…
As a VOA foreign correspondent reporting from Sudan back in 1969, I recall distinctly a tiny mud hut within a mile or so from the confluence of the Blue and White Niles. Its rough mud bricks were splashed with crude white lettering, a makeshift campaign poster back in the relatively brief period when Sudan had…
In this era of expanding use of new communications tools, accuracy in media matters as never before. Globally, truth and fairness in journalism is endangered in unprecedented ways. Two specialists from the National Endowment for Democracy recently explained to a First Monday of the Month forum of the PDC and PDAA how China, Russia and…