A small brushfire of criticism erupted recently over the Voice of America’s initial failure to report the story of NBC anchor Brian Williams’ admittedly false claims to have been in a helicopter that came under enemy fire in Iraq. (Williams’ disputed claims about his experiences covering Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans quickly added to the…
I went to a movie on Thanksgiving, and by the time I left the theater I realized I had seen the best American public diplomacy message in years. The movie was “The Martian”, and it had everything we should be promoting: It showed Americans as smart, resourceful, and innovative. It showed us as independent thinkers,…
America’s five publicly-funded overseas multimedia networks now reach a record 339 million curious users worldwide every week. That’s more than 17 billion user contacts a year. The announcement was made September 12 at the National Press Club by John Lansing, CEO of the newly-renamed U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). (The Agency encompassing the five…
Remember trolls? They used to be mythical creatures from children’s stories who lurked in caves or under bridges. Not any more. Today’s trolls now lurk online, where they attack Western values, defend Vladimir Putin, and do whatever they can to plant nutty conspiracy theories and disrupt rational discussions on news and opinion websites. They’re not…
In late August, the world noted the one year anniversary of the beginning of Myanmar’s brutal expulsion of more than 700 thousand Rohingya residents from the western part of their country, until recently known as Burma. Those expelled now crowd into a flood-threatened temporary refugee camps at a site called Cox’s Bazar in neighboring Bangladesh.…
At the meeting of the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s Board of Governors this week our Council’s president, Adam Clayton Powell III, weighed in on a question up for debate these days: in today’s world, are things getting better or worse? The world is getting better, and American investments and values are the reason, he…
Next Wednesday (August 22), the Broadcasting Board of Governors overseeing five U.S.-funded international networks will announce it is re-christening itself the U.S. Agency for Global Media. That will be a significant event in the nearly quarter of a century since the BBG was established by the Administration and Congress in 1994. “New Name, Same Mission — Come…
The lid has been lifted on at least part of Russia’s “Internet Research Agency” in St. Petersburg as disaffected Internet trolls have been telling reporters how the covert corps of cyber-provocateurs has been spreading propaganda in favor of President Vladimir Putin and attacking his perceived enemies on international blogs and news and opinion websites. But…
There’s been a growing tendency lately (particularly on BBGWatch, an online watchdog) to compare, unfavorably, VOA’s performance, as measured by number of stories or live reports from the scene of breaking news, with other national and international news organizations. Behind much of this criticism is an implicit expectation that VOA’s coverage should be as fast…
Since last year there has been an effort at the Voice of America to expand into “investigative reporting”. The best response by VOA’s stakeholders to this effort should be a firm and unequivocal No. Why? Just look at VOA’s website. Every day this government agency distributes stories to audiences around the world that are not…