On Friday morning, January 18, 1957, Arthur Larson gave a lengthy and wide-ranging presentation on the United States Information Agency to President Eisenhower’s cabinet. After 22 months as under secretary at the Labor Department, and now one month as USIA Director, Larson used charts, maps, and film clips to describe the barely four-year-old agency. The nearly three dozen attendees…
Slides courtesy of Dr. Haroon K. Ullah, who presented at the First Monday Forum on October 1, “The Role of the US Agency for Global Media in the Era of Disinformation.” JBJohnsonJoe B. Johnson consults on government communication and technology after a career in the United States Foreign Service and seven years in the private sector.…
“Words matter!” That phrase was the theme of a wide-ranging survey by a senior official of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (the USAGM) of the challenges confronting Western broadcasters today. Dr. Haroon K. Ullah, chief strategy officer of the newly-renamed agency known since 1994 as the Broadcasting Board of Governors, was the principal speaker at…
On October 1, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President Tom Kent moves on after two highly successful years at that U.S.-funded network. After service in Washington and Prague for RFE/RL, he’ll be in New York writing and teaching about journalism, disinformation and Russian affairs. Noteworthy achievements during Tom’s RFE/RL tenure: Formal inauguration with the Voice of…
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…