The US Public Diplomacy Council has published its recommendations to the new Administration and Congress for an urgent reform of America’s publicly funded international broadcasting. Recommended steps for the new administration include:
- An immediate restoration of all radio services reduced at the Voice of America in FY 08.
- The Broadcasting Board of Governors should be replaced by a new nonpartisan oversight commission that would assume more of an advisory role, leaving daily management in the hands of a commission-appointed professional CEO, the VOA director, and the presidents of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcast Networks (Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV), and Radio-TV Marti to Cuba.
- Through direct and public reporting on a regular basis, the commission should be accountable to the legislative and executive branches of the federal government for operations of all these networks, including programme content.
- A long range commitment to consolidation and integration of the networks. The CEO of international broadcasting should immediately formulate a new strategic plan, 2010-2014, that would include a series of target dates for the consolidation of all five broadcast entities into a single international network.
- Cooperation with private sector public service NGOs. It has been a decade since the consolidation of the United States Information Agency into the Department of State except broadcasting. During that time, non-governmental, nonprofit American media beamed overseas have grown rapidly. US-funded international networks should collaborate with this community and draw strength and support from it.
- The CEO should abolish the International Broadcasting Bureau, placing its administrative functions related to VOA within VOA, as is now the case with the other four networks. An office of Engineering and Technical support should continue to provide state of the art distribution channels for all of them. The CEO should be empowered to coordinate all programme and technical operations to eliminate redundancies, cut costs, and straighten out tangled lines of authority.
- Maintaining at the Voice of America core services essential to the nation’s security: a strengthened central news service and important languages such as Arabic, Chinese, French, Persian, Russian, Spanish, and particularly our own predominant language, English.
- VOA Arabic should be restored immediately under this proposal. Neither Radio Sawa, despite its popularity, nor Alhurra TV, despite its wide availability, offers consistent, authoritative news and perspective.
Essential throughout US international broadcasting:
- In-depth news and programming content for elites as well as youth and rural audiences.
- Interactive programming taking full advantage of Internet technology, chat lines, and cell phone distribution. Radio should be retained at present levels at all the networks, committed to promoting a global dialogue and journalistic integrity protected by law.
- Sufficient funds and flexibility for crisis surge broadcasting. In the troubled world of this digital age characterized by the 24/7 multimedia news cycle, such agility is essential.
Read the comments of Kim Andrew Elliott on the Council’s proposals
Andy Sennitt comments: The Council stresses that it is not asking for additional funds for international broadcasting, and indeed it believes that cost savings can be made by implementing its proposals. To me, the single most sensible recommendation is “A long range commitment to consolidation and integration of the networks”. Sorting out the tangled web that has been created in recent years into a well-managed and integrated organisation will not be easy, but is an essential step if US international broadcasting, and VOA in particular, is to recover the prestige that has been lost in the past eight years.
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