Blogger News Network reports: The Voice of America has ceased its on-air Russian-language radio broadcasts as of 26 July. The broadcasts were stopped despite concerns expressed by US lawmakers and human rights NGOs that freedom of speech remains restricted in Russia.
In an apparent effort to limit negative publicity and possible embarrassment, neither VOA nor BBG issued any public statements in English prior to taking the programmes off the air after more than sixty years of uninterrupted broadcasting. A one paragraph announcement on the VOA Russian language website, posted on 26 July, stated that as of next day VOA programming in Russian would be available only through the Internet.
Andy Sennitt adds: Unless you can read Russian, you wouldn’t know that anything has changed. The three half-hour broadcasts on shortwave are still listed in the frequency schedule on the VOA website.
on Jul 31st, 2008 at 19:43
Just a few months ago VoA Russian was loudly lamenting losing a few of its local affiliates in Russia. If I remember correctly, the story was even picked up by Washington Post and alike.
Now, VOA’s AM station in Moscow carries no Russian news, only some weird English stuff. And somehow no one in the mainstream Western media covers this story. Well, I’m glad no one is blaming Kremlin this time.