The Foreign Service Journal, January 2004

1 A N U A R Y 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 13 “R emember you represent the American people and its free press.” With these words, VOANewsroomChief Bernard Kamenske bade farewell to his staff in the fall of 1981. Bernie lived and breathed the First Amendment, and believed passionately that VOA had an obligation to its international audience to provide balanced journalism. A self- professed Jeffersonian, he also knew the American experience was worthy of sharing with the rest of the world. Bernie, my friend and mentor, passed away in September, but he leaves behind a lasting legacy best exemplified in the document he helped to become law — the VOA Charter. The Charter, drafted in 1960 and signed into law in 1976, is both the foundation of VOA’s credibility and a statement of its public diplomacy role. “VOA will serve the long-range inter- ests of the United States,” the docu- ment states, “by communicating directly with the people of the world.” It requires VOA to provide accurate, objective and comprehensive news; a broad and balanced picture of American institutions, thought and val- ues; and a thorough explanation of U.S. policies on a broad range of issues. It provides a road map for U.S. interna- tional broadcasting that is as relevant in today’s war on terrorism as it was in the Cold War. However, at the very time that it should be at its strongest, America’s Voice is being silenced in some parts of the world and marginalized in others. One might expect pressure from out- side to politicize VOA content. To be sure there has been some of that; notably, for instance, the State Department’s disagreement with VOA management in the emotionally charg- ed days following 9/11 over the airing of a report based on an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. But equally troubling, if not more so, is the tilt toward commercial- ization of publicly funded international broadcasting. The Commercial Impulse: Radio Sawa Following restructuring in the 1990s, a nine-member, bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees VOA and its sister grantee broadcasters. (The Secretary of State serves as an ex-officio member.) This part-time group of private citizens, most of whom are active in the media business, has broad authority over a multimedia, international broadcast operation that cost the American tax- payer some $540 million in 2003. The BBG sets priorities, determines lan- guages, allocates resources and com- missions program content. Under the current structure, the directors of VOA and the grantee entities do not make policy or programming decisions; instead they are expected to imple- ment the wishes of the board. Drawing upon their domestic com- mercial experience, board members seek to oversee with a corporate, micro-managerial style. Unfortunately, there is no one among themwho advo- cates for the Voice of America. In fact, frustrated by what they see as a cum- bersome federal bureaucracy, board members have chosen to break away their pet projects from the Voice of America, thus bypassing the mandate of the VOA Charter. (Of all the enti- ties that the BBG supervises, VOA is the only one that has a legal mandate, based on Public Law 94-350, to uphold the provisions of the VOA Charter.) A case in point is the much-touted Radio Sawa that replaced VOA’s Arabic Service in March 2002 with a 24-hour Western/Arabic music network. Gone were the VOA brand, the VOA central news product, and the comprehensive reporting and analysis that had been the hallmark of VOA Arabic program- ming for 55 years. In their place were Britney Spears, Amer Diab, Justin Timberlake and Nawal Zoghby. VOA Arabic Service employees were required to compete for positions in the new Radio Sawa. In fact, the majority of the Sawa staff is not from VOA. They were hired under a rela- tively new personnel provision called Time to Speak Up for the Voice of America B Y M YRNA W HITWORTH S PEAKING O UT At the very time that it should be at its strongest, America’s Voice is being silenced in some parts of the world and marginalized in others.