The Foreign Service Journal, October 2006

Responding to Mollohan, Hughes acknowledged the problem. “As I travel the world, people almost every- where tell me, you all don’t speak as one government. You speak as a bunch of different governments,” she said. It’s “hard,” she added, “because a story breaks somewhere and it involves one agency. And you don’t know the answer, and yet different agencies are asked about it. And so, it appears that no one wants to talk about it. Yet it’s really just a matter that the State Department shouldn’t be answering questions about what the CIA is doing — or should it?” As yet, no one has managed to resolve those thorny questions. Also frustrating for Hughes is the independence afforded the BBG, which has a $645 million annual bud- get to broadcast independent journalism focusing on U.S. policy to countries where press freedom is restricted. The BBG oversees such venerable radio and television entities as the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty, as well as new media outlets in the Middle East such as Radio Sawa and the Alhurra satellite televi- sion network in Arabic-speaking countries, and Radio Farda in Iran. The level of independence of the broadcasters — among themselves and from State — has been a source of longstanding debate. “There have been some differences of opinion as to what exactly, where the firewall is,” Hughes said at the May House hearing. “For example,” she said, “it seems to me that it would make sense for our broadcasting entities to cover our exchange programs. Why shouldn’t our broadcasting do a documentary about a group of clerics who come to America, or a group of young people who come to America?” Djerejian agrees that State should have more editorial influence over the broadcasters. “You’re trying to put someone in a suit that doesn’t fit them” by creating a fire- wall, he says. “I believe that if you are going to have a Voice of America, you should make it a voice of America. It is seen as that, and people will listen to it as that.” To facilitate closer cooperation, in April President Bush established yet another interagency panel that F O C U S O C T O B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 25