The Foreign Service Journal, October 2009

58 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 9 comparatively tiny portion of tax- payer dollars. Moreover, the pro- grams remain popular in Congress, as evidenced by fresh examples of “surge funding” for broadcasts to Iran and Pakistan. To make performance bench- marks more apparent, other ana- lysts recommend following the BBC model: consolidate the best U.S. assets into one entity, perhaps run by VOA, which would retain editorial independence. Alterna- tively, a recent report by the Baker Institute says that U.S.- sponsored international broadcasting programs, with the exception of news services, “should be brought under the strategic direction of the public diplomacy policies and goals of the U.S. government as defined by the president, Secretary of State and under secretary of state for public diplomacy.” While the idea of consolidation has merit, an even more effective approach would be to return U.S. international broadcasting services to their roots, granting them the greater independence they enjoyed in the Cold War era while clarifying their missions. To quote the 2007 report of theMcCormack Tribune Conference Series: “Broadcasting organizations should be re-empowered to run their own operations without BBG interference… [and] none of the broadcast components should be subordinated directly to the State Department.” The report also urged Congress to “reimpose and strengthen the conceptual and operational distinctions be- tween the Voice of America, whose broadcasts should em- phasize American life, values and policies, along with world news, and the surrogate broadcast stations, whose primary function is to stimulate debate within the target area by serving as ‘local’ broadcasters.” The 21st-century world is awash in information. No factor separates today’s U.S. international broadcasters from their ColdWar predecessors more starkly. The mod- ern versions of VOA and RFE/RL compete with other media via satellite TV, blogs, cell-phone texting and audio streamed on the Internet, in addition to radio. But while it is true that the media landscape of major Muslim states of concern to U.S. policymakers —Pakistan, Iran, much of the ArabMiddle East — is substantially different from the former Soviet bloc, numerous experts have rightfully iden- tified a thirst for credible informa- tion and discourse in these coun- tries as great as existed during the Cold War. Accordingly, extensive cultural and political programming about the United States and detailed, in- sightful reporting on local devel- opments in target countries re- main just as important in today’s post-9/11 context as they were during the Cold War. The current hodgepodge of broadcasting enti- ties appears to cover some of this terrain some of the time, but without the necessary rigor. Obama administration officials, working with Congress, must undertake a vigorous review of the various mandates under which U.S.-funded stations are operating. The ad- ministration should then heed the advice of public diplo- macy veterans and revive the focus on broadcasting to elites in important countries such as Iran, Egypt and Pakistan, scrapping the music-heavy formatting of stations like Radio Sawa and Radio Farda. There is a place for music within overall programming, but not as an organizing principle aimed at growing “market share.” Congress and the administration should reinforce the separate editorial identity of the surrogates — such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia — keeping them distinct from the Voice of America and protecting them from BBG meddling. They should also provide extra resources to the monitoring of program con- tent and impact. There is too little available research about the impact of U.S. international broadcasting to the Muslim world. Broadcasters need better in-house gauges of program quality, as well, including the expensive but necessary periodic translation of all programming, espe- cially that directed to the Muslim world. Finally, the administration needs to pursue greater coordination on international broadcasting strategy in the U.S. foreign policy community, and initiate a public discussion of the purpose of U.S. broadcasting. Too few Americans, or members of Congress for that matter, un- derstand it. While it may seem that today’s challenges require new approaches, in fact the greatest problem for U.S. interna- tional broadcasting is that it has strayed too far from the fundamentals that distinguished its Cold War success. ■ F O C U S While the idea of consolidating U.S. international broadcasting services has merit, an even more effective approach would be to return them to their roots.