Kari Lake previews her plans for Voice of America in the next Administration.

[TheBigA]

She was sent in to eliminate inefficiency.

That's not true. That was not her job. Read the first article in this thread. The judge has ruled that her actions were illegal, and ordered the staff to return to work.

If she knew what she was doing, she would have done what she said to CBS News in the OP. She would have redirected the staff to other platforms more in line with the VOA mission. But she acted on ideological beliefs and those actions were illegal.

 

[BamaTX]

She was sent in to eliminate inefficiency. Nothing is more inefficient than millions of watts of transmitter power, a thousand employees and essentially no listeners to the broadcasts on Short Wave.

Bingo!

Not everything has to be viewed from a partisan lense. VOA is an outdated relic from the Cold War era that bureaucrats simply forgot to shut down. It served its purpose and is no longer relevant in the digital age.

 

[TheBigA]

VOA is an outdated relic from the Cold War era that bureaucrats simply forgot to shut down. It served its purpose and is no longer relevant in the digital age.

Keep in mind the republican congress just appropriated $635 million for the VOA. That's today's conservative congress.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

The latest WRH shows only 7205 RPI Pro-3 and 7290 RPI Pro-1, with 800 watts and 1 kw respectively under the RPI listing. Here is the listing in the brand new WRH 2026.

View attachment 11631

I know what it shows.. i also know what I heard in alaska

 

[L Chanon Gade]

"Radio is radio. In fact, the average person thinks today of "audio" no matter where the sound comes frrom."

That statement makes no sense in the context here. Its is like saying music is music.
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"Then why did the VOA have something like 70 languages at one point? And over 40 when they were shut down?
"
Did you actually read the list you linked? From it you can easily determine why some broadcasts went defunct.
---------------------------------------------
"There simply are very few places where anyone has shortwave radios any longer."

If you do a search for: "radios with short wave long wave" you will see there are many models still being produced. Add the tens of millions made over the last 70 years from European and Japanese manufactures and it becomes pointless to argue this further.

This was never about the sort of mass appeal. It was about giving those living under dictatorships a window into the wider world while promoting our way of life (as was the case for all foreign service media) and giving them accurate information. Although much diminished, it remains the only readily available way of reaching people behind a wall of censorship and misinformation.

You propose no alternative.

As for that teleprompter reader, she was illegally appointed to be trump's hatchet person and to reshape VOA into an arm of right wing propaganda along the lines of other dictators. If you are not familiar with this character, look up her name. She is a disgrace and fits perfectly the corrupt and venal administration we are currently stuck with.

RobNYC

Admin note: Edited to remove ethnic slur.

 

[davideduardo]

"Radio is radio. In fact, the average person thinks today of "audio" no matter where the sound comes frrom."

That statement makes no sense in the context here. Its is like saying music is music.

Anything that is just audio without video is "radio" to many persons. Anyone who has conducted personal interviews about audio services knows that the consumer/listener/public tends to be far less precise in defining the type of audio they use.

---------------------------------------
"Then why did the VOA have something like 70 languages at one point? And over 40 when they were shut down?
"
Did you actually read the list you linked? From it you can easily determine why some broadcasts went defunct.

Yes, some languages are defunct, and some of no significance. But my point, with 40 languages when the VOA was closed, those "just a few" nations and languages you referred to is obviously not true or the VOA would have cut its broadcasting to Russian, the two major Chinese dialects, Persian and perhaps Arabic and Spanish.

---------------------------------------------
"There simply are very few places where anyone has shortwave radios any longer."

If you do a search for: "radios with short wave long wave" you will see there are many models still being produced. Add the tens of millions made over the last 70 years from European and Jap manufactures and it becomes pointless to argue this further.

That there are a few for sale on Amazon in the US, that does not mean that there are any for sale or still in use in the nations where the American perspective might be important to broadcast.

As I told you, I have reviewed, over and over, the ratings in many cities in many counties of Latin America as well as a couple of strange others like Pakistan, and those services like the VOA or BBC or Radio Moscow never showed up... back in the 60's or in the most recent decade of the 2010's.

This was never about the sort of mass appeal. It was about giving those living under dictatorships a window into the wider world while promoting our way of life (as was the case for all foreign service media) and giving them accurate information. Although much diminished, it remains the only readily available way of reaching people behind a wall of censorship and misinformation.

And, if none of those people can get radios and new ones are not readily available (do you think the Amazon truck will bring you one in Burkina Faso or Bolivia?) who is going to listen. You are avoiding the fact that the radios that might have been in use are obsolete... many were tube sets... and probably no longer serviceable.

You propose no alternative.

Perhaps this is a case of needing to take the tinted glasses off and admitting that there is no alternative.

The closest possibility is, perhaps, through international popular "influencers" and TikTok videos and the like.

As for that teleprompter reader, she was illegally appointed to be trump's hatchet person and to reshape VOA into an arm of right wing propaganda along the lines of other dictators.

Well, she did not indicate she wanted to remodel the VOA and its associated voices. She proceeded to close it down and order the decommissioning of the transmitter sites.

If you are not familiar with this character, look up her name. She is a disgrace and fits perfectly the corrupt and venal administration we are currently stuck with.

Maybe a better choice could be found. But the intention of the appointment was to close the shop, not to remodel it.

Tell us, what is your experience in international broadcasting? Mine is at David Gleason's illustrated biography covering 64 years in radio (A lot of stuff is not included due to confidentiality and non-compete agreements or work in progress situations).

 

[TheBigA]

Well, she did not indicate she wanted to remodel the VOA and its associated voices.

Yes she did. In the article linked in the OP:

"We're talking to the world through Voice of America," she said. "And I want to actually put more coverage out there, more product out there, if you will, more broadcasting, and make sure that they're doing really quality, top-notch broadcasting and focus on great journalism, asking questions, and making sure that the journalists know that they're independent journalists."

Those are her words. She did the complete opposite of what she promised. She should be fired.

Kari Lake says she has no intention of turning Voice of America into "Trump TV"

Kari Lake, a former broadcast journalist who unsuccessfully ran for governor and for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, is President-elect Donald Trump's selection to lead Voice of America.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[davideduardo]

I know what it shows.. i also know what I heard in alaska

How recently? Of course, we know many SW stations changed frequencies, even in the same day. And many moved according to congestion on channels (not a big issue with "no one's home" on the bands today). My point is that there used to be only SW stations in Indonesia and now there are two or three.

In the 1970 WRH, there were just over 100 shortwave stations there and no medium wave stations at all. Now there are only a couple of SW station, none over 1 kw, and there are about 120 FM stations and nothing else.

 

[davideduardo]

Yes she did. In the article linked in the OP:

I read that also, and took it to mean "out with the old and in with the new".

Those are her words. She did the complete opposite of what she promised. She should be fired.

She said, in paraphrase, "remodel the VOA". To me, that meant "get rid of the old furniture and repaint". No SW, no local radio paid shows. None were working.

In any case, the issue is that the VOA and affiliated voices on broadcast radio via AM and SW is useless today.

 

[TheBigA]

I read that also, and took it to mean "out with the old and in with the new".

And she didn't do that. She just shut it down, which she wasn't allowed to do.

It wasn't because of a lack of resources. It was because she was in over her head.

In any case, the issue is that the VOA and affiliated voices on broadcast radio via AM and SW is useless today.

That's not her decision, nor anyone in the executive branch. That's why the judge ruled against her.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

How recently? Of course, we know many SW stations changed frequencies, even in the same day. And many moved according to congestion on channels (not a big issue with "no one's home" on the bands today). My point is that there used to be only SW stations in Indonesia and now there are two or three.

In the 1970 WRH, there were just over 100 shortwave stations there and no medium wave stations at all. Now there are only a couple of SW station, none over 1 kw, and there are about 120 FM stations and nothing else.

less than 6 months ago. the freuqencies are listed in other more current sources, like websites

 

[L Chanon Gade]

"Anything that is just audio without video is "radio" to many persons. Anyone who has conducted personal interviews about audio services knows that the consumer/listener/public tends to be far less precise in defining the type of audio they use. "
While I agree with this in general. There is an easily noticeable difference between commercial and non-comm outlets (radio or TV). You seem to imply there isn't.
-------------------------------------------------
What i said was:
--The fact that only a handful of nations were the primary target of VOA and RFE...--
As i saw it, the underlying reason for the other languages was to counter the spread of "communism" (really, just dictatorship with a veneer of socialism) by providing information and imparting a familiarity with American values, as they were .
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That there are a few [ SW-LW] for sale on Amazon in the US, that does not mean that there are any for sale or still in use in the nations where the American perspective might be important to broadcast.
As I told you, I have reviewed, over and over, the ratings in many cities in many counties of Latin America as well as a couple of strange others like Pakistan, and those services like the VOA or BBC or Radio Moscow never showed up... back in the 60's or in the most recent decade of the 2010's.

Yet, i have consistently encountered people from east bloc who did listen. Perhaps at the time you were involved it might not have been advisable to admit listening to these services. That too was explained to me. Headphones were a must.
------------------------------------------------
And, if none of those people can get radios and new ones are not readily available (do you think the Amazon truck will bring you one in Burkina Faso or Bolivia?) who is going to listen.

Amazon truck? You are really reaching here. I personally know several hundred folks from Latin America. A few are close, decade long friends. The are indigenous Indians (dark skin, long hair, etc) They have told me of their childhood surroundings of dirt floor houses, no indoor plumbing and little electricity. Some had to charge batteries with generators attached to bicycle wheels. ALL had radios and ALL were locally obtained.
Few places in this world are more impoverished, yet radios abound.

You are avoiding the fact that the radios that might have been in use are obsolete... many were tube sets... and probably no longer serviceable.

Fine, I'll give you that. I have seen pictures on their families and there often is an old European multiband radio somewhere in the background. That is not what they use daily.
----------------------------------------------------
Maybe a better choice [than Lake] could be found.

No, she fits well into the sphere of sycophants this degenerate administration has assembled. Still, I'll give you the "understatement of the day" award for that.

Regards,

LCG

 

[davideduardo]

"Anything that is just audio without video is "radio" to many persons. Anyone who has conducted personal interviews about audio services knows that the consumer/listener/public tends to be far less precise in defining the type of audio they use. "
While I agree with this in general. There is an easily noticeable difference between commercial and non-comm outlets (radio or TV). You seem to imply there isn't.

To most listeners, it is content, not whether it has more or less commercials. Again, the average listener, not the outlier, does not make such clear distinctions,.

-------------------------------------------------
What i said was:
--The fact that only a handful of nations were the primary target of VOA and RFE...--
As i saw it, the underlying reason for the other languages was to counter the spread of "communism" (really, just dictatorship with a veneer of socialism) by providing information and imparting a familiarity with American values, as they were .

The problem here is that most countries want their own values, not American values. Where I have lived, the idea of adopting the values of another nation is anathema.

-------------------------------------------------------
That there are a few [ SW-LW] for sale on Amazon in the US, that does not mean that there are any for sale or still in use in the nations where the American perspective might be important to broadcast.
As I told you, I have reviewed, over and over, the ratings in many cities in many counties of Latin America as well as a couple of strange others like Pakistan, and those services like the VOA or BBC or Radio Moscow never showed up... back in the 60's or in the most recent decade of the 2010's.

Yet, i have consistently encountered people from east bloc who did listen. Perhaps at the time you were involved it might not have been advisable to admit listening to these services. That too was explained to me. Headphones were a must.

Again, as time has moved on, there have been less and less radios available anywhere that have shortwave. It's FM and digital if available in the country. Even ones with AM are disappearing in nations where AM is gone or nearly gone.

------------------------------------------------
And, if none of those people can get radios and new ones are not readily available (do you think the Amazon truck will bring you one in Burkina Faso or Bolivia?) who is going to listen.

Amazon truck? You are really reaching here. I personally know several hundred folks from Latin America. A few are close, decade long friends. The are indigenous Indians (dark skin, long hair, etc) They have told me of their childhood surroundings of dirt floor houses, no indoor plumbing and little electricity. Some had to charge batteries with generators attached to bicycle wheels. ALL had radios and ALL were locally obtained.
Few places in this world are more impoverished, yet radios abound.

I was making the point that nearly nowhere except retailers like Amazon even have SW radios. The local retailer near a ranchería in Mexico or out on the Pampa in Argentina or in the Amazonia of Ecuador will not have a radio with shortwave as there is nothing but few stations now available and those are, predominantly, religious.

You are avoiding the fact that the radios that might have been in use are obsolete... many were tube sets... and probably no longer serviceable.

Fine, I'll give you that. I have seen pictures on their families and there often is an old European multiband radio somewhere in the background. That is not what they use daily.

The current project I am working on is in a country where there are three principal languages, two indigenous and Spanish. The project involves audio services on cellular phones where a variety of "radio" formats in each language is offered as part of the benfits of using the device. But the principal purpose is to use the systems created in SubSaharan Africa to buy and sell goods and services, even at the level of street vendors or a swatch of toilet paper at the public rest room. You are paid to the "phone" and buy stuff with the "phone". The phone also has radio stations with ads for the places that take the phone delivered cash, and also lets folks text and make calls. The text function will work with speech, so literacy is not needed as everything has pictures, too.

There is no AM, no FM and no SW. The phone even may get its data accepted as legal ID, too.

----------------------------------------------------
Maybe a better choice [than Lake] could be found.

No, she fits well into the sphere of sycophants this degenerate administration has assembled. Still, I'll give you the "understatement of the day" award for that.

Whether by purpose or coincidence, the administration is doing exactly what needs to be done in this area. VOA is a total waste of money.

 

[ted chittenden]

The below may be available elsewhere in this thread, but I think it is time to look again at the history of the VOA, why it was founded, and who it served. To that end, here are two links:

Voice of America - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

and

VOA Through the Years

In 1939, the American playwright Robert Sherwood, who would become a speechwriter for President Franklin Roosevelt and later, the "father of the Voice of America," predicted the impact of international broadcasting when he said: "We are living in an age when communication has achieved fabulous...

www.insidevoa.com

One of the first things I realized when I started looking at this was that the U.S. was very late to the game when it came to developing a shortwave radio service. According to the second site, there had been Congressional efforts going back as far as 1937 to counteract, not what Josef Stalin was saying but what Adolf Hitler was saying. Unfortunately, there were then (as it appears there are now) many who dismissed what Hitler was doing and saying and there were even some who supported Hitler in the U.S. and who stymied these efforts to counteract the German dictatorship's rule of the airwaves. It wasn't until after the Pearl Harbor bombing and the U.S. entry into WWII that a national shortwave service was finally allowed to develop.

It was, of course, the Cold War that kept the project sustained and, even after that was over, the project continued as there were still many outside of the U.S., both left and right, who weren't on board with the VOA's mission to bring unbiased reporting about the U.S. to the rest of the world.

Despite @davideduardo's heated denials, the only reason that the Trump Administration ended the VOA was to stop the service from providing unbiased information to challenge the dictators of the world. Sadly, President Trump (and some of his closest supporters) are more supportive of some dictatorships than our own European allies.

I could go on from here (I utterly disagree with @davideduardo that the VOA never clicked with anyone, for example) but then this post would get more political than it already is. However, I will end by saying that it appears that @TheBigA's assertions about why this administration has abolished (or attempted to abolish) the service are correct.

 

[davideduardo]

Despite @davideduardo's heated denials, the only reason that the Trump Administration ended the VOA was to stop the service from providing unbiased information to challenge the dictators of the world. Sadly, President Trump (and some of his closest supporters) are more supportive of some dictatorships than our own European allies

The VOA was predominantly a radio service, using the dead medium of shortwave to reach supposed persons interested in what America had to say. First, shortwave is pretty much gone, but in activity on the band and then with the availability and possession of radios that can pick up the remaining few broadcasters.

VOA did rent time on local stations around the world and use medium wave in adjacent nations in some cases. And they used streams. But streams can be totally blocked in whole nations and the listening to distant signals is generally impeded in authoritarian nations by a variety of blocking and jamming methods.

I could go on from here (I utterly disagree with @davideduardo that the VOA never clicked with anyone, for example) but then this post would get more political than it already is.

It did have audience in the distant Iron Curtain past. But in recent decades, the concept, the availability of receivers and the interest in the content is long gone.

However, I will end by saying that it appears that @TheBigA's assertions about why this administration has abolished (or attempted to abolish) the service are correct.

Lake was put into the VOA to end the useless short wave services. If she thought there were alternatives, good for her; she never spoke of them. In the meantime, nobody else either has come up with a viable service to broadcast information to "closed system" totalitarian regimes.

So vastly dead is short wave that the World Radio Handbook, for over 70 years the directory of international broadcasting, has closed publication of its annual book. That's because there is no longer really any such thing as "international broadcasting" in the traditional sense.

The end story is that the VOA was useless in its current form. I've actually worked doing annual reviews for one of their services, and I never sensed that anyone had any good ideas for the future, either.

 

[davideduardo]

One of the first things I realized when I started looking at this was that the U.S. was very late to the game when it came to developing a shortwave radio service. According to the second site, there had been Congressional efforts going back as far as 1937 to counteract, not what Josef Stalin was saying but what Adolf Hitler was saying. Unfortunately, there were then (as it appears there are now) many who dismissed what Hitler was doing and saying and there were even some who supported Hitler in the U.S. and who stymied these efforts to counteract the German dictatorship's rule of the airwaves. It wasn't until after the Pearl Harbor bombing and the U.S. entry into WWII that a national shortwave service was finally allowed to develop.

The VOA was never a "national shortwave service". It was chartered as an "international service" and prohibited from broadcasting to listeners within the USA.

But prior to the establishment of the VOA. NBC and CBS had tried to do international services to present American content to the world. You see, the U.S. never had national government radio... it had private enterprise creating radio services. But the countries that first went into short wave only had government radio. England, France, Germany, Holland, Russia and the like had no commercial radio so the government developed both AM radio and Short Wave as an extension of the government radio service.

In general, though, short wave developed in the 300s to provide radio within nations to their own residents because commercial radio either had not developed or was not allowed.

The government could have allowed short wave to develop in the 30's, but it was not, then, in the radio business at all. And one thing that impeded the U.S. government development of shortwave was that little inconvenience called the Great Depression. Altruistic project like "selling America to the world" were not in the category of critical items needed to restart the economy.

 

[TheBigA]

Lake was put into the VOA to end the useless short wave services.

Once again, that's not true. You have provided no references to anyone saying that's why she was hired. Just your opinion, which is wrong.

She had no authority to shut anything down, which is why the judge ruled against her.

 

[kevtronics]

She said, in paraphrase, "remodel the VOA". To me, that meant "get rid of the old furniture and repaint".

Yeah, and that's what Trump said he wanted to do with the East Wing of the White House... just before he took a bulldozer to it and knocked it down.

Didn't you learn 60+ years ago to not trust what authoritarian leaders and their lackeys say?

 

[davideduardo]

Once again, that's not true. You have provided no references to anyone saying that's why she was hired. Just your opinion, which is wrong.

That was one of the agencies specifically named by that initial cost reduction effort that included Elon Musk. The core objective in naming several heads of agencies was to scale them down or scale them out. The best example is the DoE.

She had no authority to shut anything down, which is why the judge ruled against her.

I don't think we will see the end of this, either. We now have 1000 people "back at work" doing nothing on decommissioned transmitters and services.

 

[davideduardo]

Yeah, and that's what Trump said he wanted to do with the East Wing of the White House... just before he took a bulldozer to it and knocked it down.

And is building a marvelous and needed ballroom for official gatherings, such as even some of the smallest nations in our Hemisphere have. Instead, we did formal gatherings in tents on the lawn. Elegant!

Didn't you learn 60+ years ago to not trust what authoritarian leaders and their lackeys say?

That depends on what you call "authoritarian" and who you think are lackeys. The whole conflict in progressiveness media and conservative media has to do with the difference between a past administration that was ineffective in the view of conservatives and a new one that the same group believes is finally getting some needed stuff done. And everyone on the other side, from the View on down sees things in opposite fashion.