I think the thing that bothers me the most is if a judge doesnt agree with them, he is a liberal activist judge who has no authority even if he is a republican and was appointed by Trump himself. Conversely, if they do agree with him they praise him even if he has a (D) after his name.
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Kari Lake previews her plans for Voice of America in the next Administration.
- Thread starter Bill Betten
- Start date
That is unfortunate, as much of the reasoning for the shutdown is based on the fact that shortwave radio died several decades ago and any effort to reach totalitarian nations on the internet is totally blockable.
This was a good idea at the beginning of the Cold War. It is a terrible idea today, and a waste of taxpayer money.
Not true. Absolutely NONE of the reasoning has anything to do with shortwave. I quoted the actual reason in my post.
It's all based on ideology. Kari Lake herself confirmed it.
But the fact is that shortwave is totally dead. Look at the recent post where a domestic SW broadcaster is selling a 100,000 watt transmitter for less than the price of a used Honda. It's over and has been for decades.
If the reasoning was shortwave, they could have kept the online and TV staff and just laid off the shortwave people. That's not what they did.
Meanwhile Kari Lake is still drawing a 6 figure government paycheck doing nothing. Waste of taxpayer money.
Online can be easily blocked in any totalitarian country, and the TV material was only getting exposure on tertiary stations at bad times. Not worth hundreds of millions.
A junior college president in my market makes more than she does; if she gets VOA close, she is worth every penny. The real issue is a valueless entity that has been outdated by technology.
That's simply not the reason why it was shut down. The ideologues don't care if anyone listens. They only care about the ideology.
They are saying the reason out loud. You refuse to listen.
That transmitter is likely a junker, as WTWW’s other units have had plenty of problems. It’s like selling your clunker car that has 400,000 miles on it while keeping your other two that have 350,000.
Community college presidents/chancellors running large institutions have salaries in the very high six digits. Wouldn’t surprise me if some crack $1M.
I’m not holding my breath on any quick return of the USAGM operations. This administration is ignoring all kinds of guardrails and may simply disregard the court order. Any reconstituted services might be thoroughly overhauled in any case. I’d rather see everything shut down rather than turn into a MAGA mouthpiece.
Agreed!
Maybe it does need to be shut down for various reasons, such as what @DavidEduardo suggests. That's not the issue. The issue is that VOA was shut down improperly without following proper legal procedures.
The judge simply ordered that services be restored while winding it down the proper, legal way via Congress. As has been pointed out, however, this order is very unlikely to be followed, so I'm not expecting anything to change.
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China is more than willing to fill in any gaps in international outreach where the USA pulls out -- yes, even on shortwave. Trump could've used VOA to spread MAGA propaganda to the third world. Instead, the third world will be getting CCP propaganda.
On what radios? I have family in several "third world" nations and a little while back I asked them to visit local dealers that sold radios and TVs and electronics. Not a single SW radio was available.
Not just on radio, but in terms of investments and foreign aid, too. China is more than willing to fill in any gaps the U.S. leaves behind as we isolate ourselves from the rest of the world.
And there are plenty of Chinese-made shortwave radios available on Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress, etc. A Chinese company even sent me a bunch of free radios in exchange for making a video about them:
How does discontinuing a Short Wave service that "nobody" listened to anyway isolate the United States?
As I have said, even going back to the 60's I never saw the VOA ever mentioned when I reviewed raw radio ratings data in many countries in Latin America over a period of about half a century.
The fact that you can get a shortwave radio online does not mean that more than a few hundred or so are being sold. And, very likely, those that are sold are being bought for their MW and FM bands, not SW. I have two of those Chinese radios, both with shortwave; I bought them for emergency needs and never even tried the shortwave bands.
And my point was that family living outside the United States could not find a single Short Wave radio for sale at retail in their city. If you live in Ecuador or Peru or Bolivia, you can't get such a radio online with quick delivery; you have to pick it up at the shipping office and pay customs duties that can be as high as 100% of the value of the item.
Being reported on SWDX forums and other places that the judicial order to reopen the USAGM operations is being appealed (as expected).
Also being reported that the Greenville shortwave facility is being prepped for reactivation of the Radio Marti broadcasts.
Also being reported that the Greenville shortwave facility is being prepped for reactivation of the Radio Marti broadcasts.
Unable to directly link to the court document, but the appeal against the judicial order was denied.
Can you site the source.. like what website do we use to find this and provide more details"? I did a google search and found nothing
It was an attachment to a post on a SWDX forum that the mods here might not want identified (“rival site” considerations?)
Here it is:
The whole "rival sites" thing was from a previous era of site ownership.
The only thing we enforce now is that if you're going to post a link to a ratings page, please do it to the ratings pages at RadioInsight.com instead of anywhere else. It's an important source of traffic and revenue for Lance, allowing him to keep Discussions running.
The only thing we enforce now is that if you're going to post a link to a ratings page, please do it to the ratings pages at RadioInsight.com instead of anywhere else. It's an important source of traffic and revenue for Lance, allowing him to keep Discussions running.
Thanks, i went looking for how to find it on my own and had no luck.. and wanted to post on social media but wanted to make sure i understood and verified before i said anything
None of the local stores here have FM radios for sale either, but that doesn't keep a few million in my metro from listening to FM.
Radios have a fairly long lifespan. I have a 1967 multiband transistor that still works as well as it did a few decades ago. Also, rural Africa is not South America. Neither are places like Afghanistan and Iran.