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

ted chittenden said:
It also smacks of how Elon Musk manages his companies from some outside sources I've read.
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Yes, I think you're right! to me it seems like a very chaotic, stressful, and often profoundly unsuccessful management style that only builds animosity and resentment on the part of the employees.

And why would anyone fire employees, and bring them back after a month or so only to fire them again less than a week later? Sadism?

TheBigA said:
I'm not aware that she has any management experience.
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It shows. But given the motives of this administration, not surprising. I think they want to discredit the USAGM by making it look so badly mismanaged that they have a good excuse for lobbying Congress to dissolve it.

Mediafrog+ said:
Such managers like to foment chaos in their organizations, and then take credit for cleaning up the mess that was the result of their own actions. It’s a sort of “Munchausen by Proxy” applied to the business environment.
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Very interesting.

c
 
The judge is starting to lose patience on the admin's actions with VOA:

apnews.com

Judge seeks more information about Trump administration's cuts to Voice of America

A federal judge who blocked the Trump administration from dismantling Voice of America is seeking more information from the government about whether it is complying with his order preserving the 83-year-old international news service.
apnews.com apnews.com

The judge blocked the dismantling of VOA. In the meantime, hundreds of employees were fired.
 
USAGM's Radio Farda is operating via he UAE and Wooferton TX sites, ive heard 9450 and 12035 here, which is two of the frequencies theyre using.
 
TheBigA said:
The judge is starting to lose patience on the admin's actions with VOA:

apnews.com

Judge seeks more information about Trump administration's cuts to Voice of America

A federal judge who blocked the Trump administration from dismantling Voice of America is seeking more information from the government about whether it is complying with his order preserving the 83-year-old international news service.
apnews.com apnews.com

The judge blocked the dismantling of VOA. In the meantime, hundreds of employees were fired.
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Will probably not hold just like many of the other federal judge decisions so far.
 
Kari Lake testified in front of congress, asking them to shut down the VOA:

apnews.com

Trump representative Kari Lake on Voice of America's fate: 'Scrap the whole thing and start over'

Former Arizona newscaster Kari Lake, picked by President Donald Trump to manage Voice of America and the agency overseeing it, told a congressional committee that they were rotten to the core and should be scrapped.
apnews.com apnews.com

This is more the her view that it's all liberal propaganda.

She instead wants a new VOA to be part of the State Department. By doing that, it would put what they say under the control of the government, which makes it the textbook definition of government propaganda.
 
TheBigA said:
She instead wants a new VOA to be part of the State Department. By doing that, it would put what they say under the control of the government, which makes it the textbook definition of government propaganda.
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Why would moving from one government bureau to another be noxious. It would seem that the goals of the VOA in today's world fit best under the division responsible for international relations in general.

I thought that the appointment of Lake was senseless, but the idea of eliminating yet another department of government is always a good idea. And there are historical connections: the U.S. Embassy staff in other nations has, in the past, coordinated the distribution of recorded VOA material to local stations that want to run it.

en.wikipedia.org

United States Information Agency - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

The embassy department called USIS or USIA often duplicates or mirrors VOA activities, so consolidation is appropriate.
 
Being reported on Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio forum that Radio Marti will return to shortwave on June 30 with a reduced schedule 14-22 UTC on 11860 and 13605 kHz. Test transmissions were carried out on Friday, June 27 from Greenville.

Meanwhile the RIF notice for hundreds of USAGM employees has been rescinded, but a new RIF is on the way to replace the old one, legal technicalities.
 
davideduardo said:
Why would moving from one government bureau to another be noxious. It would seem that the goals of the VOA in today's world fit best under the division responsible for international relations in general.

I thought that the appointment of Lake was senseless, but the idea of eliminating yet another department of government is always a good idea. And there are historical connections: the U.S. Embassy staff in other nations has, in the past, coordinated the distribution of recorded VOA material to local stations that want to run it.
Click to expand...

I can't state 100% but, far most of that VOA material for local radio stations has been by satellite distribution. I suspect it has been decades since USIA/USIS actually had physical program material distribution.


davideduardo said:
The embassy department called USIS or USIA often duplicates or mirrors VOA activities, so consolidation is appropriate.
Click to expand...

But hasn't USIA/USIS been gone for over two decades?

Much of the operation of USIA/USIS was moved into DOS office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, but the broadcasting side of USIA remained separate.

A number of USIA employees at the time when USIA was dissolved did move to DOS, but it really depended on what functions they did at USIA, in order to transfer to DOS.
 
RadioFan2J3 said:
I can't state 100% but, far most of that VOA material for local radio stations has been by satellite distribution. I suspect it has been decades since USIA/USIS actually had physical program material distribution.
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If you go to the average radio station in Ecuador or Honduras or Bolivia you will find them using consumer stereo mixers and "free" programming software. You do not see them with satellite receivers and dishes on the roof. And any station big enough to afford pro gear is also big enough to know better than to use any embassy's programming offerings.
RadioFan2J3 said:
But hasn't USIA/USIS been gone for over two decades?
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Yeah, it has a name change but the structure is the same. I was referring to the historical situation.
RadioFan2J3 said:
Much of the operation of USIA/USIS was moved into DOS office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, but the broadcasting side of USIA remained separate.
Click to expand...
Still it is the division that could absorb the VOA perfectly, whatever its name is
RadioFan2J3 said:
A number of USIA employees at the time when USIA was dissolved did move to DOS, but it really depended on what functions they did at USIA, in order to transfer to DOS.
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In this case, take the current / historical VOA, Martí et. al. divisions and fold them into the DOS or whatever name it might end up having. My point is that the virtual death of shortwave requires a total refocus of the purpose and, likely, the content... using new distribution systems under a new agency.
 
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davideduardo said:
If you go to the average radio station in Ecuador or Honduras or Bolivia you will find them using consumer stereo mixers and "free" programming software. You do not see them with satellite receivers and dishes on the roof.
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Perhaps that is something perhaps unique in the Spanish speaking countries - as to the use of satellite receivers?

Consumer grade satellite receivers have been relatively cheap and Ku band dishes aren't expensive either, so money isn't probably an issue.

Granted, it has been about a decade since I priced low end consumer satellite receivers in a Carrefour store in the Middle East but there were several low end units in the under $30 range. And USAGM never encrypted the satellite feeds, essentially encouraging independent broadcasters to use USAGM programming, or at least never keeping it away from use by these independent broadcasters.

With that said, my understanding is that all of the satellite circuits which were carrying USAGM programs are now dark, with the contracts terminated.

davideduardo said:
And any station big enough to afford pro gear is also big enough to know better than to use any embassy's programming offerings.
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Well, that may be, however, prior to the shutdown of USAGM, the affiliate operations seemed to be fairly active.
 
davideduardo said:
Why would moving from one government bureau to another be noxious. It would seem that the goals of the VOA in today's world fit best under the division responsible for international relations in general.
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Normally it wouldn't. However, given the current Administration's drive to make whatever is left of the VOA into a Donald Trump propaganda machine, I think the move could be disastrous. Keep in mind that eversince the onset of the Cold War, the job of the VOA was *not* to be a propaganda mouthpiece for the U.S. government; rather it was to tell the news stories as truthfully and factually as possible, regardless of how they made the U.S. government look. The idea was to show Communist and other dictatorial countries how the free press worked in actual practice.

davideduardo said:
I thought that the appointment of Lake was senseless, but the idea of eliminating yet another department of government is always a good idea. And there are historical connections: the U.S. Embassy staff in other nations has, in the past, coordinated the distribution of recorded VOA material to local stations that want to run it.

en.wikipedia.org

United States Information Agency - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

The embassy department called USIS or USIA often duplicates or mirrors VOA activities, so consolidation is appropriate.
Click to expand...

It is, only if you assume that what the VOA did before was what the Trump administration wishes to do with it now, and that is *not* the case.
 
Hearing Radio Marti on both 11860 and 13605 kHz at a check around 1745 UTC today. Both at typical signal levels for those frequencies here in Houston.

Apparent schedule for now is to use those two frequencies between 1400 and 2200 UTC, or 10am to 6pm in Cuba. No word about RM returning to 24 hour operation on shortwave.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
www.msnbc.com

The slashing of Voice of America left a void Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is happy to fill

Before the conflict between Israel and Iran broke out, President Donald Trump and Kari Lake helped dismantle this pillar of soft power in the region.
www.msnbc.com www.msnbc.com
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Interesting article, including its mention of VOA's 'soft power'. Too bad the article -- and the concerns the writer raises -- was 6 months too late to influence anyone in DC, if this article even was successful in exerting any such influence at all.

Most Americans had no idea what Radio Farda was, including its website. And that's part of the problem.
 
Anybody listening to NPR's "Morning Edition," will most likely have heard the story below.


(Currently, only audio is available; I believe that a full transcript will be available later today.)

Why I'm posting it here is because of @davideduardo's skepticism about the use of RFE, Radio Liberty, and the VOA to get information inside dictatorships, both Communist and otherwise. There is a quote in the story about what could legally happen to anybody inside Russia caught listening to RFE or posting about it online and it isn't a light sentence. The same could be said for those caught listening to VOA before it was pulled by current U.S. leadership.
 
ted chittenden said:
Why I'm posting it here is because of @davideduardo's skepticism about the use of RFE, Radio Liberty, and the VOA to get information inside dictatorships, both Communist and otherwise. There is a quote in the story about what could legally happen to anybody inside Russia caught listening to RFE or posting about it online and it isn't a light sentence. The same could be said for those caught listening to VOA before it was pulled by current U.S. leadership.
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On the several occasions when I was contracted to do the annual "review for Congress" of Radio Martí, I always was made aware of the sanctions on Cubans caught listening to that service in Cuba. The sanctions were usually things like restrictions on food quotas, limitation of the "privilege" of raising chickens or goats or even demotion at their place of employment. It was not an automatic prison sentence, but definitely had negative effects. Usually, violators were discovered through neighborhood committees that were responsible for maintaining the spirit of the revolution.
 


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