Worth reading if you "think" that no one listens:
LCG
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Kari Lake previews her plans for Voice of America in the next Administration.
- Thread starter Bill Betten
- Start date
This article has no details on e ven the radio band(s) where the non-specific programs might be broadcast.
And this one is behind a noxious paywall.
Not true, at least here, in New York. A dialog box appears and you simple click it away.
You are grasping here. Several broadcast services are mentioned. Did you expect a detailed log from people living in a prison state?
Mr Edwardo, I have read your comments here for over a decade. They always seemed reasoned. But here, you seem to have allowed some past experience, or ideology to cloud judgement. To contend that there are "no radios" able to receive these broadcasts is idiotic and should be beneath you.
The simple fact is that only powerful OTA signals have any real hope of giving a semblance of truth to oppressed people.
LCG
The other part of this discussion that gets ignored is it doesn't matter if nobody listens to VOA. It's not an ad supported network. What matters is that the money was appropriated for it, and the administration isn't following the law. They fired people illegally and shut down services illegally. That's what a judge has ruled.
If nobody was listening, that's a case the USAGM should be making to the congress. That's how government is supposed to work. If the agency that's charged with carrying out the law says the money is being wasted, they should tell the congress. The president can appoint his own people to the agency, and have them carry his message. The problem here is we have an administration that wants to ignore the agency, the law, the constitution, and the congress, even when the congress is of the exact same party. They also could have rescinded the funding as they did with CPB. They didn't. That's when we know that this isn't about party. It's about attempting to force a minority ideology on the people. The founders had a word for it: Tyranny. They also had a solution for it.
If nobody was listening, that's a case the USAGM should be making to the congress. That's how government is supposed to work. If the agency that's charged with carrying out the law says the money is being wasted, they should tell the congress. The president can appoint his own people to the agency, and have them carry his message. The problem here is we have an administration that wants to ignore the agency, the law, the constitution, and the congress, even when the congress is of the exact same party. They also could have rescinded the funding as they did with CPB. They didn't. That's when we know that this isn't about party. It's about attempting to force a minority ideology on the people. The founders had a word for it: Tyranny. They also had a solution for it.
Youre comparing people in a non free society... not free to express opinion, no free journalism........ and even then they are starting to listen other ways then shortwave
I tried again, on a different device with a different OS. Blocked.
It did not even say what "kind" of radio... AM, FM, shortwave... or from what location or service the referred broadcasts originated. It was exceedingly vague in details. And, of course, the "sample size" was not mentioned.
Of course defectors from North Korea are opposed to the government. How many defectors a year are there? And how much is the total North Korean population?
Hint: "In 2025, 224 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea, a slight decrease from 236 in 2024". The population of the country is about 26,000,000.
It is illegal and punishable by jail to have anything but a government issue "fixed frequency" radio in North Korea.
And my point is that broadcasts capable of crossing borders are generally on shortwave, and in North Korea having tunable receivers is not legal.
Of course, in totalitarian regimes you won't find radios for sale capable of receiving such broadcasts.
And, as I mentioned in another post, I asked my daughter to check a variety of stores in Ecuador that are comparable to Best Buy and Walmart to see if there were shortwave radios available anywhere. There were none. All were AM/FM, none with SW. As a reference, as recently as the 1960's, Ecuador had more SW stations than independent AM stations; today all but one, a remnant of HCJB, are gone. And the one that is left is just a single 1 kw facility.
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More significant is "how did this last through both Democrat and Republican administrations during at least two decades when it was clear that shortwave international broadcasting was dead. Most broadcasters stopped offering anything on SW, and radios became very rare or unknown at retail.
The fact is that the VOA was / is a horrific waste of money.
We can argue procedure forever. Unfortunately, governments need some form of system whereby its agencies and divisions are evaluated every certain period of time and eliminated if no longer needed.
There is also something known as The Black Market in those regimes.
That's what the congress is supposed to do. Not the white house. Perhaps once this administration leaves, there will be a movement to put spending controls where they're supposed to be. Taxing and spending are the domains of congress.
The real world question, of course, is whether any significant number of people in such regimes has the money to buy a clandestine and illegal radio.
One can make a list of government agencies and services that should be ended, folded into others or modified. But that is a political issue.
Here, the question is whether an international radio service that, irrespective of what it tries to do today by renting time on local stations or whatever, was founded on the concept of using shortwave to reach behind controlled borders into areas headed by totalitarian regimes.
No matter how many posts claim that shortwave radios are readily available, the fact remains that in places like Cuba or North Korea, they are either just not available or even illegal to possess.
Regardless, the congress seems to feel it's money well spent. No one in the white house has made an effort to convince them otherwise.
To repeat, the white house could have used rescission to eliminate the funding. Kari Lake herself said the same things about VOA News that the president said about NPR. But my guess is they couldn't get the votes to defund VOA.
Other countries have their own versions of VOA, so this isn't a unique situation.
The international services of most nations that had them have either been scaled back or eliminated.
For example, the BBC is, comparatively, almost gone from shortwave, but they have a variety of internet based content features. As I've said, that works in "free" countries but not so much, if at all, in totalitarian regimes. In any case, the British government has considered the BBC to be a promotion of tourism and "all things British" more than propaganda.
Radio Moscow, later Voice of Russia and now Sputnik, is a pure propaganda agency and works more like AP and Reuters.
Nations that used to have international services like Canada and Brazil are pretty much gone. A few nations, like Japan and South Korea, have regional service programming to "neighbors".
Pick up a copy of World Radio Handbook. Shortwave is so reduced that it only warrants a few pages at the back of the book... while it used to be the "core" of the publication. And WRH ceases to publish as of this year, much due to the death of international radio.
Correct, and the purpose of the VOA is to provide factual news and American culture, not propaganda. The target for the service if much broader than strictly Cuba, North Korea, and other totalitarian regimes.
Shutting it down and firing the staff doesn't serve the mission.
This may work better for you: News from outside disappears in North Korea
Much of what has shut down was fluff, propaganda & entertainment ALL of those are better delivered via other means.
You have a clear bias and, based on your previous comments, are sympathetic towards this current administration and their actions, many of which are being ruled illegal.
LCG
Any government created "voice" is by definition "propaganda" as it is influenced by the very nature of the government that sponsors it.
I am quite positive that even the most devout international VOA listeners would classify it as "propaganda". Perhaps less devious than that of the equivalent Chinese service, but still written to show the positive sides of American society.
Nor will broadcasting on a set of bands where "nobody" listens any longer.
Any government created "voice" is by definition "propaganda" as it is influenced by the very nature of the government that sponsors it.
I am quite positive that even the most devout international VOA listeners would classify it as "propaganda". Perhaps less devious than that of the equivalent Chinese service, but still written to show the positive sides of American society.
Nor will broadcasting on a set of bands where "nobody" listens any longer.
Again, it shows evidence based on talking to a few people who managed to escape from North Korea vs. tens of millions still there and not taking the risks.
My point, fluff or not, is that there is no effective way of getting any kind of content through to totalitarian regimes, whether it be Sesame Street in Mandarin Chinese or a version of "60 Minutes" in Persian.
And you apparently have bias towards the prior administration, that let in 6 to 10 million undocumented aliens, which was also ruled illegal. Each administration has pushed the powers of the executive branch. If they did not, we would not have had Social Security, the Tennessee Valley Authority and many other programs that had to be pushed into lasting legislation, or simply accepted.
There is no harm, and can be great good in discussing different opinions. As a person who was confronted with very big rifles in the hands of a bunch of very nervous soldiers because of the opinions on one of my radio stations, I have a respect for different perspectives that few who have never lived outside the U.S.A. under a repressive regime can even contemplate.
I personally think the current attitude at the FCC, while overly politically jaundiced, is needed to eliminated obsolete regulations or to change how over the air radio and TV can try to continue to compete against a plethora of new and unregulated media.
Except that VOA was supposed to be shielded from that prejudice by firewalls. This administration showed in 2019 that it didn't believe in firewalls.
As I've said with regards to CPB, there's a difference between government FUNDING and government OPERATING. Just giving money doesn't mean the government gets involved in the operation. As I said, the congress knew that when it created CPB and VOA. That's why they created USAGM. This administration just ignored what congress wrote and did what they wanted to do. Now the courts have to clean up the messes they made.
The difference is that previous administrations have worked WITH congress to get its agenda into law. This administration completely bypassed congress, and hired an outside billionaire who fired tenured government employees and shut down government agencies without anyone's approval or oversight. The president doesn't have the power to do any of those things without congress. The crazy part is that if he'd done it the right way, this congress would have gladly rolled over and died for him. But he didn't. That's why judges are ruling that the things that he did were illegal, and why they are rolling back all of his changes. His administration will have to pay millions in back wages and penalties to these employees, all of it paid for by taxpayers. In the end the lawsuits and other expenses created by his illegal actions will cost way more than any of the savings his cuts might have had. Because he didn't seek to repeal or amend existing laws. everything he did will be reversed. Including his cuts to VOA and defunding of CPB.
All of this is why you've argued (as you have above) that all government broadcasting is propaganda and that most people overseas know it. The BBC, which is funded by a tax on receivers, has never, with the possible exception of issues surrounding northern Ireland and that only because of the meddling of the Maggie Thatcher administration, been considered to be a propaganda arm of the British government. By the same token, the VOA, especially after the beginning of the Cold War, has never been considered by its listeners and Congressional funders to be a propaganda mouthpiece. Only the Soviet Union and its allies, China, plus some of the African and South and Central American government leaders, including some of those strong men you worked for, considered the VOA to be propaganda.
Everything I've said above about the VOA was true until the current administration. Donald Trump admires people such as the leaders of China and North Korea, and especially, Vladamir Putin of Russia. He doesn't admire democratically-elected leaders such as those in France and Britain because he believes that they do not bring a strong response to their critics. The concept of the U.S. president having checks on his power is an anathema to him as is the concept of Federal agencies in the executive branch carrying out the will of Congress that may not match his own.
In terms of the media, as @TheBigA has noted, this U.S. president has attempted to destroy the VOA organization without going through Congress as is required. This is partly because he doesn't like the news free from propaganda the VOA provides (it is also why he doesn't like public radio) but also as a favor to the leaders he admires, especially Russia's Vladamir Putin. And, as @TheBigA has also noted, he hasn't tried to defund the VOA through Congress using the rescission as he did with public radio. Why? Because he knows full well that even some of his Congressional supporters will never go along with it. In addition, defunding the VOA without Congressional approval and oversight will show how much of a strong man he is to those he admires, again especially Putin.
Again, the point I'm making here is that the arguments you are making really come from your background and your personal support for the leadership in Central and South American countries that behaved like dictators when it came to radio and television policy. With everything in me, I wish I could change your mind about that but, as an article I posted on another thread points out, the beliefs are too strong and deep for any of us to be able to change.
By whom? As a "DXer" and some-times SWL who got into broadcasting as a result of being a curious listener nearly 70 years ago, I've heard more than my share of government run or government controlled broadcast operations.
To discuss the "flavor" or ideology of such operations, we have to look at the underlying nature and purpose of official radio stations. Unlike the VOA, which was created as a result of a world war and the resultant polarization of the planet into a spectrum ranging from pseudo-communist totalitarianism to free market based system, the BBC (and most other Western European state broadcasters) came about as total owners of electronic mass media.
The BBC is a good example, but what happened in England is not unique to just that nation. The Bebe started as a way of bringing radio to the general United Kingdom population. International services were added as the technology developed. In the U.S.A., radio developed so independent of government that there had to be several reorganizations of the whole regulatory system to get us to the Federal Radio Commission and, then, the Federal Communications Commission.
As America's broadcasting developed, we got national networks and a huge community of local radio stations, all privately owned. Listening to a variety of stations... even ones from other cities and states... became the norm here. In the U,K. we saw the government deciding what its own residents and citizens would hear... and what they would not hear; there were no choices as the government decided for the people what would be broadcast.
So, if you say that the BBC was not "a propaganda arm of the British government" you are ignoring the fact that it was run in exclusivity by the government as, for all practical purposes, the only radio service easily and commonly available to the people of the U.K. Whatever the BBC said was, in effect, the attitude, perspective and position of the government of that nation.
To claim that the UK did not have a biased, official voice is disingenuous. It had just one voice, and that was government controlled and financed.
As you seem to be a student of history, I'd recommend Asa Briggs's five volume story of the BBC which you can find at BBC RELATED PUBLICATION: Documents about the BBC
Having been, on several occasions, paid to evaluate one operation of the overall international broadcasting , I can say that reality contradicts this statement of yours. Even if the holy grail of the VOA and its ancillary "children" like Radio Martí has been accurate descriptions of the world and its newsworthy events, the eyes seeing outward are those of the government.
Having been in countries where local events were covered by VOA newscasts, I can say that such news and commentary definitely reflected the perspective of the United States and, thus, was flavored, totally, from that viewpoint.
I can't think of anyone I ever talked to about international broadcasting who did not think of the VOA as being the propaganda voice of the government of the United States.
And, oh please, tell me who the "strong men" I worked for were. Other than my occasional work for Radio Martí, I have never been employed by such obviously fictional characters.
As examples, in Ecuador where I ended up with a dozen or so radio stations, I was the owner. While I had to follow both the laws of Ecuador and the whims of whoever was in power, I was not told what to say by any "strong men". In Argentina, I worked as consultant for an international broadcaster based in Indiana who let our program staff decide, based on research, what to put on our AM and FM signals. When in Perú, I was contracted by the office of the Archbishop and Cardinal to create program offerings that were consistent with the objectives of the Catholic Church. And so on, from Chile to Mexico, from Santo Domingo to Karachi and Islamabad, I worked with privately owned commercial radio stations and not "strong men" of any kind.
Obviously, you never have actually worked for that organization. The only difference today is that there is a late-blooming awareness of the fact that using obsolete technology to reach people living under totalitarian regimes does not work. But ever since I was first approached back in the 60's to "help your country" by running deadly boring VOA programs on my commercial radio stations, I have understood that the VOA was the propaganda division of our government. The only difference I saw, even sixty-some years ago, was that I agreed with much of what the VOA said and did, and did not feel positively about broadcasts coming from Peking or Moscow or Cuba.
This is no longer about radio. All I can say is that I agree with the sentiment of keeping friends close and enemies closer.
"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" is a famous idiom advising that one should monitor potential threats more closely than allies to understand their motivations, prevent surprise attacks, and maintain a strategic advantage."
I have applied the same perspective to running and programming radio stations: "watch your strongest competitors with care and attention, as they want to take your audience and your revenue sources."
Again, you are assuming that, because you agree with the VOA's perspective, it is not just as much a propaganda source as any other state broadcaster.
You are getting into your personal perspectives on the world and politics. The issue here is that the model of the VOA based on shortwave broadcasts across otherwise closed borders is dated and no longer effective or valuable.
I don't know where you got this, but in nearly all the time I worked in Latin America, the local governments and their attitudes were not a concern. Even when I was consulting an FM in San Salvador during the worst years of "El Problema", we were worried about audience size and rates and getting on all the buys we should be included on.
Only when I had one station out of a dozen that covered local news and which was affiliated with the "opposition newspaper" did I have issues with one leader and one government. Not wishing to be imprisoned or worse (the editor of the newspaper we worked with disappeared and was never seen again. I personally did not know, associate with or support any "leadership" as you suggest. As a "foreigner" I was generally careful to stay removed from politics, in fact.
And that is because you have totally and magnificently misinterpreted what I have done in international broadcasting. Just saying "your personal support for the leadership... that behaved like dictators" is so totally wrong that I can't even think of how to clarify something that never existed and which I never did.