VOA To Do Propaganda?

[davideduardo]

I have never known anyone in AFTRA who ever struck (or threatened to strike) over anything other than pay or working conditions issues. T.

Being told to do something that is in violation of the law... in this case the VOA charter.. is definitely grounds for a grievance.

 

[Wimmmex]

But VOA does do the various sides to a story. If there is an issue between Putin (in representation of Russia) and the US, then the VOA story will report both perspectives of the issue in a "US representatives said bla bla bla, while officials in Moscow said bla bla bla".

Not only is that good, impartial journalism, but it is also the way for people in other countries to see what their leaders say vs. what other world leaders or authorities say.

I believe you could say that propaganda is one-sided, never even recognizing an opposing point of view. Good journalism takes into account different viewpoints and that is what VOA does in true compliance with its charter.

This definition may come in handy in this conversation right about now:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/propaganda

propaganda

prop·a·gan·da
[prop-uh-gan-duh]
noun
1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.

 

[TheBigA]

This definition may come in handy in this conversation right about now:

Thanks but we already dealt with that several pages ago.

 

[Avid Listener]

Being turned into a flack for the government against your will is a working conditions issue. It's covered by the contract, and it's stated clearly in the VOA charter.

So for a newscaster to do propaganda is a reason to strike.

Reason? Perhaps. As I said, I never met a member of AFTRA who would strike over such an issue. And, I also never met or heard of any regular newsreader who really paid all that much attention to what was written in the scripts he was handed. If "talent" only read scripts that they agreed with, there would be almost no voice-overs on commercials.

 

[Avid Listener]

Being told to do something that is in violation of the law... in this case the VOA charter.. is definitely grounds for a grievance.

Grounds, maybe. How many of the newsreaders on the VOA ever paid any attention to the content of the scripts they were given?

 

[TheBigA]

Reason? Perhaps. As I said, I never met a member of AFTRA who would strike over such an issue.

I have. The VOA isn't some backwater station. You're working for the federal government. Government workers are paid by what they do. Roles are clearly defined, and spelled out in contracts. You apply for specific positions, not just "whatever's available." If you're hired as a newsreader, and then someone tells you you're now a propagandist, that's a very different job, with a different reporting structure. You've obviously never worked for a big company, in a major market, or for the federal government. VOA newscasters have a clearly defined role. They don't just read what's put in front of them. That's not how it works.

And by the way, it's not unusual for union talent to argue over commercial copy too. Different rate for a straight read vs. endorsement. Some account exec tries to slip an endorsement without the fee, and he gets called out. It's a money issue. Call the shop steward. Boom.

Grounds, maybe. How many of the newsreaders on the VOA ever paid any attention to the content of the scripts they were given?

It's your job. You pay attention.

 

[Avid Listener]

This definition may come in handy in this conversation right about now:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/propaganda

propaganda

prop·a·gan·da
[prop-uh-gan-duh]
noun
1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.

Please note. That definition does NOT say that the information must be false. Whether the information spread is true or false is irrelevant. What makes it propaganda is the fact that the motive for widely spreading the information is to "help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc." No one needs to have monitored the VOA to know that it was widely touted and advertised by the government at the time as a means for America to help people in foreign countries learn the truth. The fact that the original goal was to spread the truth doesn't make it any less propaganda.

This is a typical public service announcement from 1971 about Radio Free Europe, which a branch of Voice of America. Here's another one from 1963.

I know that there are some participants in here who feel compelled to declare an issue closed just because they said what they think is the definitive answer. The truth is that Voice of America has been broadcasting "propaganda" from day one. That's what it was created to do. High-falutin' rhetoric in chartering documents are part and parcel of the entire package. We wanted the people living on the other side of the Iron Curtain to believe what we told them, so we claimed to be telling the truth. What would any sane person expect us to say? How effective would our propaganda be if the charter of our propaganda agency had a charter that authorized it to lie?

And how many newsreaders like the guy who came here from Hungary in the first clip I listed would have objected to saying anything that helped our side win the Cold War? I suspect that people today just can't relate to patriotic Americans who realized that their jobs working on the Voice of America was as "troops" fighting the Cold War against a strong and determined enemy. The newsreaders on VOA were just as much "Cold Warriors" as the pilots flying B-52's for SAC, or the tank crews stationed in Germany ready to react in case the Russians came through the Fulda Gap.

I guess there just aren't many patriotic Americans posting in here who remember that there was a time when Americans were loyal to the nation, and placed the nation's needs ahead of their own interests or desires. What kind of gutless traitor would file a union complaint if he was called on by his government during the Cold War to say something that would help America while hurting our enemies?

However, I'll admit that some folks probably didn't see it that way. But those who didn't really care about America's position during the Cold War also wouldn't care about whether the scripts they were given were true or not, as long as their paychecks arrived on time.

 

[TheBigA]

However, I'll admit that some folks probably didn't see it that way. But those who didn't really care about America's position during the Cold War also wouldn't care about whether the scripts they were given were true or not, as long as their paychecks arrived on time.

Not everyone is that stupid. The truth won the Cold War. If you lived in East Germany, you just looked out your window. You saw what you could have. If freedom is really that good, you don't need to lie about it to win. If you do, then freedom's not as good as it's cracked up to be. Losers need to lie. Know what I mean?

 

[davideduardo]

This is a typical public service announcement from 1971 about Radio Free Europe, which a branch of Voice of America. Here's another one from 1963.

The only problem here is that, as quite usual and normal, you don't have the facts.

From its founding until 1972, RFE was operated by the National Committee to Free Europe, a civilian organization partially funded by the CIA. It was not brought to the Board of Broadcast Governors until later, and the BBG oversees official international broadcasts and is not, per se, the VOA.

The BBG gets funding from Congress directly. However, while the VOA was under the BBG and so was RFE, they are and were independento of each other.

Your allegations about RFE somehow being a part of the VOA at the time those announcements ran shows how you jump to conclusions with no knowledge of the facts. RFE, while deriving considerable sub rosa funding from the CIA, drew on considerable public fund raising to sustain its operations for its first 15 years.

 

[Avid Listener]

Your allegations about RFE somehow being a part of the VOA at the time those announcements ran shows how you jump to conclusions with no knowledge of the facts. RFE, while deriving considerable sub rosa funding from the CIA, drew on considerable public fund raising to sustain its operations for its first 15 years.

I don't believe you're going to nitpick over how clandestine, CIA operations were funded. Next you'll probably say that the "considerable public fund raising" wasn't mostly a CIA money laundering operation. Government agencies, especially those operating in the shadow world of propaganda and other "off the books" activities, changed acronyms all the time. It was an integral part of how clandestine operations operate.

 

[davideduardo]

I don't believe you're going to nitpick over how clandestine, CIA operations were funded. Next you'll probably say that the "considerable public fund raising" wasn't mostly a CIA money laundering operation. Government agencies, especially those operating in the shadow world of propaganda and other "off the books" activities, changed acronyms all the time. It was an integral part of how clandestine operations operate.

You are bizarre.

You said RFE was part of VOA. I said it was not; it began as a partially CIA-funded project. You come back and say that I am denying the CIA funding.

 

[Avid Listener]

You are bizarre.

You said RFE was part of VOA. I said it was not; it began as a partially CIA-funded project. You come back and say that I am denying the CIA funding.

What I said was, "Government agencies, especially those operating in the shadow world of propaganda and other 'off the books' activities, changed acronyms all the time. It was an integral part of how clandestine operations operate."

 

[davideduardo]

What I said was, "Government agencies, especially those operating in the shadow world of propaganda and other 'off the books' activities, changed acronyms all the time. It was an integral part of how clandestine operations operate."

That does not change the fact that Radio Free Europe was not part of the VOA, which is the pig-in-a-poke you tried to sell us.

As to the rest, take it to http://blackhelicopters.com/

 

[Avid Listener]

Some facts about the Voice of America. It was started during World War II.

Voice of America Origins and Recollections, by Walter R. Roberts.

As early as December 15, 1941, the General Electric transmitter on the West Coast was leased to transmit programs in English (and later also in Tagalog) to the Philippines from where medium and long wave transmitters relayed them. For all intents and purposes, these broadcasts were the first U. S. governmental international broadcasts – eight days after US entry into the war and six weeks before such broadcasts were launched from New York to Europe. Chinese dialects and later also Japanese language programs followed. That stopped once Corregidor fell to the Japanese on May 6, 1942. From then on, the programs were carried directly by the leased (GE) short wave transmitters with studios domiciled in San Francisco’s Fairmont hotel. The programs in Japanese originated from studios in the University of California Press Building. (I owe this information to Robert William Pirsein’s Ph.D. dissertation entitled “The Voice of America.”)

In order to create an effective broadcasting operation within the COI, Sherwood asked John Houseman, a well-known and respected Hollywood personality, to take charge of that task. Houseman agreed and, in January 1942, joined the Barnes-Johnson-Warburg triumvirate in running the COI in New York. Even before any broadcasts went on the air, Sherwood himself had decided that these broadcasts would carry the name “Voice of America”.

During the Cold War, Voice of America continued. This is from the book U.S. International Broadcasting and National Security. Written by James Tyson. Published by RAMAPO Press. No link, you'll have to get the actual book. Note when it started.

One of the earliest responses in Europe was known as Radio in the American Sector (RIAS). RIAS was established in 1946 to serve the American sector in West Berlin.The station's importance was magnified during the 1948 Berlin blockade, when it carried the message of Allied determination to resist Soviet intimidation.

Aside from RIAS, Voice of America (VOA) began broadcasting in 1947 in the Soviet Union for the first time as a part of U.S. foreign policy to fight the propaganda of the Soviet Union and other countries.

From several sources, including the Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 47, 1993, article titled "Sending cross-border static: on the fate of Radio Free Europe and the influence of international broadcasting", by Sudarsan V. Raghavan and Stephen S. Johnson, and Kristi K. Bahrenburg.

The Voice of America has been a part of several agencies. From 1942 to 1945, it was part of the Office of War Information, and then from 1945 to 1953 as a function of the State Department. The VOA was placed under the U.S. Information Agency in 1953. When the USIA was abolished in 1999, the VOA was placed under the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which is an autonomous U.S. government agency, with bipartisan membership. The Secretary of State has a seat on the BBG. The BBG was established as a buffer to protect VOA and other U.S.-sponsored, non-military, international broadcasters from political interference. It replaced the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) that oversaw the funding and operation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a branch of VOA.

If anyone wants to talk facts, let them talk facts.

Here's a simple lesson.

The US Army, the US Navy, and the US Air Force are all three separate branches. But, though separate, they are all part of the United States Armed Forces.

The FBI, US Marshals, BATF, and several other different Federal Agencies are all separate entities. However, they are all Federal Law Enforcement Agencies.

The State Department, the Department of Defense, the The Treasury Department, and several other departments are all separate, individual departments. But collectively, all of those departments comprise the Cabinet of the Executive Branch of the United States Government.

The CIA, NSA, DIA, MI, TFI, and several other separate, discrete agencies are all part of the US Intelligence Community.

Regardless of the name, acronym, or any transitory shifts in rhetoric, all the various United States Government propaganda broadcasts were made by the United States government. Compartmentalization and shifts of projects from one agency's budget to another agency's budget don't mean diddly-squat. Such changes are not wacky conspiracy theories. They are matters of public record.

I think some people need to get off their high horses, rein in their egos, and acknowledge that they don't always know everything that has to do with broadcasting. An optimist might even expect an apology, but I'm not an optimist.

 

[TheBigA]

If anyone wants to talk facts, let them talk facts.

OK. It's always interesting to talk history. But things happen that fundamentally change the course of that history that makes everything that happened before it obsolete.

For example, the VOA Charter and Journalistic Code that I've been talking about was instituted in 1960. So everything that happened before that doesn't matter. Starting in 1960, they had a Journalistic Code to follow.

Then in 1976, that Charter and Code was signed into federal law by President Ford.

So whatever you want to say about the history of the VOA, it all changed then.

Once again, it's obvious that they've been following this code, otherwise a Congressman would not have wanted to change the Charter so they could. Of course, in order to do so, he'll have to get the rest of the Congress to agree with him, and that's not very likely.

 

[Avid Listener]

I wonder what color the sunsets are on the planet where some participants live, and if the unicorn they rides to work need to be saddled or not.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I wonder what color the sunsets are on the planet where some participants live, and if the unicorn they rides to work need to be saddled or not.

We've been expectingYOU to tell us!

 

[davideduardo]

If anyone wants to talk facts, let them talk facts.

Fact: Radio Free Europe was a quasi-independent entity financed by donations, certain European groups and, apparently, the CIA. It did not come under the auspices of the VoA during its first several decades. In fact, the data you cite attibutes RFE to falling under the same mantle as the VoA only once the BBG "took over" from the USIS / USIA oversight function.

I really don't know why you bring RIAS into this... RIAS was essentially a service to provide information to the American sector of Berlin and funded by the US military occupation forces. Later, it was jointly run by the US forces and the West German government. It had no official ties to RFE or the VoA and served a very different and specific... and highly unrelated... function.

VoA went from the remnants of the wartime organization to control by the State Department in 1953, via an organization known as USIA. The U. S. Information Agency also did such things as operate libraries in foreign nations where plenty of information on what the USA was like was available. The US Information Service, part of this, also distributed VoA programs and other content to local radio stations and, later, TV stations.

RFE was not brought in to the USIA fold until 1972 when its funding from the CIA was stopped and two years later it was put under the oversight of the Bureau of International Broadcasting. So the announcements you posted were from the period where the RFE operation was independent of any association with the VoA other than both having connections to the US Government. In the same time, Radio Liberty and RFE were merged, although they retained separate on air identities going forward.

Even after coming under the BIB, RFE preserved a degree of autonomy, partly due to having its operations based in Europe

Four years later, the new charter of the VoA was ratified and went into effect, replacing a more vague 1960 document Big A refers to. The charters both specifically applied to the VoA. For example, Radio Martí, which used and still uses VoA transmitters and some facilities has a separate charter which requires a very different review process. http://www.davidgleason.com/1986-Radio-Marti.htm shows an example of the USIA review process for Martí (one of several times I have been called on to prepare the Congressional requirement for review per the enabling legislation) and which is separate from the VoA.

Getting back to the origins of this discussion: the VOA has a charter dating back nearly 40 years which states that the material broadcast or otherwise provided by the VoA can not be propaganda. And by that, we understand the language to mean that news coverage had to be impartial, reflecting only reality and covering all points of view in areas where public opinion or differences between governments were a factor.

You can interpret "propaganda" in whatever way you wish. However, in the peak years of the cold war, including the era when the charter was written, propaganda had a rather universal meaning and the charter is still well understood by those whose daily work it effects.

Your cherry picked history... including trying to make a recent "VOA/RFE" association apply to the 40's through the 70's... fails as it does not address the charter and has a totally inaccurate timeline.

And, even more core to the "what is propaganda" subject, you have not indicated whether you have ever listened to the VoA and quantified same with the year you first listened and how often since then you have tuned in; I'm guessing you have not been a user of any of the services other than English as well but you could clarify that.

 

[Avid Listener]

Until 2013, VOA was prohibited by the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 from broadcasting within the U.S. I live within the US.

To truly understand the content of VOA broadcasts, I'd have to listen to them 24/7 for weeks, and frankly, I'm not motivated to do that.

My point stands. Regardless of the name, acronym, or any transitory shifts in rhetoric, all the various United States Government propaganda broadcasts were made by the United States government. Compartmentalization and shifts of projects from one agency's budget to another agency's budget don't mean diddly-squat. Such changes are not wacky conspiracy theories. They are matters of public record.

 

[TheBigA]

I wonder what color the sunsets are on the planet where some participants live, and if the unicorn they rides to work need to be saddled or not.

If there are any facts I've given that were wrong, please let me know. Otherwise, you're wasting my time.

My point stands.

Your point is your uninformed opinion. A Republican Congressman and Committee Chairman has been motivated to enact legislation. Either he's wrong, or you're wrong.