Agreed.
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What’s behind Trump’s fresh push to wrest control of Voice of America
- Thread starter Y2kTheNewOldies
- Start date
Agreed.
I suspect these comments are being linked with similar comments from the Administration about TikTok being a "national security risk". If a form of media runs afoul of the Administration, especially funded by the Government, they play the national security card as a reason for kneecapping them.
A Senator is proposing legislation to isolate VOA News from political interference:
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/15/9242...roposes-stronger-protections-for-voa-newsroom
Unfortunately the chances of it going anywhere are very small.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/15/9242...roposes-stronger-protections-for-voa-newsroom
Unfortunately the chances of it going anywhere are very small.
What should be questioned is the need for any nation to have an international "radio" service in this era; I believe that the concept is no longer valid.
Based on a career that has included non-domestic radio on four continents going back 57 years, I have "seldom" seen any evidence of listening to the VOA where "seldom" falls into what statisticians would say means "never".
The only international service I personally saw give very definite results was Radio Marti, and that comes from actual refugee focus groups and interviews done in Miami. Buy that was 30 to 40 years ago. I also have believable second hand information on the local Radio Sawa service in the Middle East where a contemporary Arabic music service with capsule news and information worked well in the early 2000's. Both of these cases, though, are not VOA but "local" radio services aimed at a specific nation or group of common nations. This is no different than TransWorld Radio, the 500 kw AM station on Bonaire preaching to the Spanish speaking areas of northern South America, the Caribbean and southern Central South America.
Then again, keep in mind that the VOA isn't strictly a "radio service." I'm sure its online presence is far greater than its on-air presence. The thing that makes a service valid isn't the technology, but the content. If the content is terrible, or if the content is someone's personal propaganda, then you're right. Plus it becomes a bad representation of the people (especially when 50% of the population dislikes the current leader), and a poor use of taxpayer dollars.
Judge says the head of VOA is interfering with reporter's freedom of speech:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wir...ource_4380645_2_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wir...ource_4380645_2_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed
But there is no apparent stat or metric showing if VOA's online services are even used much.
It's not a commercial service, so no metric is needed.
They actually do pay for metric data. Some of the language services pay attention to those metrics in an attempt to optimize content for the sites, while other language services don't pay attention, in what could be construed as a 'head-in-sand' approach.
It would seem that some kind of metric would be useful to establish (as Kelly A suggests) the "attraction" of both specific programs within a language service and an indication of "use vs. adult speakers of a language" for each service overall.
As was definitely true during the pre-Internet era of short wave, services of international voice-of-our-nation government may be more driven by national pride and a desire to be known on the world scene than actual usage.
And in a very crowded content scenario of web streams, the VOA is just one more of hundreds of thousands of world-wide offerings. And because of the fairly generalized dislike or hatred towards the American government in general, the official voice of the United states plays on a very lilted field. And this has nothing to do with current or even recent presidents as it has been a work under construction since the creation of the Monroe Doctrine 197 years ago.
No one likes being colonized and subjugated, that's for sure. But no single nation colonized more people than England, yet to many of the residents of those now independent nations, its BBC remains a respected and, to many, cherished source of news, information and entertainment.
The Monroe Doctrine was created as an effort to prevent European powers from trying to dominate commerce and alliances in the Americas. Obviously, the 1861 invasion of Mexico by France and it's control of that nation for nearly six years solidified that policy; the American civil war prevented or postponed greater enforcement. The 1898 manufactured conflict with Spain that ended with US possession of Puerto Rico and the Philippines was the landmark action that define the policies of the Twentieth Century.
The end result, though, is that in the Western Hemisphere, there is resentment caused by the constant intervention of the US in nearly every nation, from Grenada and Panama to Chile and Ecuador. And in Asia, the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, the support of Chiang Kai-Shek and Marcos, and numerous cultural mistakes have influence the view of America (the nation, not the continents). In sub-Shaharian Africa, the perception that America supported the Apartheid in South Africa is pervasive. And in the Arab and Middle Eastern areas, the resentment towards the US is quite obvious. Of course, in Europe, there is a comparable resentment, but there it is born of cultural and economic rivalry.
I detail this, based on broad generalizations, only to explain why the VOA has a severe credibility barrier just as strong in much of the world as in the US Radio Moscow in the past possessed in the US and Western Europe.
As an example, when I lived in South America, Radio Moscow was much more often cited by associates than the VOA as it better reflected local attitudes on world politics.
As to England, remember that it was a colonial power that granted citizenship to many colonial subjects and allowed migration to England in large numbers. They embodied Kipling's "burden of the white man" in dealing with the "less enlightened world". The US was not, until the Teddy Roosevelt era, a colonial power and had an entirely different immigrant policy in that era.
So now, given the result of two centuries of the rather unpaved road of American foreign policy and actions, the VOA, whether on shortwave, local paid radio rebroadcasts or on the web, has a significant credibility issue on the world stage.
Which is why its so important for the government to keep its hands out of the content of VOA, and allow its staff to operate independently from the agenda of this administration.
And in spite of inside 'old-school'-thinking and attempts at political intervention, up until recently, VOA has actually done a pretty good job of exercising that independence. The problem is though; much of the legacy editorial side of VOA still lives in the past, before all the competition from either foreign government media sources with agendas or social media. As we all know since the growth of social media, modern society is looking for opinions and guidance baked-into their news. VOA just reporting the news without any sizzle or appeal at all, makes them potentially irrelevant to a world audience surrounded by agendas, opinion and spin.
That's OK. It's good to have options, and it's better for a government-funded media entity to get low ratings than have it compete with InfoWars.
During a prior administration, the focus from the Board was assessing "impact", since before the ability to get on-line metrics. VOA (and the other entities) measured their audience estimates purely based on the .5mV/m coverage area of a transmission site or satellite footprint. Even then, the struggle was to quantify how well their various programs for each language service were doing. Some entities turned a blind eye to metrics, because they would have to account for the data. That, and the focus had always been on legacy media like radio and to a lesser extent; TV, where impact was measured solely by unrealistic coverage maps.
Remember, the VOA is chartered to serve only those outside US borders. InfoWars is a domestic policy and politics content provider and is of about zero interest outside the US; in fact, it is of little interest even in US territories like Puerto Rico,the USVI and American Samoa.
There have been occasions when I have listened to the VOA in the languages I understand where it seems that, in an effort to be unbiased, they have prohibited all adjectives. It makes for very dull programming.
That is far to subtle a distinction for a listener in a foreign nation to understand. In most nations, all government agencies reflect the government itself.
The issue is "I feel this way about the United Sates. Therefore, I have that feel about the VOA". To foreign audience, the VOA is the voice of the US Government, not an autonomous and independent agency because in most nations, particularly the underdeveloped ones, there is no such thing as an "independent" government agency.
Funny you should catch that. I never confirmed the workflow, but I'd heard that there was a group of editors who's job was to remove all adjectives out of A.P. wire-copy before being 'written' into a story for air.
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