Comments on: Crippled by Service Closures, Voice of America Struggles To Respond to Russia’s Attack on Georgia http://www.bloggernews.net/117287 High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news. Mon, 20 May 2013 16:55:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: ted http://www.bloggernews.net/117287#comment-484559 ted Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:10:33 +0000 http://www.bloggernews.net/117287#comment-484559 Thank you for adding this important information to the article. I urge anyone who reads this post to forward it to their media contacts and to email their members of Congress. A press release from FreeMediaOnline.org calling for saving Voice of America broadcasts to Georgia and Russia is expected for distribution tomorrow. I hope this will also help the cause of saving and expanding Voice of America English broadcasts to the world. The Broadcasting Board of Governors has no right to place the resources giving the American people ability to communicate with the Russian people in times of crisis and in peacetime within the reach of Mr. Putin’s secret police, the successor to the KGB. (Mr. Putin’s former employer.)

]]> By: John Birchard http://www.bloggernews.net/117287#comment-483969 John Birchard Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:32:33 +0000 http://www.bloggernews.net/117287#comment-483969 Not widely known is the same Board of Governors that shut down Russian broadcasts on the Voice of America, has been attempting to do the same thing to English language radio broadcasts. Only through the strenuous efforts of members of the English language news division and a handful of friends, have English broadcasts continued although in greatly diminished circumstances. We are no longer on the air 24/7. We are now down to 10 hours a day. The staff has been sliced from 55 to 15. Transmitters have been shut down from Delano, California to the Isle of Rhodes. The BBG says listenership is down. Of course, it’s down. If you turn off the transmitters and reduce hours you can pretty well guarantee fewer folks will tune in.

The systematic dismantling of the Voice of America by its own Board of Governors is a shameful story of wilful mismanagement, a story that needs to be widely disseminated in order that the American public and Congress can stop the destruction of a valuable tool of public diplomacy.

Who would you like to see telling America’s story to the world? The Voice of America or Radio Beijing? VOA or Radio Moscow? Don’t let the BBG put a gag on the Voice of America. Speak up before it’s too late.

John Birchard
Senior News Broadcaster
English Language News Division
Voice of America

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