For those of you interested in doing something to
help us avoid the ultimate destruction of VOA, please
write to your representative/Congressperson/Senator
and urge them to take action to ensure that VOA
English broadcasting can continue:




VOA Says Goodbye to Uzbek, Other Tongues
Agency to Shift Resources to Audiences in Mideast, North Korea,
Somalia, Cuba

By Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 23, 2007; A13

Back home on a farm in Uzbekistan, Navbahor Imamova's mother and
siblings crowd around their cranky, Soviet-made radio and tune in
daily to Voice of America broadcasts in Uzbek. Though frequently
scrambled by Chinese martial music, the VOA journalist said, the
broadcast is her family's chief source of credible, uncensored foreign
news in the authoritarian Central Asian country.

But that source is due to be silenced. For the second year running,
the board overseeing the government-funded VOA has plans to wipe out
news in several languages, including its flagship English-language
"News Now" programming.

"This is big," said Imamova, one of seven people who put together the
Uzbek service from Washington. "It's not a secret that Uzbekistan is
one of the most politically oppressed countries. There's not a single
outlet that can call itself independent there."

The Broadcast Board of Governors, which oversees VOA and six other
government-funded international broadcasters, said this month that the
cutbacks are being made in an effort to shift resources to new
technology and "critical audiences" in the Middle East, North Korea,
Somalia and Cuba.

"The current budget climate requires that we utilize our funds to
effectively adapt to changing viewing habits and new technology, and
respond to the nation's most immediate and vital national security
challenges," the board said in a statement.

The board's $668.2 million budget request calls for a 3.8 percent
increase from its anticipated fiscal 2007 level. The increase would
fund the expansion of programming to North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan
and Pakistan, as well as to the Arab-language satellite network
Alhurra TV and its pop music and news counterpart, Radio Sawa.

Board spokesman Larry Hart said the decision to scrap the services
largely reflects their diminishing audiences. "The world has changed,
and our independent surveys show year after year that fewer and fewer
people use shortwave radio," Hart said. "Now, that differs
dramatically in different parts of the world. But satellite TV, FM
radio and the Internet are the way of the future."

VOA employees and advocates counter that their programming is a model
of open media and a crucial source of trustworthy news and information
for decision makers and influential figures worldwide, a demographic
that is difficult to quantify.

Since VOA's inaugural radio broadcast into Nazi Germany 65 years ago,
the network has expanded into television and across the globe, and in
its heyday, it carried programming in more than 50 languages. In the
past few years, services were cut in 10 former Soviet bloc countries
that have since joined the European Union. Other services have come
and gone only to appear again.

VOA advocates and employees said that among the more dire changes
being planned is elimination of "News Now," which feeds the
broadcaster's 45 language services and includes reports from
Washington and around the world. VOA would continue to offer Web-based
English-language content, as well as English to sub-Saharan Africa and
news for listeners with a limited English vocabulary.

"This is the VOA. Everything else is patterned on it. This has been
our identity since 1942," said Neil Currie, a senior anchor with "News
Now" and 23-year veteran of the agency. The English-language program
has already suffered the effects of drastic cuts, he said, with staff
whittled down in the past two years from more than 50 people to 14.
Broadcasts have been reduced dramatically. On Sundays, Currie said, he
is alone in the VOA newsroom putting together hours' worth of news.

"It is very hard to think of a parallel to killing the English-
language services of VOA America. I can't think of an analogy absurd
enough," said Sanford J. Ungar, president of Goucher College in
Maryland and VOA's director from 1999 to 2001. "Would Radio Moscow
stop broadcasting in Russian? Would Radio Beijing stop broadcasting in
Chinese? Radio France in French? The BBC in English?"

Alan L. Heil Jr., a former deputy director of VOA and author of "Voice
of America: A History," said, "We need Voice of America more than
ever, and yet here we are silencing ourselves on radio." For Heil, the
plan is particularly shortsighted when English is spoken by more than
a quarter of the world's population and when Russia, China, Iran and
al-Jazeera are expanding their TV and Internet programming in English.

Based on figures from the research group InterMedia Survey Institute,
Heil calculated that total audience losses worldwide under the budget
plan could run to 18.5 million listeners, with 10.5 million lost for
the English broadcasts alone.

But Hart, the broadcast board's spokesman, said the priority is to use
the limited funds available to target information-deprived indigenous
speakers in their own languages, rather than English-speakers
traveling abroad. "People who are information-deprived or who don't
have access to satellite TV or who don't have hookups to the BBC or
CNN -- they don't speak English, and those are the people we need to
reach," he said.

Ungar, who was director of VOA when it started offering 24-hour news
on the Internet, does not dispute the value of new technology. "But
VOA radio is a great bargain," he said. "It costs so little to do it,
and is vastly less expensive than TV."

Advocates say shortwave radio should hardly be dismissed as an
anachronism. Battery-operated radios are cheap and easy to procure
worldwide. Not so with satellite TVs or even Internet service, both of
which can be blocked more easily and efficiently than shortwave
frequencies. And unlike FM, which transmits up to 75 miles, shortwave
can be broadcast over vast distances.

VOA advocates contend that the broadcast board has opted to bulldoze
the agency rather than explore alternatives, including asking for
greater appropriations to cover the cost of the doomed services, which
come to $22 million, or about 3.5 percent of the budget.

For Imamova, the broadcaster in the Uzbek service, the plan is
devastating. "VOA Uzbek is the only source of U.S. and international
news in the region. It is a critical service," especially in light of
a crackdown on news media in Uzbekistan, she said, adding that her
comments reflect her personal views.

The Uzbek government has crippled reception of the multimedia service,
which costs VOA $600,000 a year and also reaches Kazakhstan,
Tajikistan and parts of China. But researcher InterMedia also notes
the likelihood of a significant audience undercount because of
respondent wariness in the country.

But virtually all the countries listed for eliminations are critical,
Heil said. Russian President Vladimir Putin "could pull the plug on TV
any day, the Balkans are something of a tinderbox with the Kosovo
crisis coming to a head, and Tibetan services are absolutely critical
in a country with no other independent information."

"You have to keep up with new technology, but at the same time you
need a measured approach to keep your audience base," Heil added. "The
stronger you are as a news gatherer, the closer you come to fulfilling
VOA's mission: 'The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall
tell you the truth.' "

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dxace1 wrote:

For those of you interested in doing something to
help us avoid the ultimate destruction of VOA, please
write to your representative/Congressperson/Senator
and urge them to take action to ensure that VOA
English broadcasting can continue:

Do you think they'll listen?



VOA Says Goodbye to Uzbek, Other Tongues
Agency to Shift Resources to Audiences in Mideast, North Korea,
Somalia, Cuba

By Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 23, 2007; A13

Back home on a farm in Uzbekistan, Navbahor Imamova's mother and
siblings crowd around their cranky, Soviet-made radio and tune in
daily to Voice of America broadcasts in Uzbek. Though frequently
scrambled by Chinese martial music, the VOA journalist said, the
broadcast is her family's chief source of credible, uncensored foreign
news in the authoritarian Central Asian country.

But that source is due to be silenced. For the second year running,
the board overseeing the government-funded VOA has plans to wipe out
news in several languages, including its flagship English-language
"News Now" programming.

"This is big," said Imamova, one of seven people who put together the
Uzbek service from Washington. "It's not a secret that Uzbekistan is
one of the most politically oppressed countries. There's not a single
outlet that can call itself independent there."

The Broadcast Board of Governors, which oversees VOA and six other
government-funded international broadcasters, said this month that the
cutbacks are being made in an effort to shift resources to new
technology and "critical audiences" in the Middle East, North Korea,
Somalia and Cuba.

"The current budget climate requires that we utilize our funds to
effectively adapt to changing viewing habits and new technology, and
respond to the nation's most immediate and vital national security
challenges," the board said in a statement.

The board's $668.2 million budget request calls for a 3.8 percent
increase from its anticipated fiscal 2007 level. The increase would
fund the expansion of programming to North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan
and Pakistan, as well as to the Arab-language satellite network
Alhurra TV and its pop music and news counterpart, Radio Sawa.

Board spokesman Larry Hart said the decision to scrap the services
largely reflects their diminishing audiences. "The world has changed,
and our independent surveys show year after year that fewer and fewer
people use shortwave radio," Hart said. "Now, that differs
dramatically in different parts of the world. But satellite TV, FM
radio and the Internet are the way of the future."

VOA employees and advocates counter that their programming is a model
of open media and a crucial source of trustworthy news and information
for decision makers and influential figures worldwide, a demographic
that is difficult to quantify.

Since VOA's inaugural radio broadcast into Nazi Germany 65 years ago,
the network has expanded into television and across the globe, and in
its heyday, it carried programming in more than 50 languages. In the
past few years, services were cut in 10 former Soviet bloc countries
that have since joined the European Union. Other services have come
and gone only to appear again.

VOA advocates and employees said that among the more dire changes
being planned is elimination of "News Now," which feeds the
broadcaster's 45 language services and includes reports from
Washington and around the world. VOA would continue to offer Web-based
English-language content, as well as English to sub-Saharan Africa and
news for listeners with a limited English vocabulary.

"This is the VOA. Everything else is patterned on it. This has been
our identity since 1942," said Neil Currie, a senior anchor with "News
Now" and 23-year veteran of the agency. The English-language program
has already suffered the effects of drastic cuts, he said, with staff
whittled down in the past two years from more than 50 people to 14.
Broadcasts have been reduced dramatically. On Sundays, Currie said, he
is alone in the VOA newsroom putting together hours' worth of news.

"It is very hard to think of a parallel to killing the English-
language services of VOA America. I can't think of an analogy absurd
enough," said Sanford J. Ungar, president of Goucher College in
Maryland and VOA's director from 1999 to 2001. "Would Radio Moscow
stop broadcasting in Russian? Would Radio Beijing stop broadcasting in
Chinese? Radio France in French? The BBC in English?"

Alan L. Heil Jr., a former deputy director of VOA and author of "Voice
of America: A History," said, "We need Voice of America more than
ever, and yet here we are silencing ourselves on radio." For Heil, the
plan is particularly shortsighted when English is spoken by more than
a quarter of the world's population and when Russia, China, Iran and
al-Jazeera are expanding their TV and Internet programming in English.

Based on figures from the research group InterMedia Survey Institute,
Heil calculated that total audience losses worldwide under the budget
plan could run to 18.5 million listeners, with 10.5 million lost for
the English broadcasts alone.

But Hart, the broadcast board's spokesman, said the priority is to use
the limited funds available to target information-deprived indigenous
speakers in their own languages, rather than English-speakers
traveling abroad. "People who are information-deprived or who don't
have access to satellite TV or who don't have hookups to the BBC or
CNN -- they don't speak English, and those are the people we need to
reach," he said.

Ungar, who was director of VOA when it started offering 24-hour news
on the Internet, does not dispute the value of new technology. "But
VOA radio is a great bargain," he said. "It costs so little to do it,
and is vastly less expensive than TV."

Advocates say shortwave radio should hardly be dismissed as an
anachronism. Battery-operated radios are cheap and easy to procure
worldwide. Not so with satellite TVs or even Internet service, both of
which can be blocked more easily and efficiently than shortwave
frequencies. And unlike FM, which transmits up to 75 miles, shortwave
can be broadcast over vast distances.

VOA advocates contend that the broadcast board has opted to bulldoze
the agency rather than explore alternatives, including asking for
greater appropriations to cover the cost of the doomed services, which
come to $22 million, or about 3.5 percent of the budget.

For Imamova, the broadcaster in the Uzbek service, the plan is
devastating. "VOA Uzbek is the only source of U.S. and international
news in the region. It is a critical service," especially in light of
a crackdown on news media in Uzbekistan, she said, adding that her
comments reflect her personal views.

The Uzbek government has crippled reception of the multimedia service,
which costs VOA $600,000 a year and also reaches Kazakhstan,
Tajikistan and parts of China. But researcher InterMedia also notes
the likelihood of a significant audience undercount because of
respondent wariness in the country.

But virtually all the countries listed for eliminations are critical,
Heil said. Russian President Vladimir Putin "could pull the plug on TV
any day, the Balkans are something of a tinderbox with the Kosovo
crisis coming to a head, and Tibetan services are absolutely critical
in a country with no other independent information."

"You have to keep up with new technology, but at the same time you
need a measured approach to keep your audience base," Heil added. "The
stronger you are as a news gatherer, the closer you come to fulfilling
VOA's mission: 'The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall
tell you the truth.' "

Post a Comment

View all comments that have been posted about this article.

Your washingtonpost.com User ID, darobin, will be displayed with your
comment.

Comments: (Limit 5,000 characters)

Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other
inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site.
Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by
someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will
take steps to block

In article . com,
dxace1 wrote:
For those of you interested in doing something to
help us avoid the ultimate destruction of VOA, please
write to your representative/Congressperson/Senator
and urge them to take action to ensure that VOA
English broadcasting can continue:

Radio Australia/Radio National's "Media Report" for Feb 22 was on
US Government broadcasting, including some comments from people
in the Middle East on Al Hura and Radio Sawa. And a segment, from
PBS, on the Voice of America.

There're usually transcripts and podcasts on their web site.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn and take the pulldown menu to "Media Report".

Mark Zenier
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)