International Broadcasting: Building a Better House

Comments Delivered by Mark Helmke,
Senior Professional Staff Member
U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Richard G. Lugar, Chairman

The Heritage Foundation Conference on
“U.S. Public Diplomacy ─ Roadmap to Recovery�

June 14, 2005
Washington, DC

International broadcasting financed by the U.S. government has lost its way.

The world has radically changed, but the institution supporting international
broadcasting has not.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees the myriad of
broadcasting entities under its control, has a grand strategy called “marrying
the message to the mission.�

It’s not working. The various missions are uncoordinated. They often work
at cross purposes, and the divergent messages are confusing and counterproductive.

Despite these problems, let me be clear: they are not the fault of the
thousands of dedicated and professional people working for the Voice of
America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA),
Radio and TV Marti, and the new Middle East Broadcasting Networks which runs
Al Hurra and Radio Sawa. Nor are the problems caused by BBG Chairman Ken
Tomlinson, Norm Pattiz ─ the godfather of Al Hurra and Radio Sawa ─ or others.

The fault lies with all of us for causing the creation and evolution of such
a confusing federal agency of multiple public and quasi-private entities run
by political appointees of both parties. The fault lies with the lack of
long term bipartisan strategic thinking and agreement on American public
diplomacy in the post-9/11 world.

Understanding the history of American international broadcasting provides
direction for the reforms required today. Voice of America was started by
the War Department soon after Pearl Harbor and America’s entry in World
War II. America had seen the power of Nazi propaganda and determined to
counter it with American government sponsored free press. That raises the
first question we must now debate: Can the government sponsor free press?

Interestingly, Ken Tomlinson, the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of
Governor, and also the Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcast
(CPB), which oversees the Public Broadcast Service (PBS) and National
Public Radio (NPR), is asking serious, and controversial questions, about
how open and free a government subsidized domestic media can be.

In addition to VOA, the United States also created during World War II
Radio Free Europe and later Radio Liberty. These were creations of the
OSS and then the CIA. These were transformational communications entities.
The enduring images of RFE/RL are of the Free French fighter, and later
Vaclav Havel behind the Iron Curtain, listening to their crystal sets,
and then taking action against totalitarian dictatorships.

VOA and the so-called surrogates, RFE/RL, were powerful forces in the
liberation of Europe and Asia during World War II and the Cold War.

Three confusing and confounding policies, however, have emerged from
these efforts.

First, Congress did not want to create an American BBC. Once a country
was “liberated,� American government financed broadcasting stopped,
regardless of whether there was an indigenous free press that could
survive and thrive. Consequently, we’ve never developed a comprehensive
policy for how free press fits into democracy and nation building.

Second, and most importantly, there has not been an open and
thoughtful discussion about how best to communicate to the rest of
the world American values, diversity, and the inherent messiness of
democratic decision making, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

The third point is the most volatile. It is the quaint and irrational
fear that a President will use the broadcasting entities to
propagandize the American public. The fear is based on propagandists
George Creel and Joseph Goebbels more than 60 years ago.

Nazi propagandist Goebbels is better known historically than Creel,
but Creel’s work still influences the laws and policies surrounding
American public diplomacy. Creel was a Progressive era muckraking
journalist who became Wilson’s information minister during
World War I. The Creel Commission created hundreds of thousands of
posters and other communications maneuvers promoting the patriotism
of fighting the war, and also the role of Wilson as America’s savior.

I’m the proud owner of a wonderful Creel poster depicting Wilson
under a Bald Eagle and American flags. A portrait of Washington on
Wilson’s right shoulder announces “Washington Gave Us Freedom,�
and a portrait of Lincoln, on his Wilson’s left, says “Lincoln
Kept Us United.� Under Wilson are the words, “Wilson Fights for
America and all Humanity.� Below Wilson’s portrait, are portraits
of America’s fighting men with the slogan, “America We Love You:
The Brave Boys of 1918 Will Fight and Die for You.�

This was powerful stuff. Whatever you call it: propaganda,
strategic communications, public diplomacy, it’s all the same:
communications techniques and technologies aimed at influencing
public opinion and political decision making.

Fearful of another Goebbels and Creel after World War II, Congress
passed the Smith-Mundt Act to organize VOA and other public
diplomacy initiatives as long as they were not aimed at the
American public.

Smith-Mundt has created an inherent conflict in American public
diplomacy, and a political and bureaucratic contradiction. American
public diplomacy is hobbled by these conflicts and contradictions
today. If Congress sees American public diplomacy as propaganda not
fit for Americans, how is the rest of the world expected to view
and understand it?

The Smith-Mundt restrictions should be repealed. Let the public
decide. Let the world see and hear America’s open and democratic
discussion.

The United States has three different missions regarding
international broadcasting.

The first is to use broadcasting and other communications techniques
to help explain and promote American foreign policy; America’s
commitment to democracy, human rights and economic opportunity;
and ─ this is the hardest part ─ the diversity, complexity and
inherent messiness of American political decision making.

The second mission is to support indigenous media reporting on
democracy, human rights and transparency in countries that do not
have a free press.

The third mission builds on the second, and that is support for the
development of free, fair and self-sustaining free press in those
same countries.

Presently, the BBG embraces all three missions. This is
counterproductive. This first mission is public diplomacy. The
second and third involve fostering international democratic
institutions. These missions are complementary, but need to be
separated.

The first mission of promoting and explaining American foreign
policy is what the VOA has long been about. This the VOA should
continue. And it should expand its work to involve Congress by
serving, in part, as an international C-SPAN.

No independent bipartisan commission is needed to oversee the
work of VOA. It belongs in the State Department, monitored in
a bipartisan way through the Constitutional oversight powers
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and House
International Relations Committee.

The second mission of supporting indigenous media reporting in
countries without a free press has long been the work of RFE/RL,
and recently RFA and Radio/TV Marti. They should become truly
independent non-profits, run by independent boards, and financed
by Congress. Their jobs are to put themselves out of business
over the long-term. In doing so, they should coordinate their
efforts with the National Endowment for Democracy, which
Senator Lugar last year convinced Congress to designate as the
strategic coordinator for the development of free, fair and
viable free press.

If we review the BBG’s various entities in this light, questions
arise about Al Hurra and Radio Sawa. If the goal is to develop
free and independent media in the Arab-speaking world, then
they too should have an independent board and receive
Congressional funding based on a plan to eventually get off
the government dime.

If the goal of Al Hurra and Radio Sawa is to serve as a platform
for explaining and promoting American foreign policy, they
should be merged back into VOA.

These are ideas I throw out to stimulate debate. Since 9/11
too much of the public diplomacy debate has been about
tactics – buy advertisements, start a new TV station – and not
about strategy. We need to reach a consensus on public
diplomacy strategies before we get bogged down and waste more
money on tactics that may or may not work.

Mark Helmke
Senior Professional Staff Member
U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Chairman

202-224-5918

I'm glad the good senator clarified that the VOA was not used for
propaganda purposes.

I'm relieved that after all these years that my perception the VOA was a
propagand machine was completely wrong. So really it's just a big
infomercial suggesting we do it the american way or else.

I'm glad the good senator cleared that up for me.



SWLer wrote:
International Broadcasting: Building a Better House

Comments Delivered by Mark Helmke,
Senior Professional Staff Member
U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Richard G. Lugar, Chairman

The Heritage Foundation Conference on
“U.S. Public Diplomacy ─ Roadmap to Recovery�

June 14, 2005
Washington, DC

International broadcasting financed by the U.S. government has lost its
way.

The world has radically changed, but the institution supporting
international
broadcasting has not.