Should tax dollars support commercial media?

Denver Post op-ed contributor Julian Friedland says, why not?

Media represent an essential service like education and infrastructure. As such, media need to be protected from the corrupting influence of private interest, which has finally grown so massive as to exert a crushing grip on journalistic independence.

Friedland, who blogs on business ethics when he's not teaching at the University of Colorado, cites the BBC as an example of publicly-funded journalism that doesn't compromise. Closer to home, he notes that respected public TV and radio networks PBS and NPR receive federal money via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Would an infusion of no-strings-attached government funding prompt a golden age of investigative journalism? I don't know. But if such a day came to pass, it certainly need not be the end of independent journalism as we know it. A good case could be made that corporate advertisers represent more of a threat to probing journalism than a bit of government money might. The Times and the Post and the WSJ and some others can afford to ignore advertisers, and they have the resources. (WSJ caveat: so far.) But when was the last time you saw a blistering investigative campaign against, say, sales tactics of car dealers or the environmental toll of production homebuilders is a small or medium size daily?

I venture to say that in at least one 100 percent government-funded newsroom in Washington, that of the Voice of America, there is considerably less interference than you might think. True, VOA doesn't do serious investigative work; there's no money for that, nor is it seen as part of the mission. But whether it's reporting on the resignation of President Nixon, the chaotic exodus from Saigon, the incompetence of the (non-) response to Katrina, or the ongoing debacle in Iraq, VOA journalists have generally provided straight reports on news that might be perceived as embarrassing despite — or because — they were and are paid by the people of the United States to do so.

Maybe it’s just that he’s been spending too much time in his secure, undisclosed location?

In April, the Pew Research Center did another one of those civic knowledge surveys. As usual with such polls, the results were shocking, but not surprising.

Despite “news and information revolutions,” the number of people who could name the vice president dropped from 74 percent of respondents in 1989 to 69 percent today. Similar falloffs were found in the number of people who could name their state governor (down from 74 to 66 percent) or the president of Russia (down from 47 to 36 percent).

According to Michael Schudson & Tony Dokoupil at cjr.org (“The Good-Citizen Quiz”), the results are not much different from similar polls taken six decades ago. CJR rightly wonders if these sorts of factoids are a good measure of a well-informed citizenry. It is certainly easy to imagine a voter staking out a position on health care without knowing the name of the secretary of HHS, or choosing sides in a transit vs. highways debate without knowing the name of the governor. But scoring that sort of survey is a lot harder.

Ed Anger, Bat Boy trade dead trees for new cyberlife

Peter Carlson has a long and excellent piece in today's Washington Post (“All the News That Seemed Unfit to Print”) on the demise of the Weekly World News, supermarket tabloid par excellence.

It all began in Lantana, Fla., in 1979, when the National Enquirer, America’s premier tabloid, bought new color presses to replace its old black-and-white presses. The Enquirer's owner, a former CIA agent named Generoso Pope, couldn't bear to leave the old presses idle, so he founded Weekly World News as a sort of poor man’s Enquirer, running celebrity gossip and UFO sightings that didn't quite meet the Enquirer's high standards.

Fortunately, WWN will continue as an online-only publication, highlighting such improbably-overlooked stories as “WHY MOSES WANDERED IN THE DESERT FOR FORTY YEARS: He Lost the Map!
”

“A parchment map was found in a sealed urn not far from the remains of an Egyptian chariot,” said Rabbi Schmotkin-Fisher. “We surmise that Moses dropped it in the rush to get across the Red Sea before the parted waters came back together.

“It was etched by I Am’s own flaming finger, plainly mapping the way to the Promised Land. Remarkably, had they followed the Lord’s route, the trek would have taken the Israelites about a month, tops.”

More faith-based journalism next time....

For want of a nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Four days after the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota, John McQuaid writes in The Washington Post (“The Can’t-Do Nation”) about how America has lost the problem-solving ability to tackle big projects.

Once, this was our specialty. Canal across Central America? No problem! World’s largest office building? Designed and built in 16 months! Man on the Moon? Before this decade is out!

“We're supposed to be an optimistic, problem-solving nation. ... But somehow, can-do America has become a joke, an oxymoron. We’ve become the can’t-do nation, slipping on every banana peel on the global stage,” writes McQuaid.

He says big government has failed in part because much of the people’s business has been outsourced.

For the past quarter-century, more and more government work has been done by contractors. This started under Reagan and has continued, unabated, under Democrats and Republicans alike.

There are more people than ever working at government jobs, but fewer and fewer of them are actual government employees. And contractors show up not just in jobs that were the original outsourcing candidates — office cleaning, IT — but in jobs that scream government: NASA space shuttle launch personnel, Voice of America broadcasters, security forces guarding military personnel in Iraq.

With the contracting comes lack of accountability.

With the demonization of big government comes the political inability to rally support for big government projects like developing sustainable energy, planning for climate change, investing in our public schools, and creating a healthcare system that provides universal care, not to mention the decaying bridges, roads, tunnels, pipelines, dams, and other bits of essential infrastructure that won’t last forever.

Rally support and rally the funding to pay for them. Anyone who has lived abroad knows that our tax burden is near the bottom of comparable industrialized nations. Politicians run from tax increases like the plague. Nobody likes paying taxes, and no one wants their taxes increased. But there is only so much that we can push onto the next generation.

Yes of course, the wealthy should be taxed more. But so should the middle class. Yes, it may mean fewer Lexus sales and fewer McMansions, but if that means better-educated youngsters, fewer women forced to decide between a meal and a mammogram, or one less bridge falling down, I think it is a remarkably good bargain.

(And we should avoid starting unnecessary wars, but that’s another post; this one’s too long already.)

Meanwhile, we are stuck with the infrastructure we have. The New Orleans Times-Picayune today reports (“Corps analysis shows canal's weaknesses”) that parts of the levee system may fail under a surge of as little as 6–7 feet. Officials of the Army Corps of Engineers say the vulnerable areas are now protected by massive storm gates installed after the city was inundated when Hurricane Katrina hit. Readers commenting on the article seem less than reassured. And after the performance of the Corps’ flood protection system in 2005, who can blame them.

When the Airchecker blog launched a few years ago, the intention was to keep a skeptical eye on developments at the Voice of America and the world of international broadcasting in general.

That didn't work out.

To the surprise of everyone here at Airchecker World Headquarters (sponsorship offers welcome), the daily demands of a busy life got in the way.

So we're going to try something “different” this time out: clever comments and thoughtful ripostes on whatever subject happens to catch our eye.

“Different.” From the Latin meaning, just like every other slacker is doing online.

Meanwhile, please give Airchecker another chance. It's kind of a self-esteem thing.

Fawning Over Pattiz in the Wall St. Journal

The front page of today's Wall Street Journal features Norm Pattiz, bleached teeth smiling out at the reader in one of the Journal's trademark illustrations. And why shouldn't the possibly lame duck member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors be smiling? His picture accompanies a fawning piece by Neil King, Jr., which portrays him as a public spirited gazillionaire who wants to "give something back" after his lucrative career at the helm of Westwood One.

According to "Sparking Debate, Radio Czar Retools Government Media" (under the kicker "Popaganda"!) , he "has brought the razzmatazz of commercial media to the government's stodgy overseas broadcasts, including the storied Voice of America," King writes. "Though direct comparisons are tough, Sawa now has an audience many times larger than its VOA predecessor in most of the Middle East." On the TV side, Al Hurra "has done better than skeptics predicted."

Well, OK, both stations have attracted an audience, no question. Sawa is delivering a popular, formula-driven pop format that was bound win an audience larger than VOA's late, lamented Arabic service, which King characterizes as featuring "English-language lessons, dramatized Edgar Allan Poe stories and government editorials on the Middle East peace process, with a market share of about two percent of adults.

Two percent. Hardly worth going after if you're selling toothpaste. But like most of VOA's traditional, full-service broadcast audiences, that two percent included government officials, business people, academics, students — in other words, the opinion leaders of today and tomorrow. And what King fails to note in his dismissive description of VOA Arabic's content is NEWS! Sawa serves up a few minutes of headlines and abbreviated stories twice an hour, and there are numerous anecdotal reports of Sawa listeners, even ardent fans, tuning to other stations during the newscasts. VOA Arabic, in sharp contrast, included serious newscasts and lots of other informational programming. People tuned in for the news, not in spite of it.

And what, exactly, is wrong with English lessons?

Over on the TV side, al Hurra, while having won an audience, still trails al Jazeera and other competitors, both in audience share and, more importantly, in credibility. Its ambitious schedule includes much filler material, some of which is benign (nature documentaries), some of which is in dubious taste (scantily-clad models in fashion shows), and some of which is just plain bizarre (a documentary on the Loch Ness Monster). Like the runway outfits, the news is often skimpy. Time after time, while al Jazeera airs a news report or live event or a discussion program, al Hurra is broadcasting some retread, subtitled program obtained by Mr. Pattiz on the cheap. Oh, excuse me, at "patrotic prices."

Downing Street What?

On May 1, Britain's Sunday Times published the infamous Downing Street Memo, which details a meeting in the prime minister's office in July 2002 that suggests "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to justify an American invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein.

The document has become a cause célèbre in Britain, and the American media have belatedly given it some attention (though not enough).

Now finally, six weeks after its disclosure, the document has received its first mention on the Voice of America. In a story headlined "Congressman Tries to Renew Focus on US Justifications for War in Iraq," Congressional correspondent Dan Robinson reports on a forum called Thursday by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) to "to shine a new spotlight on administration justifications for going to war in Iraq."

I wonder if that's the last we'll hear of the DSM on VOA.

Robinson's story was filed just hours before NPR's "Morning Edition" aired a piece by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik on "Changes at Voice of America," detailing political interference with news coverage at VOA. Although staff journalists asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, thay did provide Folkenflik with e-mails from VOA director David Jackson directing positive coverage of events that would show the Bush administration in a favorable light. Some of those story ideas came directly from military and White House press releases. As Jackson pointed out, a press release can certainly suggest a good story, but given Jackson's previous employment at the Pentagon, his motivation can't help but be viewed skeptically.

And speaking of the military, Pentagon correspondent Al Pessin has been traveling a lot lately. In Colorado Springs recently he filed a pair of pieces on the pervasive evangelical Christian atmosphere at the Air Force Academy. Only one ("US Air Force Cadets Work on Religious Tolerance Issue") made it to the VOA website. Both pieces — but especially the unpublished one — focus on Air Force efforts to resecularize the Academy while minimizing the history of intolerance for non-Protestants at what should be a secular institution.

Pessin also filed a couple of stories this week from Dakar, Senegal, (neither online as of this writing) on how American and African military forces are working together to combat terrorism and conducting joint exercises. Both read like Pentagon press releases, which is too bad. Pessin is one of VOA's most talented reporters. His assignments have included London, Jerusalem and Beijing (where Chinese authorities expelled him for his Tianamen Square reporting). He can do better, but admittedly it's difficult to keep your journalistic distance while on a Pentagon-organized trip. But why was he sent to West Africa at all? The military cooperation is a "story" that, according to a Google News search, has gotten approximately zero coverage in the mainstream press. Perhaps the idea came from one of David Jackson's Pentagon press releases?

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Former VOA program director Sid Davis had an op-ed in yesterday's edition of the Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill ("Chinese scrutiny threat of VOA Hong Kong move"), where he suggests that VOA's bizarre plan to hire contract freelancers in Hong Kong could prompt unwanted attention from Beijing.

Davis, who has a somewhat uneven reputation from his stint at VOA, is exactly right: dramatically expanding the existing VOA Hong Kong news center "would surely draw attention, perhaps harassment, from newly invigorated Chinese thought police whose marching orders are becoming more strident." A Chinese administration that imprisons journalists, jams VOA's broadcasts, and severly restricts residents' Internet access could be tempted to act against VOA, which plans to put both radio news writers and web staff in Hong Kong.

"VoA faces becoming a laughing stock" writes Davis, with "dependence on the untested reliability of freelancers in Hong Kong." He concludes: "Outsourcing one-third of the VoA’s news shifts to rented writers in China, the country that smashed the pro-democracy movement in 1989, is the wrong move at the wrong time to the wrong place. Enough already." Amen, Brother Sid.

VOA Should Be State Dept. Unit, Says Senate Aide

VOA belongs in the State Department, where it can be monitored by House and Senate foreign affairs committees, and it doesn't need no stinkin' BBG to oversee its work, suggests an aide to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar (R-IN).

Speaking at a Heritage Foundation Tuesday, at an event on public diplomacy, Mark Helmke said the BBG's grand strategy of "marrying the [message] to the market" is not working. But his solution would only make matters worse.

(Heritage will probably publish a transcript of this event later this year; in the meantime, you can watch a video. The audio link, which is currently broken, appears here.)

His comments, which are worth reading and do not appear to be available otherwise online, appear below.

The idea of VOA being enfolded into the State Department might have some appeal, given the desparate situation the Voice finds itself in: political meddling in news copy, continuing marginalization of English services, erosion of the correspondent corps and newsgathering capabilities both at home and abroad, management whose idea of innovation is outsourcing core newswriting functions to contract workers in the Peoples Republic of China, etc. But while placing VOA under State might have some short-term administrative and funding advantages (though that is not at all certain), it would effectively in the long term — and maybe sooner rather than later — end the Voice of America's role as a reliable source of news. It's impossible to imagine this administration especially (but, for that matter, most any other administration, too) from using its radio station for heavy handed propaganda, the Charter be damned.

VOA and, to a greater or lesser extent, U.S. international broadcasting's other brands, have a large and growing credibility problem. It's impossible to imagine a scenario in which direct State Department control would improve credibility. Credibility is gained, slowly and painfully, by honesty, integrity and reliability. It is not won by short-sighted efforts to manage the news, downplay the embarrassing and censor the inconvient. That happens often enough now, despite (OK, or maybe because of) the BBG and its "firewall."

Helmke says Congress would keep an eye on State's VOA. But we have been watching the death spiral of U.S. international broadcasting as Congress sits by and does nothing. Or, even worse, calls in Tomlinson and Pattiz and pats them on the back for the fine work they are doing. The failure of Congress to fulfill its oversight obligations in recent years is shameful, and Helmke give us no reason to suppose it would change if broadcasting gets shifted to another slot in the government's organizational chart.

Nice of him, by the way, to say that this mess ain't the fault of the dedicated professionals in the various broadcasting services. But then again, he says Tomlinson and "godfather" Pattiz (how apt!) aren't at fault either. Geez.

(It would probably be useful to review an earlier Heritage seminar on some of the same issues, "Regaining America's Voice Overseas: A Conference on U.S. Public Diplomacy," from July 2004.)

International Broadcasting: Building a Better House

by Mark Helmke

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