The year is 1939, the Federal Communications Commission set the following policy:
A licensee of an international broadcast station shall render only an international broadcast service which will reflect the culture of this country and which will promote international goodwill, understanding and cooperation. Any program solely intended for, and directed to an audience in the continental United States does not meet the requirements for this service.
February 1942 the Voice of America made its first broadcast into Germany and was used although the years of World war 2 it broadcast info provided to it by the War Department……and then during the Cold War years……In 1947, VOA started broadcasting to the Soviet citizens in Russian under the pretext of countering “more harmful instances of Soviet propaganda directed against American leaders and policies” on the part of the internal Soviet Russian-language media.
Bet about now my reader is wandering where I am going with this……..there is a new role for the VOA……….
According to a report at Foreign Policy, a new piece of legislation due for a vote on Wednesday of this week would force Voice of America, the federally funded news media organization, to toe the U.S. line even more closely and become an explicit propaganda tool of Washington.
A powerful pair of lawmakers in the House of Representatives have agreed on major legislation to overhaul Voice of America and other government-funded broadcasting outlets that could have implications for the broadcaster’s editorial independence, Foreign Policy has learned.
The new legislation tweaks the language of VOA’s mission to explicitly outline the organization’s role in supporting U.S. “public diplomacy” and the “policies” of the United States government, a move that would settle a long-running dispute within the federal government about whether VOA should function as a neutral news organization rather than a messaging tool of Washington.
“It is time for broad reforms; now more than ever, U.S. international broadcasts must be effective,” said Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a statement.
A demand that VOA broadcast propaganda….now that is humorous….why? It has always been an outlet for propaganda……but for decades we have pretended that it was only for the broadcast of ‘real’ news…..and now have have a bi-partisan bill that blows that pretense away.
In case my reader is interested in learning more about propaganda then I can help with that desire……..
http://lobotero.com/2013/01/11/what-is-propaganda/
http://lobotero.com/2014/01/06/propaganda-2-0/
You are welcome.