07-11-2004, 12:15 PM
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Commentator
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Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 1,162
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I heard about this for weeks via World of Radio, but I found an article about it on Radio Nederland's own website ("VOA"= Voice of America):
http://www.rnw.nl/realradio/features...voa040708.html
Quote:
The Chairman of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors has issued a strong response to a petition sent to members of Congress on Tuesday of this week, accusing the Board of "dismantling the nation's radio beacon" and calling on Congress to investigate the Board. The petition was signed by 465 of the 1000 or so staff who work for VOA. It was partly a response to the demotion of VOA news director Andre DeNesnera in a staff reshuffle announced last Thursday. But the issues raised in the petition go way beyond that, and it's clear that there's a great deal of unrest in the corridors of VOA.
The concerns of the staff have been building up over the past several years, which have seen the replacement of some of VOA's key language services with new broadcasts intended for younger audiences, such as the Arabic Radio Sawa and the Persian Radio Farda. A VOA editor who spoke under the condition of anonymity pointed out that reaching he leaders and activists in a community is also important. He suggested that because the board's members have business backgrounds, they are placing too much emphasis on achieving market share....
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And there's this:
Quote:
DeNesnera's removal
The removal of DeNesnera is seen by Heil and others as evidence of increasing politicisation of VOA news. During the past two years of his tenure as news director, DeNesnera had continuing differences with VOA Director David Jackson, appointed in August 2002, on matters to do with news selection and news writing. Jackson wanted the administration line better represented in the news output, but DeNesnera favoured a more traditional journalistic line.
David Jackson says that the reorganisation of VOA news is designed to strengthen its ability to more effectively cover its target audiences, to maximise VOA's resources, and to bring the operation more in line with those of other international news organisations. The newsroom's shifts will be tailored to conform to the broadcast schedules, and focus on the regions targeted by the language broadcasts that are going out at any particular time.
Different views of the same facts
As part of a number of key personnel changes, former News Director Andre Denesnera becomes Chief Diplomatic Correspondent. But it's clear from some of the remarks in his final message to colleagues as News Director that he has his own ideas about why the decision was made: "There must always be a place here for constructive dissent and we must brook no tolerance for anyone who would construe it as disloyalty, or worse, make it a punishable action or a reason for retaliation."
BBG Chairman Tomlinson, on the other hand, says that "US international broadcasting, far from deserving censure, deserves praise for the successful role it is playing in bringing our ideas - most important among them, this nation's commitment to balanced, objective media as a pillar of modern liberal democracy - to a worldwide audience."
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