Proposed new agency "would manage U.S. international broadcasts directly."

"U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today introduced legislation that would establish the National Center for Strategic Communications, an agency similar to the now defunct U.S. Information Agency. ... In addition to establishing a new public diplomacy agency, Brownback's proposal would abolish the existing Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy at the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Their functions would be transferred to the new National Center for Strategic Communications where they would be managed by single director. The Director of the Center would oversee an interagency panel of representatives from other federal entities whose missions inherently involve strategic communications with foreign publics. ... Under Brownback's legislation, the new Center would separate public diplomacy - speaking to foreign publics - from official diplomacy - speaking to foreign governments. Second, the Center would manage U.S. international broadcasts directly. Third, the Center would enlist the support of private, non-profit and non-governmental organizations and would enable the new Center to make grants to representatives of the Center in key countries to implement U.S. national strategy on a local level." Senator Brownback press release, 23 September 2008.
     Senator Brownback discussed his bill, S.3546 (text not yet available) at the Brookings Institution, 23 September (transcript not available, at least not yet). Tom Dyne, former president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, disagreed with Brownback. He "noted that the past success of entities such as Radio Free Europe and Voice of America was due to their emphasis on independent journalism and professional integrity, not government propaganda. He said that international broadcasting too connected
to the U.S. government will not be seen as legitimate by local populations. Dyne did agree that there is a need to reevaluate the current system and cull ineffective and redundant programs." Notes by Project on Middle East Democracy, 24 September 2008.
     Senator Brownback, whose bill would create a successor to USIA, was, as U.S. representative in the 1990s, "a prime sponsor of the Congressional effort to abolish" USIA. New York Times via Gerald Loftus, Avuncular American, 27 September 2008.
     For other blog reaction to the bill, see MountainRunner, 25 September 2008 and FreeMediaOnline, 25 September 2008.
     People tune to international broadcasts to get news that is more comprehensive and reliable than the news they get from their domestic state-controlled media. Credibility is therefore the be-all and end-all of successful international broadcasting. To achieve credibility, international broadcasting must be independent. To be independent, it must be controlled not by a government, but by a board -- a bipartisan board whose members have fixed and staggered terms.
     That was the reasoning behind the creation of the Broadcasting Board of Governors in 1994. As much as some of us have been aggravated by some of the BBG's decisions, U.S. international broadcasting cannot succeed if it does not have a board providing the firewall between it and the U.S. government.
     The United States government benefits from an international broadcasting over which it does not have direct control because 1) the broadcasts will have an audience, and 2) those audiences will be well informed and bolstered against the disinformation on which dictators and terrorists thrive.
     If Brownback's new entity "would manage U.S. international broadcasts directly," then it would probably call for news that accentuates the positive, underplays the negative, and adds lots of pro-U.S. commentary. The audience for U.S. international broadcasting, which, collectively, is much, much smarter than, collectively, the decision makers and experts of Washington, would immediately recognize such a broadcasting effort for what it is: propaganda. And they would tune elsewhere.
     Public diplomacy, on the other hand, is not supposed to be independent. It is the explanation and advocacy of U.S. policies to foreign publics. It is the job of the State department to project U.S. policies abroad. State is the logical location for public diplomacy.
     I used to work for USIA. USIA officials were constantly going over to State for meetings. Information officers, who took the State Department's Foreign Service exam, worked out of or in conjunction with U.S. embassies. They did not travel or embark on projects without ambassadorial approval. USIA was basically a bureau of State, with the addition of a large front office.
     Brownback's press release states that "the new Center would separate public diplomacy - speaking to foreign publics - from official diplomacy - speaking to foreign governments." Why? Would there be two different messages? Would we have one policy for foreign governments, another for foreign publics? Those foreign publics (remember, they are much, much smarter... ) would soon detect the duplicity. Isn't the international credibility of the United States bad enough already?
     On the bright side, S.3546 does have entertainment value. Here is Senator Brownback, the small-government, fiscal conservative, trying to solve a problem by creating a new bureaucracy.
     Many people think the global unpopularity of the United States can be solved by "strategic communications." But, as many other people have pointed out, the popularity of the United States is actually determined by the policies and actions of the United States. The best public diplomacy and international broadcasting can do is to keep the United States from being even more unpopular by countering disinformation about the United States. Posted: 28 Sep 2008 Permalink Print