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http://bbgwatch.com/bbgwatch/broadcasting-board-of-governors-employees-post-devastating-condemnation-of-top-management/
A Voice of Gimmicks
It used to be that the Voice of America was one of the most reliable source of news in the world. Around the clock, it would, as provided by its Charter, “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.” VOA news were supposed to be “accurate, objective, and comprehensive.”
Today, thanks to middle managers whose goal has been to turn VOA into a “worldwide CNN”, the Voice is but a shadow of itself and pretty much an amalgam of gimmicks.
Gimmickson web sites that seek to use a dizzying amount of new technologies, but can’t be updated in a timely fashion for lack of staff. Hence a disgraceful coverage of the recent Olympic games, with US medals announced well after most other media organizations.
Gimmickson web technologies such as Facebook or Twitter, where some services report having no more than a dozen or two dozen followers, again because while the technologies are pushed, there are no staffers to maintain them.
Gimmicks because the BBG pretends to maintain language services while eviscerating them to the point where they have become meaningless, a mere shadow of their former selves.
Gimmicksbecause while the VOA’s Cohen building is littered with advice about civility, management’s treatment of rank and file has been so vile that the Agency is rated among the worst in government.
Gimmicks because management actually makes decisions months before going through the public motion of consulting staffers.
Gimmicksbecause while pretending to listen to Congress, management charges ahead with disastrous changes, regardless of the long list of failures in the past 10 years. Shall we name a few:
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The elimination of the VOA Arabic service, to the immense benefit of Al-Jazeera.
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The elimination of the Russia radio broadcasts, to the immense benefit of autocratic Russia.
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The near-elimination of Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts, to the immense benefit of communist China.
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The near-elimination of worldwide English, to the benefit of the BBC, CNN and RFI.
These are but a few examples of the utterly disastrous policies maniacally followed by the Agency these past 10 years, at the expense of U.S. taxpayers who know that the VOA Charter stands, and that it is being violated on a daily basis.
We ask: when will Congress put an end to the “experiment” and save what’s left of the Voice of America?
Isn’t time for an audit of monies spent on new technologies these past 10 years, and an honest accounting of what they paid for and what they achieved, if anything?
Today, anyone going on Yahoo news or Google news – not to mention the BBC or RFI – can access news that are better presented and more up to date than anything the VOA can place on its web site. For the simple reason that the Agency has sought to pursue too many new technologies on a radio budget. In the end, as we predicted, the VOA has lost a large chunk of what used to be one of the largest radio audiences in the world, and has traded it for a web audience that can only diminish, since content cannot be sustained.