Would Navalny visit Voice of America? Follow up to Washington Times op-ed

Ted Lipien, former VOA acting associate director who now serves on the board of directors of the nongovernmental Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB), has shared with us an email he sent to Lynne Weil, new Director of Communications and External Affairs of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

Ted Lipien’s email is in response to Ms. Weil’s comment (attached at the end of this post) to Lipien’s op-ed in The Washington Times. Mr. Lipien told us that he sent copies of his email to all BBG members, except Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, the Acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose email address he did not have, to VOA Director David Ensor and IBB Director Richard Lobo.

Dear Lynne,

I saw your letter to The Washington Times on John Brown’s [public diplomacy] blog. I will post the attached response. It is lengthy because I quote extensively from the BBG evaluation of the VOA Russian website.

I don’t mind criticism, I engage in it myself, but I must say that the various accusations against my journalism, especially in the “VOA Public Relations” comment, are extremely lame, less in your response, although you do accuse me of crimes I never committed. I never said that the BBG completely ignored the VOA anniversary, it’s just that their new website is a mess and they had nothing on it on the home page on Feb. 1.

I was very reluctant at first to write the op-ed for the WT because it hurts entire VOA, but decided that it was the only way to get BBG members to do something to reform the Russian Service, to reevaluate BBG’s commercially-minded approach to program placement and staffing,…[stop] ignoring Voice of America’s special role in supporting human rights, public diplomacy and representing America, which is the only thing U.S. taxpayers may be willing to pay for. I don’t believe you can mix VOA with surrogate broadcasters or surrogate broadcasters with VOA. I also strongly support surrogate broadcasters where they are really needed. They need to be truly independent.

If you read the “VOA Public Relations” response on the WT site, the VOA, IBB, and BBG management team is still in complete denial. I hope David Ensor isn’t. I thought that his response, although lacking specifics, was quite good. At least he did not engage in character assassination.

I know that you had to respond. I wish your response was more objective. But I’m willing to live with it. The “VOA Public Relations” response was something else.

Contrary to what you may have heard I have no axes to grind with anyone at the BBG. I left the organization on very good terms at the top of my career. I do, however, object very strongly to those who want to eliminate VOA broadcasting, deny its special role, privatize it, staff it with contract employees and exploit them shamelessly. Claims that you can’t have a great website and radio and satellite TV at the same time are silly. New media is practically free. I know it because I run a new media nonprofit.

I’m always willing to listen and offer advise. It’s free. I do believe that if the BBG and VOA will not take the side of the pro-democratic opposition in Russia and in other countries, if you forget about those whose human rights are being violated and use only a commercial approach to maximize your audience, you will fail both in the U.S. and abroad. I think the China plan fiasco was a perfect example of a decision that was not politically smart.

Contrary to what “VOA Public Relations” said, you have an enormous problem with the VOA Russian team and its website and with your credibility in Russia, not so much because of the Navalny incident, but because of the “pro-Putin bias” produced by the staffing policy of BBG executives and program advisors. Navalny, like Lech Walesa and Waclav Havel, may be some day President of his country. Do you think, he will want to talk to VOA or talk about VOA if he reads “VOA Public Relations” response, much less to visit VOA as Havel did as President. I don’t think so. These top IBB guys who wrote this have no idea what harm they are doing.

Best,

Ted

Response to Lynne Weil’s Letter to The Washington Times and “VOA Public Relations” comment on Ted Lipien’s op-ed: LIPIEN: VOA harms Putin opposition in Russia
Faked interviews, lax Web security are signs a shakeup is needed

I’m not particularly concerned about being accused of being a bad journalist by top members of the Voice of America (VOA), International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), and Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) management team whose policies led to the posting of a fake interview with a major Russian opposition figure on the VOA Russian website. During a long career at VOA, I interviewed Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (future Pope John Paul II), Solidarity leader Lech Walesa (future President of Poland), George H.W. Bush, as well as many other Polish. underground Solidarity leaders who later became cabinet ministers in independent Poland. None of these interviews turned out to be fake. It seems that when the VOA, IBB and BBG management team needs to explain a fake interview, the best way to respond is to accuse someone else of bad journalism. They want to make this an issue about me, when it is about them, Mr. Alexei Navalny, and independent journalists in Russia who see the VOA Russian website as having a “pro-Putin bias.”

I am also not particularly surprised by this personal attack by the top members of the VOA, IBB and BBG management team who have been rated year after year in official U.S. government “Employee Opinion Surveys” as having the worst leadership and management knowledge score in the entire federal government. I did not expect any better from this group of executives.

The VOA, IBB and BBG management team seemed to have missed an important point. I did not say that “the Voice of America has gone nuts” and “someone should call Washington and tell them to let all these guys go.” A brave Russian human rights activist, Alexei Navalny, said that. It does not sound to me like an overwhelming endorsement of the VOA, IBB and BBG management team from someone who is an important consumer of what they offer to the Russian audience.

I don’t think Mr. Navalny believes that the VOA , IBB and BBG management team has put in place a vibrant VOA Russian website that provides fair and balanced information. He would not be calling for firing its authors if he did. But I don’t think that the blame is with the VOA Russian website team. Almost all if not all the blame and responsibility for this fiasco falls on the top members of the VOA, IBB and BBG management team.

I have nothing against “new arrivals.” I was a “new arrival” myself once. They bring very important knowledge to VOA and journalistic institutions like VOA will always need new blood and people with new skills. But while I was a “new arrival,” I was closely supervised by seasoned editors. No one put me at that time in charge of interviews with important underground opposition leaders in Poland. That came later. Even if we made a mistake, we would never think of accusing Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel of lying, as some staffers responsible for the fake interview did with regard to Mr. Navalny, their accusations repeated in private by top managers. Again, top members of the VOA , IBB and BBG management team have failed to institute proper staffing and editorial controls and procedures to guard against fake interviews and “pro-Putin” bias. They have set up these “new arrivals” for failure.

The top members of the VOA, IBB and BBG management team have also failed in an even more fundamental way. They refused to listen to experienced VOA Russian Service journalists. Instead, they told them what they want them to do, and when they resisted, they retired them and pushed them out. I have managed one of the most successful VOA language service and brought it from very low ratings to some of the highest, even surpassing at one point Radio Free Europe’s. We did it as a journalistic/management team. I don’t think this can be said about the top members of the current VOA, IBB and BBG management team. If they were not retired or pushed out, some of the experienced VOA Russian journalists left being disgusted by the “pro-Kremlin” bias. The same VOA, IBB and BBG management team members wanted to get rid of 45 experienced VOA China Branch journalists. Thanks to full bipartisan opposition in relevant Congressional committees, both in the House and the Senate, they did not succeed, or we might be now also taking about fake interviews with Chinese dissidents.

The members of the VOA, IBB and BBG management team told the Russian Service in a program review not to use such terms as “Russian occupation” (in reference to the military attack on Georgia) because the Russians don’t like such words. “Just be quiet” was their advice. These executives are responsible for the programming and commercial marketing philosophy that promotes bland reporting that not likely to offend large segments of potential audience, like Putin supporters in Russia.

The top members of the VOA, IBB and BBG and management team seem to imply that I misinterpreted the evaluation done for the BBG by an independent Russian journalist , that they have done rigorous evaluations themselves and that everything is just great. Perhaps it is great for Kremlin supporters. The members of the VOA, IBB and BBG management team should know by now that the most popular Russian opposition blogger, Alexei Navalny, does not share their view. He said that someone in Washington needs to get rid of all of these guys. Why would he say that? And if Navalny, a key opposition leader in Russia, thinks there is something fundamentally wrong with the VOA Russian website, do you think other members of the pro-democracy movement and independent journalists think otherwise?

Since the top members of the VOA, IBB and BBG management team seem to dismiss this BBG-ordered study and claim that I cited it inaccurately, I will offer some additional information about the author and some quotes. The full evaluation can be found on the BBGWatch.com website.

The study dismissed by the top members of the VOA and IBB management team was done by an editor of an independent online media outlet in Russia in opposition to Putin. The evaluator is the author of more than a 100 scholarly and journalistic articles focusing mostly on public policy issues in today’s Russia, including defending freedom of the press, exposing persecution of the regime’s opponents and other human rights violations, and combating racism and other forms of bigotry. He was a visiting scholar in the United States. Here is what he found:

“There are numerous if minor errors in spelling and punctuation, which cannot possibly be listed.”

“it would seem fair that in news coverage and comment on such issues as YUKOS affair or human rights violations in the North Caucasus some kind of special consideration be given to alternative facts and viewpoints.” [rather than only the Kremlin's viewpoint]

“Now, my impression is that VOA has been too careful in avoiding anything that might look like ‘anti-Russian’ bias.”

“Vice President’s speech in Moscow University , in which he criticized Russia ‘s leadership on democracy and human rights, was clearly downplayed. The report on this event was titled ‘Joe Biden to Moscow Students: Future is Yours’; a headline as cheerful as meaningless, reminding of Soviet newspapers. What is worse, the report failed to mention that Biden spoke about the Khodorkovsky case as an example of Russia ‘s ‘legal nihilism’ – an important fact noted both in Russia and abroad. One might suspect that the omission was deliberate. If so, that could be regarded as a case of ‘pro-Russian’ (or, rather, pro-Putin) bias.”

“Perhaps additional background info, such as Russia’ place in Freedom House international rankings, would have been relevant, too.”

“Overall Impression of Journalistic Quality: Is the journalistic quality of the website at a high professional and informational level?
My answer is ‘sorry but no’. The site provides information of satisfactory quality, but it is mostly derived from other sources. Even the report about American Vice President’s meeting with Russian opposition figures was based on Ekho Moskvy and Gazeta.Ru information (VOA’s own interview with Leonid Gozman was added later.) The selection of topics and timeliness leave much to be desired (see below.) The language, if mostly grammatical, tends to be bland and colorless, which reduces the appeal very much. This applies especially to headlines: new Russian journalism has developed a special culture of catchy and witty headlines, and an advanced user expects to find them. Many photos lack expression and appeal.”

“Much of the content doesn’t seem of interest to the Russian Internet audience.”

“Many ‘political’ pieces are less than inspiring, too. A brief account of the presentation of a new book on Cold War lacks substance.”

“Such examples could be easily multiplied. On the positive side, I would like to mention an excellent article on government corruption in the North Caucasus.”

“Regrettably, some interesting topics were underreported.”

“A brief news item based entirely on Russian sources; an American perspective one could have expected from VOA was lacking completely. The same can be said of the scandal involving Vladimir Putin, Western stars and charity money: VOA’s website failed to provide any information or comment from the American side, missing a good opportunity to raise its profile.”

“As for the ‘market niche’ mentioned in the question, I’m afraid it can hardly be located at the moment.”

“Timeliness … is probably one of the website’s weakest points. As far as I could monitor, all big ongoing stories (Biden’s visit, Japan ‘s disaster) were reported with long delays compared to Russian online media. The piece on Biden’s planned meeting with human rights activists on March 10 was among top news a few hours after the meeting actually took place.”

“On March 12, information on the explosion at a nuclear power plant in Japan , which was distributed in the morning Moscow time, did not appear on the site till evening.”

“On the homepage one can see many headlines of news stories dating from a day or even two days before.”

Usefulness: Does the content provided on this site increase understanding of topics or events, and does it provide a basis for forming opinions, making decisions and rendering judgments?

”My general answer to this one would rather be negative. The site provides quite an amount of diverse information, but not all of it seems relevant to the interests of the audience. A clearer focus on specific issues linked to VOA’s mission is needed. Independent forming of opinions by users could also be encouraged by more perceptive comments by high-level contributors – this is where VOA’s competitive position is rather weak. There are few if any bright columns by good authors; the Poedinok (Single Combat) section is entirely about international politics, doesn’t seem appealing to users and is updated at a slow rate. The Editorial section appears somewhat more useful; I wish it carried more on human rights and democracy in Russia.”

“In my view, the site doesn’t look attractive or contemporary.”

Does this site fill a clear niche that positively distinguishes it from others in the target area? Please explain.

”Based on what I said before, my answer to this question is definitely negative. The site provides little if any unique information or bright and perceptive comment, it appears rather mediocre in terms of journalistic quality or design, and it lacks focus on the topics where it potentially could excel. Reaching somewhat beyond the scope of this evaluation, I talked to several people I know in Moscow ; some of them are professionally involved with online media, others are not, but all are avid Internet users. The result of this informal poll was about as I had anticipated: nearly half of the respondents never heard of the VOA website, others just knew about its existence, and only a couple of media professionals had a more or less clear idea about it. I don’t recall VOA being quoted or referred to in the Russian segment of the Internet including social networks or in offline media. On March 18, I found VOA ranking 219th in the Rambler.ru list of online news sources while, for example, Radio Liberty (not exactly the most popular website) ranked 43d.”

If the top members of the VOA , IBB and BBG management team still insist that the independent Russian journalist and I are both way off the mark and the VOA Russian website is not only great but innovative, informative and offers a great value to American taxpayers and the pro-democratic opposition in Russia then there is not much more I can say except to again quote a leading Russian opposition leader and blogger Alexei Navalny: “Voice of America has gone nuts,” and if you read the evaluation and know how the VOA and IBB management team treats “recent arrivals” and contractors, it’s even worse than that.

If the VOA , IBB and BBG management team wants to know why the fake interview happened, why the VOA Russian website is so bad and why it has a “pro-Putin bias,” here are a few more reasons.

The VOA , IBB and BBG management team:

Denies contractors pay raises,
Fails to pay contractors on time, often for many months,
Denies contractors flu shots (until recently),
Denies contractors sick leave, annual leave, and retirement,
Denies contractors protections against unfair treatment and unfair termination,
Employs full time contractors sometimes for decades and exploits them in all the ways listed above.

Contractors are not even included in the “Employee Opinion Surveys” that rate the VOA and IBB management team as being the worst in the federal government. If they were, we can only imagine where that rating would go.

I won’t even bother to address at any length the top members of the VOA , IBB and BBG management team’s claims on the issue of ending VOA radio and TV programs to Russia in 2008 (just 12 days before Russia attacked Georgia) despite strong protests from the VOA Russian Service journalists. But since I was responsible for signing up most of the Russian affiliates, I will just say the following:

It’s true that Putin’s secret police forced most affiliates to drop VOA and Radio Liberty programs.

It’s also true that even when Russia’s military campaign against Georgia started, top members of the VOA and IBB management team refused to resume radio broadcasts to the war zone or anywhere else.

It’s also true that the AM frequency in Moscow was still available but the top members of the VOA, IBB and BBG management team refused to use it for VOA Russian programs until I and others put pressure on the BBG to force them to use it.

Putin was not interfering with satellite TV transmissions (like Iran does) and some affiliates were still carrying the VOA Russian satellite TV newscast, but the VOA and IBB management team killed it too. I hear that Director Ensor wants now to revive VOA satellite TV Russian newscasts. Good for him. VOA should have a multi-platform, multi-media presence in Russia. I am a big supporter of using new media and social media. A non-profit organization I run supports the use of new media to expose government mismanagement, corruption and attacks on media freedom.

I did not mean to imply that the Broadcasting Board of Governors completely ignored the 70th anniversary of VOA. They simply did not have anything about it on their home page on February 1. I also did not comment on other VOA language services and its English Service. They have some great successes despite really bad top management (I don’t include new VOA Director David Ensor). I am a great fan and supporter of the Voice of America. It bothers me greatly when I see BBG executives eliminating broadcasts to key countries, promoting bland journalism and bland websites, firing experienced journalists and defending a “pro-Putin”bias.

And one last point, the VOA , IBB and BBG team thinks that they are not responsible for preventing hacker attacks. Sure, you can’t prevent all of them. But, as someone else already pointed out, it was not just posting of pornographic photos on the VOA Russian blog. During President Obama’s official visit to Russia, all VOA websites were out for two full days. Can you imagine what would happen to the White House, State Department, Pentagon or even CNN top management teams if the White House, State Department, Pentagon and CNN websites were not functioning for two days?

I don’t know for sure, but I have a pretty good idea what Alexei Navalny would suggest.

I had a great career at the Voice of America and at the Broadcasting Board of Governors. I had the privilege of working with some great people. My last position was acting VOA associate director. I left on very good terms. Before that, I placed VOA and RFE/RL programs in Bosnia, Russia, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. I started VOA television news programs to Russia and Ukraine, the latter during the Orange Revolution. I think the VOA Director David Ensor has excellent qualifications as a foreign correspondent, but being new he has to rely to some degree on the current management team.

Of course, the top members of the VOA and IBB management team have assured The Washington Times readers that I am a bad journalist and that everything is fine with the VOA Russian website. “Pro-Putin bias,” fake interviews or not, it must be true.

Ted Lipien

###

Comments on Ted Lipien’s “VOA harms Putin opposition in Russia” [cited in February 9 PDPBR] by the Director of Communications and External Affairs, Broadcasting Board of Governors – John Brown’s Notes and Essays: “[B]elow is the letter sent to the Washington Times from the Broadcasting Board of Governors in response to an op-ed published on Wednesday. We hope that you will consider it for both publication and follow-up.

Lynne Weil

To the Editor: The op-ed you published on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (‘VOA harms Putin opposition in Russia,’) cynically attempts to exploit a real, but quickly addressed, journalistic error by the Voice of America’s Russian Service in order to deliver an inaccurate, exaggerated and distorted attack on the BBG. The Russian Service published an online interview with someone purported to be Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. It then reported Mr. Navalny’s message denying having done the interview, removed the interview, and issued a prompt apology. VOA is taking steps to better vet its sources in today’s changing, fast-paced digital media environment. Publication of the interview was regrettable, but hardly a reasonable basis for a broad challenge to the utility and effectiveness of U.S. international broadcasting and the BBG’s oversight of it. The commentary overlooks compelling data on our impact. In 2011 the BBG reached record audiences: 187 million people worldwide weekly, 22 million more than the year before. To continue to thrive within federal budgetary constraints, the agency has embarked on an ambitious, well-researched plan to make U.S. international broadcasting more effective and efficient. Our broadcasts are and will continue to be one of the best values for the dollar in U.S. foreign policy. The suggestion that the Board failed to recognize VOA’s 70th anniversary is false: The Board adopted and published a resolution noting the milestone at its January 13 meeting, and has been involved in plans for a major commemoration in the coming weeks. News of the resignation of BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson was immediately shared with the staff and then posted on the agency’s website. It is true that agency managers at VOA, IBB and BBG received bonuses, but the amounts were below government average. The Feb. 8 commentary contained similar misstatements concerning the BBG’s restructuring plan, the leadership of its management team, a desire to emulate National Public Radio, the reasoning behind changes in the way the BBG engages with people in Russia and China, and the significance of a review of VOA Russian news. We recommend that The Washington Times fact-check this commentary and consider issuing a correction. Sincerely, Lynne Weil Director of Communications and External Affairs Broadcasting Board of Governors”

Related posts:

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p1PTlq-3pS