Fomenting Public Diplomacy

Michael Hedges May 2, 2005

RFE/RL has a new logo, dumping that old bell for a new flame, RFI and DW partner-up and the BBC World Service wants to send more emails. Go To Follow Up & Comments

Government funded international broadcasters continue scrambling for leverage in a media world that moves quickly and owes no allegiance. Capitalizing on its reach and brand strength, BBC World Service will re-launch its E-Network service this week (May 4) as a major digital marketing campaign. Subscribers to the service can receive personalized email directing them to BBC content. Simply broadcasting is no longer good enough. Content consumers must be led to the well and content producers like the BBC see email as the logical means to direct consumers’ short attention span.

“In today’s fast-changing media environment, people are bombarded with choice,” said Alan Booth, BBC World Service controller for marketing communications, in the press release.  “While there is a strong BBC brand loyalty among our international audiences, we feel it’s important to keep them up to date and focused on the programs we know they will enjoy.” 

International broadcasters have moved to multi-platform distribution. Most have web sites and several use email and RSS feeds to alert people to headlines. But traditional broadcast distribution remains the preferred methods of reaching target audiences. Radio France International (RFI) and Deutsche Welle (DW) announced (April 26) a broadening of their co-operation on distribution to the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. DW will get access to the medium wave and FM frequencies of RFI-operated Radio Monte Carlo - Moyen Orient (RMC-MO) for Arabic language programs. French and Russian language RFI programs will be heard on DW frequencies in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities. RFI and DW have jointly operated radio channels in the Balkans since 2003.

Nothing about cooperative ventures among international broadcasters is particularly startling. The big three – RFI, DW and the BBC World Service – have jointly operated re-broadcasting stations for several years as the rise of FM and decline of short-wave caused rethinking about how best to reach into targeted areas. Broadcasters with lesser resources - Radio Netherlands and Swiss Radio International, for example – tend to limit their activities, in the case of the former, or, with the later, simply shut down.

But the joint RFI and DW announcement pointed to more than just cooperation on distribution. This is the first step, said the press release, in constructing an international European channel for “expressing the opinion of European society to the world.” For this, the BBC was not invited. A number of European international broadcasters share or jointly produce programs in the Radio E project, facilitated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Creating an international European channel – led by French and German public broadcasters – fits with other recent rumblings for counter-weights to Anglo-American media, from CNN to Google.

It’s somewhat surprising that RFI would offer DW space on RMC-MO, one of the most well known and well-received channels directed to North Africa and the Middle East. It violates a leading marketing tenet: when you have good shelf-space, resist the temptation to give away even a small part. But government funded international broadcasters are typically run by politicians, engineers and journalists and not marketing people.

That is not the case with US international broadcasting, which fully engages marketing strategies in the pursuit of their public diplomacy, to the chagrin of international broadcasting traditionalists. While the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) – the agency charged with overseeing US international broadcasting – is firmly in the hands of administration-friendly political operatives, strategies are right off Madison Avenue. In the Middle East especially, US radio and television projects are slowly making an impact, largely by breaking the traditional rules of international broadcasting. 

Other US government funded international broadcasting remains mired in the past, in particular RFE/RL, which seems continually in the Cold War’s clutch. Let there be no question of RFE/RL’s journalistic integrity or objectivity. It seldom receives the broad credit it deserves as a news source within the former Soviet orbit, though it probably takes more credit than deserved for regime changes. Critics of RFE/RL charge that its editorial position is highly influenced by the “émigré politics” of its journalists.

So it was a new logo that RFE/RL announced (April 21). The old bell is gone – the real one is actually somewhere in Germany – replaced with a flame, meant to represent the flame of freedom, the current marketing message designed to evoke more passion for the democratic destination. Fighting Communists has been replaced, for the most part, by fighting the war on terror.

The Voice of America (VOA) – the other US funded international broadcaster – and RFE/RL seem at times to be in a turf war. As pointed out by Kim Andrew Elliott, RFE/RL scored an exclusive interview with ousted Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev April 1st, though Akayev earlier closed down RFE/RL’s frequency in the capital, Bishkik. Four days later VOA scored an exclusive interview with acting presidentKurmanbek Bakiyev for its’ Russian service. VOA has no Kyrgyz service, but RFE/RL does, just not in the country’s capital.

Funding battles in the American Congress over the VOA, RFE/RL and the other public diplomacy efforts using international broadcasting have become routine. Suggestions have been made to dismantle entirely VOA since private sector media sources like CNN cover the globe. VOA Director David Jackson floated a money saving plan in April to outsource VOA newsroom jobs to China to “cover the over-night shift,” enraging unions, staff and VOA supporters. VOA employees are US federal government employees, thus entitled to salaries and benefits like all federal employees. RFE/RL employees are not.

Writing in the May/June 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs, former VOA Director Sanford Unger referred to the broadcaster as an “astonishing bargain.” Unger, like most past VOA directors, came to VOA from journalism. David Jackson joined VOA in 2002 from the Defense Department, as editor-on-chief of DefendAmerica.gov, a web-based news service focused on the war on terrorism. Jackson previously worked for Time as a correspondent and bureau chief.

CNN’s international audience enjoys a wide following, though not necessarily welcomed into the club of international broadcasters. And CNN – owned by Time Warner – doesn’t always play nice and present a politically friendly face. If the highly unlikely were to happen, and VOA would be replaced with a private sector broadcast service, Fox News would be the more politically friendly choice, with no possibility of those beat stopping encounters between journalists and politicians.

Which is exactly what happened when CNN’s Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty stopped short State Secretary Condoleezza Rice in an interview about Belarus, thought to be the next target for regime change.

After Secretary Rice answered a question by saying that groups interested in changing the current regime in Belarus should be encouraged to “go back and do something,” Dougherty followed up by asking if that couldn’t be “interpreted by some as fomenting revolution.”

Secretary Rice was, momentarily, stopped.

Governments that fund international broadcasting efforts like to see results, often short-term. That means more than simply getting their message delivered. But as the media shelf-space becomes more crowded, many prefer bright packaging and loudness as the solution.

Quoted in Sanford Unger’s Foreign Affairs article, Edward R. Murrow, who directed the United States Information Agency, which oversaw VOA, wrote: “To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be truthful.”

Jill Dougherty moves to Hong Kong from Moscow this month, as CNN’s Managing Editor Asia Pacific.

ftm Follow Up & Comments

Prominent Neoconservative Wins RFE/RL Post - February 4, 2007

The political skirmish – not quite a battle – for the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) presidency ended as neoconservative scholar Jeffery Gedmin was named by the Board of Directors. (see RFE/RL statement)

Dr. Gedmin replaces Jeffrey Trimble who served as acting president since the resignation of Thomas Dine in 2005. Previously Trimble had served as Dine’s Deputy. A political impasse prevented Trimble (a Democrat) from mustering sufficient political support in the waning years of the current Republican administration. The RFE/RL board of directors is composed of members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), led by Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson.

Since 2001 Dr. Gedmin has resided with the Aspen Institute Berlin as Director. Previously he headed the New Atlantic Initiative of the American Enterprise Institute. He has written extensively about the political relationships between the United States and Europe. References to broadcasting experience could not readily be found.

In 2005 Dr. Gedmin’s nomination as American United Nations Ambassador John Bolton’s chief deputy was widely expected. It never happened. Both BBG Chairman Tomlinson and Ambassador Bolton have withdrawn their own re-nominations under scrutiny from the milder American political center.

Without doubt RFE/RL requires leadership with strong political backing. Jeff Trimble lacked that and became a temporary. Jeff Gedmin’s scholarship in European affairs is certainly a bonus for RFE/RL. But with political winds blowing neoconservatives back to the desert, he, too, may be temporary.

RFE/RL insiders – broadcasters and journalists every one – will measure Jeff Gedmin against the eight year presidency of Tom Dine, whose presence in Prague and the field was as much appreciated as the political dealings in Washington DC.

RFE/RL Relocation in Progress - June 17, 2005

Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek told local press that RFE/RL has “already chosen a place where the radio should move, but it is up to them to disclose it.” The international broadcaster has been operating from the former Federal Assembly building in central Prague since 1995 after relocating from Munich, Germany. The Czech government, according to several reports, has encouraged RFE/RL to relocate from the city center since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City.

Prague newspaper Lidove Noviny suggested the location will be near the new Zelivshenk Metro station in the Hagibor neighborhood. The official Prague City website translated and reprinted a CTK news agency article based on the Lidove Noviny report.

RFE/RL asked the US Congress to appropriate funds necessary for relocation, approximately $13 million. As many as three location in or near Prague have been suggested as well as potential sites near Riga, Latvia and Budapest, Hungary. RFE/RL pays only token rents for the huge building but has spent $50 million in renovation and technical needs.