Old Waves Across Borders Fade – New Waves Rise

Michael Hedges November 18, 2009 Follow on Twitter

International broadcasting reached a pinnacle during the post-Second World War years. The Cold War gave birth to a competitive sphere where government funded radio broadcasters kept news listeners fixed to their radios. By the mid 1980’s the dial was filled. A decade later, everything had changed.

Radio Berlin International (RBI), the international voice of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), signed off October 2, 1990. It’s transmitters, studios and people were, mostly, transferred to Deutsche Welle, the international broadcasting service of the federal Republic of Germany (FDR). RBI had operated slightly more than 40 years. The final words, reportedly, were “Take care and good luck.”

From the moment the Iron Curtain began to crumble government sponsored international broadcasting was never the same. “In the last two years, the global system of international radio broadcasting--which developed fully during the Cold War largely as a government propaganda medium--has been thrust into turmoil by the move toward democratization,” wrote Tom Rosenstiel in the Los Angeles Times (September 25, 1990). Rosenstiel was then a staff writer for the LA Times. Now he’s Director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Rosenstiel noted in 1990 that many international broadcasters were “cutting back on foreign-language services that have small audiences or a diminishing need. Many are taking transmitters once aimed East and West and turning them toward the Middle East.” The short-wave era was drawing to a close as the international broadcasters – the IB’s – looked to local FM re-broadcasters and television. The internet was barely out of the box.

US government funded international broadcasters Voice of America and Radio Free Europe faced questions in 1990 about everything from cost to mission. As broadcasting in Eastern European developed beyond government propaganda, it was argued, what purpose is served by US funded international broadcasting? Eventually, governance of both VOA and RFE (combined with Radio Liberty, which targeted the Soviet Union) was transferred to an independent agency – the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). RFE/RL was invited to move out of its Munich, Germany headquarters, setting up in Prague.

RFE has a storied history in Eastern Europe. Operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through the post-World War Two years until the mid-1970’s it fell under the perview of the US Information Agency (USIA) until brought into the BBG. Its mission is to be a “surrogate” broadcaster for less than democratic lands.

“As 1989 approached and the communist systems decayed,” writes Ross Johnson, RFE’s director between 1989 and 1991 (See end note).  “RFE was increasingly able to report directly from the region. As   RFE Polish  Service head Marek Latynski said  in early 1988,  ‘There is no curtain of silence anymore. Nobody is afraid to talk to us.’”

“In the spring of 1989 - well before the Wall fell – RFE’s   Polish Service provided  comprehensive coverage of the Polish ‘roundtable’ between representatives of the regime and  those of the Solidarity movement. Later, the service provided a media platform for non-Communist Party candidates in the June parliamentary elections – candidates who had been blacklisted by the  state media – and by doing so contributed to making those elections freer and fairer. With the  formation of Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s Solidarity government in September, RFE was able to post  correspondents in Poland, to establish a bureau there, to provide continuous coverage of the  emerging Polish democracy both for the Poles and for the entire region, and to serve as a model for professional, non-partisan public broadcasting.

“Two weeks after the Wall fell, RFE’s Czechoslovak Service was providing unique  coverage of the Velvet Revolution. RFE had reported on the growing demoralization within the Communist Party and on growing social unrest earlier in the year. It reported on police brutality in suppressing a peaceful demonstration on November 17, violence that outraged the nation and led to the ensuing mass demonstrations on Wenceslas Square. The communist authorities had granted a visa to Czechoslovak Service head Pavel Pechacek to cover  two  nonpolitical events in Prague. He arrived on November 21 and, with domestic media still controlled, he provided the only uncensored coverage of the crucial first three days of the Velvet Revolution demonstrations. If not for his reports, the nation might never have realized the scope of the movement and its momentum might have dissipated.”

Well before the Soviet Union spun apart it was apparent that international broadcasting – government sponsored or otherwise – would, in some sense, migrate to television. BBC World Television – the visual service derived from BBC World Service – arrived in 1992. Satellite delivered TV signals were more compelling for many audiences than shortwave radio.

The revolution in global television news came in the midst of the geo-political turmoil of the times. Ted Turner took CNN global. While the satellite bourn channel was out of reach to millions, world leaders took it seriously. By the time the Berlin Wall fell, CNN was broadcasting live from Moscow. When Mikhail Gorbachev finally wound down the Soviet Union, CNN was there with 17 reporters, unprecedented coverage for an international event outside of sports.

Government funded international broadcasters had not only a new competitor for opinion leaders but a style of broadcasting that bridged the American flair for television and broad popular interest in a rapidly changing world. The changes in international media that took place during those decisive years seem, today, almost prosaic. McLuhan’s “Global Village” arrived. The whole world was watching.

A. Ross Johnson is currently a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. His comments on  RFE/RL are used with permission and available in full on the RFE/RL website. Read here

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