Airwaves Off-Limits to New Propaganda Tsar

Alvin Snyder, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Centre on Public Diplomacy, says international broadcasting channels are protected by a ‘firewall’ to keep them independent from government influence. Even informed Americans are kept in the dark about how our tax dollars are used to promote U.S. interests through international broadcasting. “Another reason Congress ought to lift the ban on domestic dissemination of U.S. broadcasts abroad — to better inform themselves,” Snyder told IPS.

NEW YORK — One of the most experienced broadcast experts in the United States believes that Karen Hughes — the high-profile confidante of Pres. George W. Bush nominated to help the State Department do a major makeover of U.S. public diplomacy — may not be able to lay a glove on one of its key programmes: international broadcasting.

Alvin Snyder, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Centre on Public Diplomacy, says international broadcasting channels — ”one of the basic tools in the U.S. public diplomacy arsenal” — are protected by a ”firewall” that makes them off-limits to people from the State Department, or anywhere else.

”The wall is policed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a government-funded but independent corporation governed by eight private-sector politically appointed members — four Republicans and four Democrats,” Snyder told IPS. ”The secretary of state is the ninth member of the BBG in case there’s a tie vote.”

”The purpose of the firewall is to keep broadcast channels independent from government influence,” Snyder says, ”and that government would certainly include the State Department.”

The BBG’s broadcast resources include the Voice of America, the Arabic-language TV Alhurra and Radio Sawa, the Iranian service’s Radio Farda, Radio…

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Born and raised in The Netherlands and living in Canada since 2000. Spent most of his professional career in the IT industry for corporations. Now self-employed. Loves music, graphics, science, politics and various other things that happen to pass in...