FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, May 06, 2010, San Francisco — Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott reported the launch of a new Voice of America digital freedom web page. Dr. Elliott is an employee the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which manages VOA. He edits his own international media news website, Kim Andrew Elliott on International Broadcasting, which he claims is…
An unknown hacker has posted a pornographic video on the VOA LiveJournal blog. The image seen on the VOA site showed a naked woman in a sexually suggestive pose. The post was titled “sexy.” The image was not removed from the site for at least several hours. It was seen and saved by Free Media Online at 4:16 PM PT.…
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, May 02, 2010, San Francisco — Armenian genocide and Holocaust denials in radio and TV reports generated by private contractors working for the Broadcasting Board of Governors are linked to mismanagement and flawed programming policy at this US taxpayer-funded Federal agency, says FreeMediaOnline, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization which works to promote independent journalism…
“The BBG is the most worthless organization in the federal government,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, told The Cable in an interview. “It’s full of people who know nothing about media or foreign policy. All they are doing is spending money and somebody’s got to look into it.” Read more in The Cable, Foreign Policy magazine blog.
A member of the Czech Senate has written a strongly-worded letter to key U.S. senators complaining of discriminatory personnel policies aimed against foreign journalists employed by the U.S. Government-funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). U.S. taxpayer-funded RFE/RL has its headquarters in the Czech Republic and broadcasts radio programs to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and some of the former Soviet…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, December 22, 2009, San Francisco — The BBG has long been considered one of the worst managed Federal agencies. The current Bush-era members of the bipartisan Board in charge of U.S. international broadcasting are expected to be replaced soon by President Obama’s nominees who now await confirmation by the U.S. Senate. (You would not know…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, November 18, 2009, San Francisco — One of the worst managed U.S. federal agencies will have a new leadership. President Obama has announced his intention to nominate former CNN chairman and CEO Walter Isaacson, a Democrat, to chair the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG,
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, October 9, 2009, San Francisco — Media in the Czech Republic, which have been critical of President Obama’s handling of the recent missile shield decision, have also been reporting on apparent discrepancies between words and actions of the new US administration when it comes to the treatment of foreign employees by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, a federal agency which manages the Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, RFE/RL. The US taxpayer-funded radio station and the BBG, its parent agency, deny foreign journalists working at RFE/RL in the Czech Republic the same labor law protections available to the station’s American and, to some degree, also its Czech employees.
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, September 16, 2009, San Francisco — Censorship from Russia and China comes home to America in profit-oriented and staying-in-the-market-at-any-cost decisions by American businesses and sometimes even US government agencies, as FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit, has been documenting and reporting.
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, September 15, 2009, San Francisco — We have reported earlier that Radio Liberty’s Russian Service, Radio Svoboda, website had ignored for a number of days the news story of Conde Nast censorship of a critical article about Mr. Putin by Scott Anderson. The article was banned by Conde Nast executives in New York from the Russian edition of the GQ magazine in Russia and from GQ websites, including its American website.
After FreeMediaOnline.org published its report pointing out limited coverage by Russian websites of both Radio Liberty and the Voice of America, VOA, both broadcasting stations devoted a lot of attention to the GQ story, albeit several days after it had been first reported by NPR on September 4, and after independent bloggers in the US and in Russia had already translated