My new op-ed in The Hill includes comments on the latest barbaric attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israeli civilians—defenseless Jewish women, children, and the elderly. I discuss the hard-to-understand and explain defense of propaganda and disinformation from Iran and Russia by U.S. government-managed and funded U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) journalists, including federal employees working for the Voice of America (VOA). They went…
Biden can combat foreign propaganda by reforming Voice of America
OPINION My op-ed in The Washington Examiner was written in response to recent media reports suggesting that leaders who have been long in charge of both the Voice of America (VOA) and the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) are responsible for a management culture which allows major abuses of journalistic practices and the VOA Charter to occur, such as…
Putin is blackmailing US taxpayer-funded Radio Liberty | Washington Examiner
by Ted Lipien in The Washington Examiner May 03, 2021 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, where I served briefly as president and CEO until earlier this year, is under assault by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Through his agencies and obedient courts, he is blackmailing the media organization funded by U.S. taxpayers, issuing fines and threats of criminal prosecutions unless Radio Liberty agrees…
Op-Ed: Murder of Polish priest may offer clues in Boris Nemtsov’s case | Digital Journal, March 3, 2015 Republished
Photo of Vice U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Barbara Bush, and Polish Solidarity trade union leader Lech Wałęsa in Warsaw, Poland at the tomb of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko with the slain priest’s parents, Marianna and Władysław Popiełuszko and other family members, September 28, 1987. Photos and audio recordings from Warsaw by Ted Lipien, then Voice of America (VOA) Polish…
Op-Ed: From Russia with Censorship 2009 – Republished 2021
One of my commentaries on media censorship in Vladimir Putin’s Russia was first published in Digital Journal on September 16, 2009 as “Op-Ed: From Russia with Censorship.” Since then, both the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Liberty (known in Russia as Radio Svoboda) have improved their Russian coverage, but Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is now facing a defining…
Neglect of Media Freedom Contributed to 2006 Murder of a Russian Journalist
Russian President Vladimir Putin is again increasing pressure on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where I served briefly as president in December 2020-January 2021. I had worked also indirectly for RFE/RL from 1993 to 2003 in Munich Germany and at their current headquarters in Prague as International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB)-Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) regional Eurasia marketing director. Toward the…
Cold War Radio Museum The recent death of Russian human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva brings into focus not only her contributions to improving the lives of millions of people but also the historic role played by the American-supported Radio Liberty (RL), which together with its sister station, Radio Free Europe, contributed to breaking up the monopoly of communist…
Cold War Radio Museum Declassified documents in the National Archives show that a directive issued to on April 17, 1943 by the management of the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) ordered its Overseas Branch in charge of what were later called Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to air and promote the Soviet propaganda denial of Soviet responsibility for…
Cold War Radio Museum The Crusade for Freedom was the name of an advertising campaign designed to get Americans to contribute money to Radio Free Europe which broadcast radio programs in various languages to the captive nations behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. The ad seen here is from 1966 and appeared in an American magazine. This particular…
OPINION Cold War Radio Museum How Voice of America Censored Solzhenitsyn The Obama “Reset” with Russia By Ted Lipien Hillary Clinton seemed to have had some understanding of how Russian propaganda works when she made her critical comments about the Broadcasting Board of Governors in 2013 to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, calling the U.S.…