FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, April 1, 2011– The Washington Times has published an op-ed by Free Media Online president Ted Lipien urging Congress to stop the Broadcasting Board of Governors from silencing the Voice of America radio to China. A Chinese free labor union leader like Poland’s Lech Walesa could be declared expendable by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which…
TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, March 1, 2011 — In this series of analyses for Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org) — U.S. International Broadcasting in Crisis— Ted Lipien, former Voice of America acting associate director, examines recent Broadcasting Board of Governors’ decisions, with a focus on the latest controversial plan to completely eliminate Voice of America on-the-air radio broadcasts to China.
FreeMediaOnline.org Part Two — Special Report: Sound of Hope Plans to Increase Shortwave Radio to China while Voice of America Retreats — Read Part One: No Apology for Failure
While officials of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) tell members of Congress that shortwave radio in China is dead and announce plans to terminate all Voice of America shortwave broadcasts to China in Cantonese and Mandarin, California-based Sound of Hope Radio (SOH) has announced plans to expand its shortwave programs targeting Mainland China, The Epoch Times newspaper reported. Sound of Hope Bucks the Trend and Expands Broadcasts to China | Read The Epoch Times article in Chinese.
TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, February 28, 2011 — In this series of analyses for Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org) — U.S. International Broadcasting in Crisis — Ted Lipien, former Voice of America acting associate director, examines recent Broadcasting Board of Governors’ decisions, with the focus on the latest controversial plan to completely eliminate Voice of America on-the-air radio broadcasts to China.
FreeMediaOnline.org Part One — No Apology for Failure
Like everyone else in the free media advocacy community, I was appalled by the Iranian Cyber Army’s attack last week on VOA websites. The staging of the attack did not come as a surprise. The Iranian Islamists, security services of China and Russia, and other enemies of free media around the world are engaging in cyber attacks and harass independent media all the time. The appalling thing about the Monday attack was not that it was launched but that it was allowed to succeed and lasted several hours.
Instead of the VOA website, site visitors saw an Iranian flag, a gun, and an anti-American message, as captured in the image above. Even more appalling was the cavalier attitude with which officials of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a U.S. federal agency which manages the Voice of America, responded to the attack. It was a typical cover-my-behind reaction and an attempt to minimize its significance and impact around the world. Just imagine if CNN, ABC, or Fox News went completely silent for several hours or even days. If BBG officials have their way, this is what will happen in China to the Voice of America. It had already happened to VOA in Russia for at least two days in 2009. There was no apology from the BBG to the American people on whose behalf the Voice of America distributes news and communicates with the rest of the world.
En ce moment, il n’y a plus de pilote dans l’avion. [At the moment, there is no longer a pilot on the plane.] — A European comment on President Obama as a leader of the Free World.
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, January 03, 2011 — Who is the leader of the Free World when democracy is under threat?
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, December 27, 2010 — On the day the U.S. Senate voted to approve the new arms reduction treaty with Russia, I found an article on the State Depatment’s website, America.gov, which gave a long list of the START treaty’s benefits lauded by the Obama administration but failed to note any of the objections from some key Republican lawmakers and other critics. I posted a short comment that a website devoted to public diplomacy, with a name that implies that it represents the views of the entire American government and the American public, should try to present a more balanced perspective and mention some of the difficulties in getting the U.S.-Russian agreement approved by the Senate.
FreeMediaOnline.org Truckee, CA, USA, December 19, 2010 — In their eagerness to promote the Obama Administration policies to overseas audiences, the Voice of America (VOA) English Service reporters and editors have been toeing the White House line on the proposed START arms reductions treaty with Russia and failing to report in a balanced way on the substantial Republican opposition to the treaty, as they are required to do by U.S. law which governs their journalistic work.
The radio interview, recorded and first broadcast by the Voice of America (VOA) in 1976, was rebroadcast by VOA’s Polish Service on October 16, 1978, after the news of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła’s election as the new pope had been announced at the Vatican. Today is the 32 anniversary of the election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II.
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A funeral Mass for Zofia Korbonska, a heroine of the Polish underground resistance against Nazi occupation, participant in the Warsaw Rising of 1944, political activist against Communist rule after World War II, and former Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service broadcaster, was held at the Our Lady Queen of Poland Catholic Church in Silver Spring, MD on Friday, September 10, 2010. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, spoke in Polish about Zofia Korbonska’s deep patriotism, extreme sacrifice, and political wisdom in her long struggle alongside her husband Stefan Korbonski to restore freedom and independence to their beloved Poland. View the text of Dr. Brzezinski’s speech in Polish
Radio Coder Provided Information from German-Occupied Poland
During World War II, the British government made available to the various governments-in-exile from countries occupied by Nazi Germany, voice radio transmission facilities to broadcast to those countries, under the pretense that the transmissions originated in the
occupied countries. To pull this off, the radio stations needed daily news feeds from observers on the ground. From Poland, the news was provided by Zofia Korbonski, wife of Stefan, who was the Polish Government-in-Exile’s delegate and director of the Directorate of Civil Resistance, which coordinated non-military resistance efforts by the
Polish populace against the German occupying forces.
The following announcement from the Stefan Korbonski Foundation includes information about the funeral arrangements for Zofia Korbonska, a World War II Polish Underground Armia Krajowa (AK) writer and coder of radio messages sent from Nazi-occupied Poland to the Polish Government-in-Exile in London and a former longtime editor at the Polish Service of the Voice of America in New York and Washington, DC. She passed away on August 16 in her home in Washington at the age of 95.