LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (03/19/00)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

About the meaning of VOA budget cuts

Dear Editor:

I would like to take this opportunity to comment on your February 27 editorial concerning the budget cuts at the Voice of America.

It is my view what the proposed cuts are bogus. The United States defines its vital interests not only by what it does but what it says. These cuts can easily be interpreted as a rollback of U.S. interests in countries affected by the cuts. By reducing or eliminating these broadcasts, elements in any of the affected countries could arrive at the conclusion that the countries and people are not important to U.S. interests. In the past, this has emboldened some groups to take action not in the best interests of the specific country or region.

For example, in January 1950, at the National Press Club in Washington, then Secretary of State Dean Acheson made a speech in which South Korea was not specifically mentioned as being within the sphere of U.S. vital interests in the Pacific region. Six months later, North Korea attacked South Korea and a war began.

The agency says that it will maintain feed services to replace the direct broadcasts being taken off the air, particularly in the Polish, Hungarian and Czech languages. Feeds to so-called "affiliates," over which VOA has no control, are a joke. Anyone who does broadcasting for a living knows that once the feed leaves the VOA building, control of the broadcast ends. At these in-country affiliates programs can be edited for content, broadcast at odd hours of the day or night to fill off-hours airtime, or even not broadcast at all.

The politically appointed Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees VOA, has announced that it will conduct annual reviews to determine which language services should be added, enhanced, scaled back or eliminated. This year the BBG inflicted the heaviest cuts on language services broadcasting to Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia and Lithuania. This creates the perception that the United States has nothing to say to the people of these countries.

What the future holds for all VOA language services remains uncertain. For one, the Ukrainian Service has already been scaled back from five broadcast hours a day during the Cold War to only two hours today. In addition, the VOA recently closed the service's office in Kyiv, thereby eliminating VOA's physical presence in Ukraine.

It is troubling that a faceless group of bureaucrats and political appointees, removed from the practical and daily realities of the world-at-large, have such unrestricted power to make decisions which, in effect, keep many people abroad in the dark about what is going on in the United States and in the world around them.

The rationale currently in vogue within official circles of the agency is that the agency has to take a "multimedia" approach to its mission: i.e., radio, television and the Internet. That takes money. Lots of money. VOA doesn't have that kind of budget and won't have it for the foreseeable future. What this means, in my opinion, is that instead of making the effort to do one thing very well (radio), where there is the greatest opportunity to reach the maximum number of people, the agency will do three things very badly (radio, TV and the Internet). Agency and BBG officials also ignore or dismiss the issue of the vulnerability of television and the Internet. We live in a free society and take all of our media for granted. What agency officials don't consider, with regard to the average foreign media consumer, is the cost and/or availability of these media tools to the average citizen.

Another thing that seems to be off the management radar screen is that these other mediums can be blocked or cut off. In the recent coup in Pakistan, the first thing the military went after were communications facilities, including television stations, an easily identifiable communications target. In China, the government is periodically raising the issue of blocking outside Internet access. If the government controls telephone and server facilities, this is certainly a possibility.

Frankly, we really don't have any idea if there is even an audience for the television programs in the first place. Agency officialdom seems to believe that people are going to flock to a VOA television program just because it's VOA. I find that train of thought rather wanting in logic.

In short, for the VOA there is no substitute for direct radio broadcasts over shortwave and medium wave. It's not as "sexy" as television or as "in vogue" as the Internet. However, for international broadcasting and coverage over large amounts of territory, it's still the best and the most cost-effective.

Gary A. Marco
Washington

The writer is president of Local 1418 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

March 5 issue full of useful reports

Dear Editor:

I don't do this often, but I just had to say it: You are good!

Your March 5 issue was so full of important, useful, intelligent and interesting information and reports - all of them, plus photos, that I'm saving and referencing the entire issue.

Keep up the good job.

Slavko Nowytski
Washington

ODVU letter writer corrects date

Dear Editor:

Please allow me to make the following correction to my recent letter (March 12).

"It was during this time that Col. Andrii Melnyk became chairman of the Leadership of Ukrainian Nationalists (PUN), becoming the successor to Col. Yevhen Konovalets upon his assassination, that Roman Shukhevych delivered to Col. Melnyk the petition or request from PUN that he, Col. Melnyk, go abroad and assume the responsibilities of the chairman of PUN, and then a year later, in August 1939, Col. Melnyk was elected and affirmed as chairman during the second VZUN in Rome, which was also attended by delegates from ODVU and UNO."

I apologize for citing the wrong year in this passage, this was done inadvertently, as a result of a transcription error. This correction will make my letter historically accurate.

Alexander Prociuk
Philadelphia

The writer is president of the Organization for the Rebirth of Ukraine.

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