U.S. drastically cuts international broadcasts
PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Major cutbacks to international broadcasts of the United States to Central and Eastern Europe were announced this past week in keeping with the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2004 and proposals of the Bush administration's proposals. Voice of America announced that programs in 10 languages will be cut by the end of this month, while Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty announced the cessation of broadcasts in six languages.
On February 3 the director of Voice of America, David Jackson, announced that VOA will end regularly scheduled programs in Bulgarian, Estonian, Czech, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak and Slovenian, along with many of its broadcast feeds to affiliate stations in Central and Southeastern Europe effective February 27.
In addition, VOA's Ukrainian radio service, is to reduce its daily broadcast from two hours to one hour per day, beginning March 1.
According to the VOA director's message to personnel, "VOA Ukrainian will retool its programming and expand its multimedia capabilities. Together with an improved Ukrainian language 'Window on America' TV program, the service will be well positioned to provide full multimedia coverage of this year's presidential elections, both in the United States and Ukraine this coming November."
VOA's Ukrainian Service told The Ukrainian Weekly that staffers, as government employees, are unable to comment on the situation without special clearance.
Also affected by the budget cuts is VOA's Armenian language broadcast staff, which will be reduced to two positions.
On January 29 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty announced that six days earlier President George W. Bush had signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act that eliminated broadcasting in the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Bulgarian and Croatian languages effective January 31. In addition, more than 100 positions were cut at RFE/RL's Broadcasting Center in Prague, and in its news bureaus in European capitals: Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Bratislava, Bucharest, Sofia and Zagreb.
(For full text of the VOA director's message and RFE/RL's news release about the cutbacks, see items below.)
The reduction of these services stemmed from the Bush administration's proposal to end broadcasting to countries that are preparing to join NATO and the European Union. The proposal was accepted by Congress when it approved the appropriations bill.
RFE/RL President Thomas A. Dine said, "Without additional funding, there is no other way than to close these services in view of priorities in other parts of the world."
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees all U.S. non-military international broadcasting, said: "We deeply appreciate the work of the people of these services. Their sacrifices will always be remembered."
VOA Director Jackson commended "the many men and women who have served with such distinction over the past 60 years," underscoring that "Their professionalism and dedication to freedom and truth have played an important role in the spread of democracy we're seeing today among their audiences."
RFE/RL broadcasts to Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Macedonia, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, North Caucasus, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq will continue.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 8, 2004, No. 6, Vol. LXXII
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