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the
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Why dialogue and reporting to
Europe about Europe are important
In an address at the Woodrow Wilson Center in
Washington, D.C. on May 6, RFE/RL President Dine made
a persuasive case for U.S. broadcasting to Eastern and
Central Europe. He cited the former Soviet Union and
the former Yugoslavia as particularly important. “It is a
mistake,” Dine said,“to believe that the arrest of Milosevic
marked the end of turmoil in the formerYugoslavia. Most
of it is politically and economically crippled; the odds of
further ethnic bloodshed are high;corruption is pervasive,
and the emergence of a free press has been stunted.”
Dine then observed that“everyone remembers the sense
of hope we felt when the USSR collapsed.“Fifteen nations
had been freed from Moscow’s control, and each of them
(it was hoped) would pursue its own path not only
towards an independent national identity, but towards
freedom and democracy. Alas, with the exception of the
three Baltic republics, the freedom and democracy part
has not proven true. Right now, the United States is
engaged in a massive effort to promote democracy in
the Middle East.But I worry that by focusing on the Middle
East, we are neglecting to finish the job much closer to
home,in Eastern Europe.We suffer from a sort of‘political
attention deficit disorder’. We pay attention whenever
missiles are launched, but once the bombs stop falling,
we stop watching.”
Most of these radio and TV programmes are relatively brief, but information-
packed and supplemented by websites. The distribution networks have been
built by the American international broadcasters during much of the past
decade. Their funding has been modest, by today’s standards, not more
than $10 million altogether. The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, on
the other hand, has obtained more than $100 million to establish Al Hurra,
the 24/7 Arabic language transmission to the Middle East – $40 million of
that for Iraq alone. The annual cost of Radio Sawa in Arabic to the Middle
East, also around the clock, is an additional $30 million.
Despite recent reductions in airtime, America’s broadcasts to Europe remain
accurate, objective and comprehensive, as mandated by 1994 and 1998
legislation reorganizing U.S. international broadcasting. RFE/RL President Dine
recalled how its Armenian Service aired electrifying coverage from inside
Armenia’s parliament in October 1999. Then, masked gunmen entered the
chamber and killed the country’s prime minister, parliament speaker and six
other officials. “Shots could be heard,” Dine said, “as an RFE/RL correspondent,
huddled under a desk in parliament hall, reported from her cell phone.”
Earlier this year, Albanian President Alfred
Moisiu visited VOA headquarters in Washington.
He recognized many of the broadcasters of the
Albanian Service and remarked that several had
interviewed him over the years. “In the morning
when I’m walking,” he told them, “I take a radio
with me. I plug in my earphones. I listen to the
VOA Albanian breakfast show. And after that, I
go to work in my office. In the afternoon, I watch the VOA Albanian TV
show,
Ditari
(The Journal). All the leaders in Albania, and all those citizens
interested in following news events, watch and listen to VOA.”
Alan L. Heil Jr.
(left) is a former deputy director of VOA and
author of
Voice of America: A History
, Columbia University
Press, New York and Chichester, West Sussex, 2003
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Albanian President Moisiu
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