The Channel | 2003 | September

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The United States and the World:
two-way communication urgently needed
Two new books demonstrate the need for the US to communicate, and to listen to the
rest of the world, says Tom Walters
Voice of America, A History: Alan Heil, Jr.
Columbia University Press: 538 pages $37.50 (cloth)
News from Abroad: Donald R. Shanor
Columbia University Press: 247 pages $24.50 (paper) $62.50 (cloth)
Alan Heil, a regular correspondent for The Channel,
was formerly Deputy Director of the Voice of
America, having been also a foreign correspondent and
in charge of the news output. He follows keenly the
contemporary international broadcasting scene, and has now
produced Voice of America, A History . And what a
comprehensive and helpful history it is, from the beginnings
just after Pearl Harbour in 1942, through to the multimedia,
independent VOA of today, heard in more than 50 languages by
more than 90 million people.
As a study of the often-agonising progress of one of the world’s
great international broadcasters, Alan Heil’s book is wonderfully
wide-ranging, written with an
insider’s insights, and an
illuminating and rewarding read. It
is the story of a struggle. The
renowned correspondent Edward R.
Morrow once called on all
journalists to offer “an honest mirror
of events in world, to report without
fear or favour” and this, says Heil,
has been what “The Voice” has
always attempted to do.
The tough years ofWorldWar II were
followed by the witch-hunts of the
McCarthy era, which almost
succeeded in muffling the Voice. But VoA emerged and under
successive directors built a global network, with a Charter to guide
it, stressing accuracy, objectivity and comprehensiveness. There
were still those who claimed that this represented far too great a
freedom for the VoA, and that the broadcaster must be more tightly
controlled by government. This is an ongoing argument faced by
all broadcasters, especially those who broadcast across frontiers,
and whose output is unfamiliar or unknown within the home
country.
Heil chronicles how listeners not only in high places, but
also in the most obscure and trouble-torn locations,
became avid listeners. Ronald Reagan wanted the VoA to
be “The Voice of Truth”, and the station’s
journalists have constantly had to fight to
retain their objectivity, and not to become
tools of a propaganda machine. This
approach has paid huge dividends,
building trust and a high reputation
among the audience. Today, “The
Vo i ce” i s i ndependen t , wi t h t he
Broadcasting Board of Governors
standing between it and government
interference.
Alan Heil chronicles the moves into multimedia, with all the
possibilities that this brings. He somewhat ruefully notes the
standalone Radio Sawa and Radio Farda, which attempt a
direct contact with youth audiences without VOA banner. He
also feels that the present support network provided by the
International Broadcasting Bureau, while taking much of the
administrative burden, is too remote and unresponsive to
broadcasting needs.
But Alan Heil proudly states that still “The Voice represents the
nation’s broadcaster of record to the world”, with a more than
60-year record that makes it an indispensable part of life to so
many people in so many countries.
The problems that have beset TheVoice over the years have partly
been due to isolationism. Few citizens of the USA know of the
need for the VOA to tell the world about their country. And
conversely 9/11 came as a tremendous shock, because fewer and
fewer had any knowledge of events in other countries.
This is the burden of Donald R. Shanor’s books News from
Abroad. Shanor is a print journalist, who started as a foreign
correspondent in the days of
“trench coat journalism”. But his
thoughts can also be very helpful
to today’s broadcasters. He notes
with alarm that the percentage of
foreign journalism has actually
fallen in recent years from 25%
to 8% just before 9/11. Not
wonder that event came as such
a shock.
Shanor argues that even with the
instant and high-quality
communications of today,
newspapers must maintain on-the-
spot networks of journalists around the world, and that the US
audience must be kept better informed about impending
disasters and threats. The United States should return to “the
relative abundance of foreign news that characterised most of
its modern history.”
Both books are a call to arms to all journalists to ensure and
increase the two-way flow of news from and to the United States.
Communication between citizens of all countries is absolutely
essential in the modern world.
Order both these books online from the AIB.
Go to and click on Book Shop
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