12 July 2019
John F. Lansing, Chief Executive Officer and Director of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), testified in front of the U.S. Congress that the Kremlin’s weaponization of information has led to what he calls “the fight of the 21st century.”
Lansing was one of three government witnesses called before the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies for its United States Efforts to Counter Russian Disinformation and Malign Influence hearing on July 10.
“Make no mistake,” said Lansing, in prepared remarks, “We are living through a global explosion of disinformation, state propaganda, and lies generated by multiple authoritarian regimes around the world. The weaponization of information we are seeing today is real.”
However, this threat does not remain unchallenged. Lansing laid out for the subcommittee how USAGM offers an alternative to Russian disinformation with accurate, independent news and information. Examples included the 24/7 Russian-language digital and television network, Current Time, and fact-checking websites Polygraph.info in English and Factograph.info in Russian–all initiatives led by the USAGM networks of the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
Current Time in particular aims to reach Russian speakers globally-not just within the boundaries of Russia-and to inform and engage savvy, younger audiences on social, economic and political issues that state media ignores. This model provides objective news that enables viewers to make informed opinions.
“Russia’s goal is to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts,” explained Lansing to the lawmakers in his oral testimony. “But our impact in Russia is clear.”
In Russia, a nationally-representative 2018 survey found that USAGM content on TV, radio and online was consumed by 7.7 percent of adults each week, or 7.9 million people. Also in 2018, more than half of Current Time’s 520 million video views on social media came from within the Russian Federation.
“Honest and truthful journalism as a catalyst for change represents our best weapon on the information battlefield,” Lansing concluded.
Lansing testified along with two representatives from the U.S. Department of State: Lea Gabrielle, Special Envoy and Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center, and Jim Kulikowski, Coordinator for U.S. Assistance to Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia. A second panel featured Dr. Alina Polyakova Director, Global Democracy and Emerging Technology Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution and Nina Jankowicz from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Kennan Institute.
[Source: USAGM press release]
3 July 2019
The UK/Canada hosted Global Conference on Media Freedom will open in London on 10 July, with over 70 international government delegations, intergovernmental organisations, broadcasters and NGOs taking part. The focus of the Conference is spreading understanding of the need for media freedom, and gaining global consensus on how media freedom can be achieved, leading to greater prosperity, transparency and democracy.
The AIB will be at the event, along with a range of our Members from around the world. You can demonstrate your support for media freedom – tweet about it, share on social platforms, and talk about it to friends, family and colleagues.
And do contact us for more information on the work that the AIB is doing in this vitally important area.
27 June 2019
We’d set the deadline for entering the AIBs 2019 as 28 June. But we’ve been asked to extend this by many organisations who cannot meet the original closing date.
The new closing date for the AIBs is now 12 July 2019.
There’s plenty of time to get your work into one or more of the 21 categories that we’re featuring in the AIBs. These range from daily journalism to human interest documentary; sport to science, technology & nature; investigative documentary to domestic affairs. Full information is in the AIBs microsite, at theaibs.tv. Download the entry book here.
And we have been delighted to see that people continue to talk about the AIBs across the year: the picture above was put on Instagram by UK sports presenter Jake Humphrey. The picture shows an AIB in the MD’s office at UK production company Whisper. The company won an AIB for its coverage of Formula 1 in 2016 (pictured right).
26 June 2019
Text and video content from the BBC News Chinese website bbc.com/chinese now features on the popular Hong Kong news portal, Yahoo Hong Kong, and its mobile apps, Yahoo Hong Kong News and Yahoo TV.
Thanks to an agreement between BBC News and Yahoo Hong Kong, the BBC News Chinese content will be published as top stories on the Yahoo site. The Yahoo Hong Kong homepage now features a BBC News Chinese index.
Business Development Director, BBC World Service, Simon Kendall, says: “This is a great development for the BBC in Hong Kong where our news services in English, Cantonese and Mandarin reach a million people weekly. We have a strong and loyal audience on the audio platform, and with this partnership we will look to further enhance our engagement with digital audiences.”
Launched in 1999, Yahoo Hong Kong is one of the territory’s leading news portals. Rico Chan, Director of Yahoo Hong Kong, says: “Deeply rooted in Hong Kong, we have been serving it for two decades, and it is our ultimate goal to establish a high standard and trusted content platform by partnering with forward-thinking and pioneering media to catalyse the development of media industry. BBC News is one of the most valuable media brands globally, with positive and sharp ambitions. Our collaboration with BBC News Chinese strengthens our commitment to our users, allowing us to offer more abundant, premium, reliable content to millions in Hong Kong.”
The BBC’s recently launched Hong Kong bureau is home to journalists working on news in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, as well as to the commercial news operation, BBC Global News. The BBC also has an office for BBC Studios in Hong Kong, bringing world-class drama and entertainment programmes to Chinese audiences.
BBC News is available in Hong Kong on TV, via the BBC World News channel; online in English via bbc.com/news, and in simplified and traditional Chinese script, along with audio content in Cantonese and Mandarin, onbbc.com/chinese. The BBC News Chinese weekly hour-long radio programme in Cantonese, Newsweek, is broadcast on RTHK, along with the daily overnight broadcasts of BBC World Service radio in English. BBC Minute, a 60-second news bulletin in English, is carried by Hong Kong’s Metro Radio.
BBC News Chinese is part of BBC World Service which delivers news content around the world in English and 41 other language services, on radio, TV and digital. BBC World Service reaches a weekly audience of 319m. As part of BBC World Service, BBC Learning English teaches English to global audiences. BBC News attracts a weekly global audience of 394m people to its international services including BBC World Service, BBC World News television channel and bbc.com/news.
20 June 2019
Two U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) networks-Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA)-have been named winners of the prestigious 2019 National Murrow Awards. This is the first time the two networks have received this honor, presented by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) for excellence in electronic journalism.
“I am thrilled that the RTDNA’s Edward R. Murrow Awards have recognized the high-caliber reporting that RFE/RL and RFA produce,” said USAGM CEO John F. Lansing. “My heartfelt congratulations go to the skillful journalists and storytellers who offer our global audiences accurate and professional journalism-the bedrock of what we do at USAGM.”
CEO Lansing added, “Edward R. Murrow, who in the early 1960s led the U.S. Information Agency, a predecessor to USAGM, would be proud of our modern media organization’s wide-reaching impact.”
Daisy Sindelar, Acting President of RFE/RL, and Libby Liu, President of RFA, offered praise for their award-winning networks, which provide compelling, uncensored and locally-oriented news and information to audiences in some of the harshest media environments around the world.
“We are honored to receive this recognition for providing our audiences with unique stories, powerfully told, on the most influential formats in our coverage area,” said Sindelar.
RFE/RL received the National Murrow Awards’ top honor for Multimedia in the Television Network category. Judges reviewed eleven examples of RFE/RL’s impressive domestic news coverage ranging from Armenia to Uzbekistan.
RFA Mandarin’s “The Women Against the State” won in the juried contest’s Excellence in Video category. The piece focuses on the aftermath of China’s “709 crackdown”- a nationwide roundup of lawyers and legal activists that began in July 2015 – and the wives of those still held in custody today.
“RFA Mandarin’s digital team deserves full credit for this prestigious award. Their hard work to spotlight these brave individuals and share their stories speaks to Radio Free Asia’s critical journalistic mission,” said Liu.
Although this marks the first time that RFA has won a National Murrow Award, the network won several Regional Murrow Awards in years past.
(Source: USAGM press release)
18 June 2019
International news platform TRT Arabi is expanding its global distribution with Bosnia’s IPTV network of BH Telecom. TRT Arabi is now available to 200.000 BH Telecom’s subscribers, airing on channel 11 in the news channel category.
BH Telecom is the leading telecom operator in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has provided high quality and the most up-to-date services in the field of telecommunications. The uniqueness, tradition, comprehensive service offer, fast business development and social responsibility has made BH Telecom recognizable in the telecommunications market.
TRT Arabi HD, part of the Turkish Broadcasting Corporation (TRT), is an official organization broadcasting locally and internationally, from Turkey to the world, and includes several stations and channels covering all areas and interests.
Furkan Han, TRT World’s Head of Global Digital & Satellite Distribution & Partnership, stated that “TRT Arabi will be our second channel to be launched on BH Telecom after our first, TRT World. Our partnership with BH Telecom is an important step in growing our footprint, not only have we managed to increase the distribution of TRT Arabi but we are happy to have managed to add BH Telecom as one of our partners around the globe. Our distribution is still expanding and soon TRT Arabi will be available worldwide”
Elvedin Kanafija, BH Telecom’s Acting Executive Director of Business Development, stated: “We are pleased to have expanded our cooperation with TRT World and enriched our TV lineup with another quality news content offered by TRT Arabi.”
(Source: TRT World press release)
