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The Voice of America is being drowned out by a mix of pop-flavored propaganda. What should America sound like?
Even as insiders fear it could be muted, the Voice of America can find few friends at home, where it needs them. Which is not entirely surprising, since many American journalists think of it as a mere propaganda outlet, while many in government - particularly those of a hawkish bent - see the network as a $158 million albatross that combines the worst of the private-sector press (liberal reporters) and the federal bureaucracy (career civil servants). These caricatures owe much to the fact that one doesn't hear the Voice within U.S. borders. They are mostly wrong.
The Voice does run governmentline editorials, but its news is similar in tone and substance to that of The Associated Press, with a sound that echoes a mid-size National Public Radio affiliate. The thousand-strong staff of the Voice includes serious journalists who are emphatic about the agency's code, which mandates editorial independence and fair treatment for all points of view. Its advocates see a straightforward journalistic approach as the best possible demonstration of American values in a time when the nation's popularity is slipping around the world. But particularly in the Middle East, the Voice is being supplanted by a new model, something closer to MTV than the BBC. Voice people are nervous about the future of journalism at their network, some fearing it will be replaced by pure propaganda.
On paper, this should be a boom time for the Voice. The Bush administration proposed upping by $60 million the $592 million international broadcasting budget next year, and adding new programming in Persian, Pashtu, Urdu, and other "critical war-on-terrorism languages." Chided by the 9/11 Commission for ceding too much ground to Osama bin Laden in a "war of ideas," foreign policy types have a new enthusiasm for "public diplomacy" over the airwaves. Indeed, how Arabs and Muslims feel about the United States, and vice versa, could determine whether we will measure the current wars in years or in generations.
Despite the windfall, the number of hours and frequencies devoted to English-language programming by the Voice have declined dramatically in recent years. Alan Heil, a retired deputy director of the...