BBG Watch Commentary
923 to 2 – Russia Today (RT) English beats Voice of America (VOA) English in Facebook “Likes” (as of 1PM Sunday DC time) on the news report about violent dispersal by the Turkish police of anti-Prime Minister Erdogan demonstrations in Istanbul on Saturday.
Voice of America and Russia Today Saturday Turkey Protests compared: VOA Facebook “Likes” – 2, RT – 923 (Sun. 1PM DC)
Due to cuts in positions and resources by VOA and International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) management, Voice of America English newsroom is no longer capable of providing extensive original coverage even of major news stories in the United States.
VOA English website had to use short Reuters news on the South Korean plane crash Saturday at the San Francisco airport and did not update it for at least three hours while Al Jazeera English, BBC English and Russia Today had full reports which were being constantly updated with new information.
China’s CCTV created a special web page for the plane crash story. 141 Chinese were reported to be on the plane that crashed.
Late Saturday evening, the un-updated VOA report on the plane crash had only 5 Facebook “Likes” while Russia Today and BBC reports had thousands Facebook “Likes” and Tweets.
VOA Director David Ensor, his deputy Steve Redish, as well as IBB Director Richard Lobo and his deputy Jeff Trimble have been extolling VOA’s new ability to engage with audiences through social media, but critics point out that VOA cannot produce adequate news content and its social media engagement statistics are multiple times behind such international media outlets as even Russia Today and Al Jazeera, not to mention BBC.
Director Ensor is believed to be on an extended vacation. Director Lobo was reported to be recently in Europe. We don’t know whether their deputies are working over the weekend, but in any case Voice of America English news coverage has been disastrous for a long time.
Link to Voice of America English report on protests Saturday in Istanbul:
Turkish Police Repel Protesters With Tear Gas, Water Cannons, VOA News.
The VOA report has only 126 words.
[iframe http://www.voanews.com/content/turkey-protests-istanbul/1696449.html 100% 600px]Link to Russia Today English report on protests Saturday in Istanbul: ‘Everywhere is resistance’: Police use teargas and water cannon to disperse Istanbul protesters (PHOTOS), Russia Today.
You may also click on the RT Facebook page image to see full story.