BBG Watch Commentary
An excellent report from the Voice of America worthy of the VOA Charter. The arrival of Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) director and CEO Andy Lack may be already having some impact. For one thing, VOA has started to label articles expressing purely personal opinions as opinion pieces and added a disclaimer that they do not necessarily represent Voice of America views. These are small, but encouraging signs. Let’s hope major management reforms will follow.
We only wish the Voice of America reporter or any outside expert would also more clearly point out in this VOA report how hastily the Obama Administration made and announced major concessions to the Castro regime without first negotiating any meaningful concessions from the other side in the area of press freedom and human rights. Also worth pointing out would be how the White House has no effective public diplomacy strategy to explain and justify its policy change toward Cuba to those segments of foreign or U.S. audiences who care deeply about human rights.
VOA: A mix of politicians and analysts in the U.S., some South Florida exiles and key members of Cuba’s dissident community have all pointed to China and Southeast Asia as an area where democracy has retracted in the face of détente with America.
“We’ve seen what happens in these transitions, [looking at] China, Vietnam and Burma, these are corrupt Communist dictatorships that are highly repressive. In fact they’ve gone backwards,” Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation told VOA’s Encounter.via Voice of America Will Cuba Follow the Southeast Asia Model? | VOA.
Cuba: US ties may not lead to democracy – Will Cuba Follow the Southeast Asia Model? http://t.co/rNyX3eHmV7 via @VOA_News
— Mark Snowiss (@msnowiss) January 31, 2015