BBG Watch Media

“The news is seen, we’re told, as a big setback for the BBG at an unfortunate time,” Al Kamen wrote in his Washington Post column about the reported departure of director and CEO Andy Lack from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) for a possible new high profile job at equally troubled NBC. Andy Lack has been at the BBG for only a few weeks.

Michael Meehan, a former member of the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors, agrees that the news represents a big loss for the BBG’s journalistic mission, which he links with public diplomacy and U.S. foreign policy.

“Public diplomacy through this journalistic mission is a critically important tool in America’s foreign policy toolbox,” said former BBG member Michael Meehan, “And not to fix the structural problems now and losing a top pro like Andy would be a big loss to the mission.”

READ MORE: From one ship to another: Andy Lack leaving BBG to go back to NBC?, Al Kamen, “In the Loop,” The Washington Post, March 3, 2015