BBG Watch Commentary
The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) has released its 2013 Annual Report. It offers useful information on considerable accomplishments of the agency’s journalists, the budgets and number of employees of various entities, but less on how the audiences are estimated based on various categories of programs, including non-news programs and local placement programs which are subject to both external and self-censorship. These categories apply mostly to some locally-placed Voice of America (VOA) programs in some countries that censor news and political reporting.
Please note that the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), which produced this report, is again presenting its budget and the number of employees as divided between two organizations when in fact they are both within IBB. We suspect that this is designed to obscure the fact that the management and program support arm of the agency — the International Broadcasting Bureau — is actually in control of the largest segment, 34%, of the agency’s entire budget.
BBG PRESS RELEASE
BBG Releases 2013 Annual Report
MAY 7, 2014
The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) today released its 2013 Annual Report detailing the agency’s initiatives and progress in exemplifying free press, combating violent extremism, and fostering greater understanding and engaging audiences.
According to Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press 2014 report, press freedom has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade. It is in this environment that the work of BBG and its broadcasters (Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks) is more critical than ever to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. This report details how in 2013 the BBG and its networks provided objective news and analysis via multiple platforms, including broadcast and digital media to audiences worldwide in more than 100 countries and in 61 languages.