BBG Watch Commentary
BBG Watch, our little news and media freedom advocacy website, launched in September 2011 to save Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts to China, has now reached two million hits. It took 15 months for us to get to the first million, and only nine months to reach the second million.
Since our launch, we have helped to prevent the planned elimination of VOA broadcasts to both China and Tibet and focused the attention of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the media on the crisis at Radio Liberty in Russia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in general.
We also helped to focus media and Congressional attention on the management crisis within the executive staff of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) and dismal employee morale.
BBG Watch has been quoted in mainstream U.S. media, including NPR, and on numerous websites and blogs. We were credited with breaking the Radio Liberty story and helping fired Radio Liberty journalists in Russia getting their jobs back after BBG members intervened to resolve the crisis ignored by IBB management.
We have exposed a news gathering and reporting emergency at the Voice of America and the failure of its poorly designed and poorly managed website to engage audiences through social media.
We have exposed attacks by VOA management on independent journalists in the United States who have criticized VOA’s poor news reporting performance and inappropriate management practices. We have defended Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) employees who were illegally dismissed by OCB and IBB managers.
BBG Watch is edited and published by volunteers, current and former U.S. international broadcasting journalists and supporters.
We thank you for your contributions and hard work.
But most of all, we thank our site visitors who make this whole project worthwhile.
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