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  • 2 minute read

Matt Armstrong’s MountainRunner Reboots

  • January 17, 2015
BBG Watch News “Matt Armstrong’s blog on public diplomacy, international journalism, and the struggle against propaganda” will resume…
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  • 1 minute read

Trouble with English at Voice of America

  • July 29, 2014
BBG Watch Commentary Voice of America (VOA) employees have told BBG Watch of continuing management shortcomings within the…
Bureaucracy Warning Sign
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  • 6 minute read

Freedom of Speech Abridged – The Federalist

  • November 2, 2013
International Broadcasting Bureau – The Standard For Dysfunctional and Defunct in the US Government – Information War Lost:  Freedom of…

Management's panic at survey time

  • May 19, 2013
AFGE Local 1812 employee union reports that International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) and other managers responsible for creating a…

Absentee member Michael Lynton pushed to become temporary Broadcasting Board of Governors chair

  • February 8, 2012
Sources tell BBG Watch that Democrats on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) are pushing for Michael Lynton, an absentee member, to become temporary BBG chair until a permanent chairman is named, whenever that may be. Lynton has distinguished himself for being the worst absentee board member. He has missed at least five BBG meetings, including the January one

CUSIB Statement on the Resignation of BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson

  • January 31, 2012
The independent Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB), which supports media freedom abroad and was opposed to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) plans to end Voice of America (VOA) radio and television broadcasts to China, has issued a statement on the announced resignation of the BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson.

Have a backup plan: VOA Director David Ensor on satellite TV signal jamming

  • January 27, 2012
Voice of America (VOA) Director David Ensor has commented on the Iranian jamming of VOA satellite television signals. His is a significant post since it exposes the ability of any country or even a group of people to render satellite television programs useless. That leaves the Internet and shortwave radio.

VOA Reporter Killed In Pakistan, BBG Watch urges BBG to do more to take care of contract and overseas-based employees

  • January 17, 2012
BBG Watch reporters and contributors, many of us former and current Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) employees, are shocked and saddened by the killing in Pakistan of Mukarram Khan Aatif, a reporter for Voice of America’s Deewa Radio. This tragedy shows what great sacrifices Voice of America overseas-based contract employees make everyday. Mukarram Khan Aatif was a hero

BBG seeks centralization of news output

  • January 11, 2012
The BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson and his executives love centralization and central planning. (They developed a Five-Year Strategic Plan — five-year plans, does that sound familiar?) Never mind that the surrogate broadcasters like Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were established in West Germany in the 1950s as a counterbalance to the overly-centralized Voice of America (VOA) with its headquarters in New York and later in Washington, DC. BBG executives now want to undermine the independence and specialization of the surrogate broadcasters by merging them into a new large bureaucracy and creating a global news network.

BBG seeking social media newsroom contractor – consultant, possibly for friend of current manager

  • January 11, 2012
This particular announcement for a an experienced social media newsroom consultant at the Broadcasting Board of Governors strikes us as being written for a particular person who may be a friend or former associate of a BBG manager or a top-level contractor already employed by some of the former CNN executives who are taking over the management of the agency under the nepotism rule of the BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson, who himself is a former CNN executive.

Radio Free Europe – Radio Liberty places article about its employees’ samizdat on internal website

  • January 11, 2012
From a BBG Watch source in Prague: Incidentally, Alsou Taheri’s article, “Samizdat at Radio Free Europe – Radio Liberty describes discrimination against foreigners, women and ‘old white guys’,” was very alarming to RFE/RL management. In order to fight “samizdat”, they placed the article on the Radio’s intranet system! Nothing like that has ever happened before.

FedSmith.com links to Lobo-bonuses story, offers salary search

  • January 2, 2012
FedSmith.com, an information portal for sources of information impacting the federal community, has posted a summary of the BBG Watch report, “Leader of federal agency with lowest leadership ratings justifies cash awards for executives,” giving the article about the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Director Richard Lobo’s faulty logic hundreds of views on BBGWatch.com.

Leader of federal agency with lowest leadership ratings justifies cash awards for executives

  • January 2, 2012
The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) employees are both annoyed and amused by the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) Director Richard Lobo’s memo in which he justifies bonuses paid to BBG executives as being in line with awards received by executives employed by other federal agencies. As some employees point out, there is a problem with the logic of Lobo’s line of reasoning.
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  • 1 minute read

Broadcasting Board Governor Victor Ashe praised for listening to employee concerns

  • January 2, 2012
The American Federation of Government Employees Local 1812 (AFGE Local 1812) published a report on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) member Victor Ashe’s recent visit to the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina, praising him for reaching out to BBG employees and openly discussing their concerns. It is highly unusual for BBG members to regularly meet with groups of employees and for the union representing the BBG workforce to praise a BBG member.