BBG Watch Media
Former senior White House correspondent for the taxpayer-funded ($224M in FY 2017) Voice of America (VOA) Dan Robinson has published an article in the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy CPD Blog, in which he exposes mismanagement, cronyism, low morale, and bogus audience claims by the perpetually dysfunctional Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), VOA’s parent federal agency ($777M in FY 2017, including VOA).
“Practically defunct“ was how then Secretary of State and BBG board member Hillary Clinton described the agency in 2013, while one year into the tenure of new BBG CEO John Lansing (the first CEO quit after only a few weeks on the job), a Washington Post columnist called it a “regular bottom-feeder” in employee morale. Employees’ assessment of senior agency leaders has again declined within the last year.
“Will Trump and his team be able to ascertain the truth about the broken BBG? Or will they be hoodwinked by the smoke screen of happy talk emanating from the permanent BBG bureaucracy?,” Dan Robinson asks.
“We will certainly know more in coming weeks and months,” he gives a tentative answer.
Dan Robinson retired in 2014 after 34 years with the Voice of America. In addition to his White House posting as senior VOA correspondent, he served as bureau chief in Nairobi, Kenya and Bangkok, Thailand. He was also the chief of the VOA Burmese Service and the Capitol Hill correspondent.
READ MORE: WHAT’S A PRESIDENT-ELECT TO DO…WITH THE BBG?, Dan Robinson, University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy CPD Blog, November 21, 2016
ALSO READ: Commentary by former VOA acting associate director: Voice of America and Broadcasting Board of Governors chiefs allow biased reporting, Ted Lipien, BBG Watch, November 21, 2016