The independent BBGWatch.com website has had over 200,000 hits in the first five months since it was launched by current and former BBG employees and other free media and human rights volunteers.
We at the BBG Watch website team want to thank all of our site visitors for their loyalty and support.
We also want to thank our regular and occasional contributors and assure them that their commitment to free speech and reform of U.S. international broadcasting is greatly valued.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) executives have just launched an unprecedented attack on U.S. international journalism with their FY2013 plan to eliminate the Voice of America Tibetan radio broadcasts, the VOA Cantonese Service and many other BBG broadcasting services, as well as over two hundred journalistic and program support positions.
Our website will continue to report on these BBG plans and urge BBG members, members of Congress, and general public to demand a complete reform of the management team and management culture that is destroying U.S. international broadcasting and damaging America’s influence and image abroad.
Please join us in this campaign by sending us news and commentaries, publishing on these topics in other media outlets, and contacting members of Congress.
We will also continue our campaign to improve the working conditions of men and women who work for U.S. international broadcasting. We can already point to some limited success in defending the rights of contract employees and foreign-born journalists. Much more needs to be done. We are also proud of our contribution to saving the VOA China Branch from losing its radio and television programs, but this year we face a far greater threat from the BBG executives who are bend on eliminating broadcasts and journalistic positions while they expand their ranks, privileges, and bureaucratic control without regard to the harm that they cause.
Ours is a purely volunteer effort. None of our contributors and editors receives any compensation. We are completely independent and nonpartisan, but we care deeply about serving information needs of the most oppressed, the most disadvantaged, the poorest, and the least known among millions of men and women who sacrifice their safety and well-being, sometimes even their freedom and their lives, in their struggle for human rights and human dignity.
These are the people who need access to uncensored information more than those who can afford to choose more freely among many media outlets and sources. All those who live under repressive regimes and seek uncensored news from the United States, however, are important. They all look to us for our support with news and information.
We thank you for joining them in their struggle and for your support for our website.
BBGWatch.com Team
PS. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.