BBG Watch Commentary

UPDATE: For full Heritage Foundation video and partial audio and transcripts, see: Is Voice of America hobbling along? – Ariel Cohen, Blanquita Cullum, David Ensor, Dan Robinson respond, BBG Watch, April 21, 2014.

C-SPAN John Lenczowski Heritage Fournation 4-21-14The Heritage Foundation held today a panel discussion on “Propaganda, Disinformation, and Dirty Tricks: The Resurgence of Russian Political Warfare.”

We are posting a link C-SPAN video which shows most of the discussion but does not include Voice of America Director David Ensor’s remarks that  VOA is not “hobbled” (“don’t think VOA is hobbling along”) or a response to Ensor’s statement from former VOA senior White House correspondent Dan Robinson that “VOA has been hobbling along — very clearly hobbling along.”

Earlier in the discussion, Ariel Cohen said that Voice of America, together with the rest of U.S. international broadcasting, needs to be reformed because “it keeps hobbling along like a three-legged cat.”

The panelist were: John Lenczowski, Ph.D., President, Institute of World Politics, former Soviet affairs advisor to President Reagan; Paul Goble, Former Special Advisor to the International Broadcasting Bureau, and Guest Lecturer, Institute of World Politics, and Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow for Russia and Eurasia Studies, The Heritage Foundation. The discussion was hosted by Helle C. Dale, Senior Fellow for Public Diplomacy at the Heritage Foundation.

In addition to VOA Director David Ensor and former VOA correspondent Dan Robinson, also speaking during the event was journalist, radio host and former Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) member Blanquita Cullum.

We will attempt to provide David Ensor’s and Dan Robinson’s remarks separately as soon as we receive them.

UPDATE: For full Heritage Foundation video and partial audio and transcripts, see: Is Voice of America hobbling along? – Ariel Cohen, Blanquita Cullum, David Ensor, Dan Robinson respond, BBG Watch, April 21, 2014.