BBG Watch Commentary

This has been posted on Facebook by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

CNN Showing RFERL Image from Ukraine

Russian state-controlled television channels have been treating its viewers to a raft of disparaging, often bizarre reports downplaying Ukraine’s protests. –>http://bit.ly/1bx4XXn
Luckily, RFE/RL‘s reports are making it far and wide, as yesterday’s CNN screengrab will attest. (It was shown on ABC World News as well.)

We might add that the VOA Ukrainian Service is also doing an outstanding job of reporting despite limited resources and general management disarray within Voice of America and the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB).

But while there are exceptions among some language services, generally, the Voice of America is failing to report news in a timely and professional manner.

The Voice of America English News and VOA English news website have been an especially great embarrassment because of late and inadequate reporting and failing to report on many important news developments in Ukraine and elsewhere. While the Voice of Russia (VOR) covered this U.S.-Ukraine news story in English, the VOA English website did not report on Vice President Joe Biden’s phone call today with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.  Earlier last week, the Voice of America English website also failed to cover  Biden’s speech in Beijing, China, on human rights and media freedom.