BBG Watch Media
The Washington Post “In the Loop” column by Colby Itkowitz reports on the resignation of Voice of America (VOA) director David Ensor with a statement that “VOA, the United States’ means of disseminating news abroad, is famously mismanaged.”
COLBY ITKOWITZ, WP: “We’re told by one source that Ensor ‘accomplished more than he will likely be given credit for.’ But the source added that he failed to ‘capitalize on his high profile in the broadcast news industry and did not do a good job selling the agency to the Hill and to the American people, its funders’.”
READ MORE: Voice of America director to step down next month, Colby Itkowitz, “In the Loop,” The Washington Post, April 7, 2015
In a November 2014 article, another Washington Post columnist Joe Davidson has cited BBG Watch reporting on U.S. taxpayer-funded Voice of America’s (VOA) failure to provide timely online, Facebook, Twitter and radio news updates on U.S. mid-term elections results and other management problems at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), federal agency which oversees Voice of America.
JOE DAVIDSON, WP: “Just last week it [BBG] began compensating people who were improperly fired in 2009 from the anachronistic Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Its [Voice of America] election night coverage three weeks ago was the target of derisive comments on BBG Watch, an online publication by current and former employees. Year after year, including this one, BBG is a loser on key employee survey questions.”
Davidson’s column describes concerns of hundreds of VOA contractors who fear that agency bureaucrats who violated the law by hiring contractors without proper authorization from Congress will now cut the number of contractor positions to comply with the law while maintaining the enormously overblown bureaucracy. Davidson reports that “more than 150 contractors sent a letter to BBG chairman Jeffrey Shell, with copies to 31 members of Congress, urging additional funding” for broadcasting and online reporting to strategically key countries, such as Russia, Iran, and China.
READ MORE: Agency that few Americans use draws controversy, Joe Davidson, The Washington Post, November 22, 2014.