Sending cross-border static: on the fate of Radio Free Europe and the influence of international broadcasting.

• Author: Raghavan, Sudarsan V.
• Position: An interview with former chair of the Board for International Broadcasting Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr. - Power of the Media in the Global System - Interview

This interview was conducted amidst a national debate over the role of the U.S. government's overseas broadcasting services, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America (VOA). Noting the absence of the Cold War environment in which the Radios were originally developed, opponents of the services argued that they were no longer necessary, particularly in Europe.

The discussion became especially acute in Spring 1993 after the February release of a Clinton administration proposal to cut $644 million in broadcasting services from the federal budget. This step -- in line with an overall effort to streamline the budget -- would have included phasing out RFE/RL, as well as cutting the potential Radio Free Asia Service, which the Clinton administration previously had supported. Furthermore, the debate was not only about the existence of the Radios, but also about who should control them, as RFE/RL was financed through the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB), and VOA received its funding through the United States Information Agency (USIA).

BIB was created in 1973 to finance RFE/RL Inc., which is privately incorporated. Until that time, those radio stations had received funding from the CIA. After 1973, they received their funds from BIB, to which Congress appropriates money on an annual basis.

In June, President Clinton unveiled a compromise, in which he proposed to continue the "home-service" broadcasting of RFE/RL, VOA and Radio Marti[broadcast to Cuba], but to implement some changes in their structures and budgets. According to the plan, BIB would be abolished, and a new independent, bipartisan Board of Governors would oversee all U.S. international radio broadcasting. Members would be appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. The board would be part of the USIA, and would oversee VOA, RFE/RL, Radio Marti and the proposed Radio Free Asia service.

Further, Congress would appropriate funds for each radio-broadcasting program separately. The board members, however, would set the policy and control the budgets of the services. Engineering and technical functions would be consolidated under VOA, but the programming of each of the services would remain separate and distinct. Phasing out several language services from both VOA and RFE/RL is also part of the plan. The compromise, which is pending congressional approval, is designed to achieve savings of more than $250 million over the next four years.

On 7 April 1993, the Journal of International Affairs conducted an interview with Malcom S. Forbes, Jr. It focused chiefly on his eight-year tenure as chairman of the Board of International Broadcasting in the context of this debate. Forbes was appointed to this position in 1985 by former President Ronald Reagan and reappointed to the post in 1990 by former President George Bush. With the entrance of the Clinton administration, Daniel Mica, former Democratic congressman from Florida, was appointed the chairman of BIB in April 1993.

Journal: The rise in new technology has changed the face of the media industry. Information is accessed with more ease and in greater quantities than ever before. How has this new technology affected the way in which the mainstream media disseminate information to the public?

Forbes: People have more sources of hard news. Organizations from Bloomberg [Business News] to CNN are providing information instantly and electronically. The growth of these services is causing newspapers and magazines to ask themselves: "What do we cover? We can't just report events, because everyone already has that information." Journalists have to take it one step further, do what any business does and figure out what the value-added is.

That's why newspapers such as the New York Times no longer just report the news. They assume people already know it. That's why they're running more stories on social trends and more news analyses on the front page. They're becoming more like weeklies in the way they treat the news.

Journal: What new challenges or responsibilities do these new trends pose to the media as influencers of public opinion?

Forbes: A media organization has to make a decision: Should it simply present hard news -- or play a role in processing this information and attempt to explain why it would be useful to the receiver?

Forbes is fortunate because we've always published issues every two weeks, so we're not tied to reporting the news. We provide information or analysis that readers haven't received anywhere else. All of our stories have a conclusion. We don't write them unless we have a judgment to make. We not only come to a conclusion -- we explain how we reached it. We also want each story to be, in effect, a small morality tale. We want readers to say, "I've learned something from that."

Journal: The next couple of questions relate to your role as Chairman of BIB in the context of your comments just now. With the end of the Cold War, there are certainly different uses for information and information channels. For example, the disappearance of Communist regimes in East Central Europe has perhaps negated the need for an underground press. How can an organization like RFE/RL, which was created for the realities of Communism, adapt to the new political and social environment in the region?

Forbes: Just because an instrument may have been useful in one context doesn't mean it can't be useful in another. Actually, the role of RFE/RL has never been more vital. You can't have a democracy without information. Domestic media in the emerging democracies are still for the most part extremely weak. Radio and television are predominantly under the control of governments that are run -- below the ministerial level -- by many of the old apparatchiks.

That's why democrats and reformers were horrified by the proposal to shut down the Radios. That's why Vaclav Havel wrote to members of Congress; that's why even Mikhail Gorbachev said publicly that it was a crazy idea to shut the Radios, and he told our embassy he thought it was an appallingly bad idea.

RFE/RL is what they call "home service." That is, they concentrate on reporting the news from within the countries where they broadcast. RFE/RL has a network of almost 200 stringers, journalists and analysts in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. No other international broadcaster provides as much information and analysis of internal events.

In contrast, take the BBC, which broadcasts to some of the same countries as the Radios. They provide some news about what happens in each country, but not nearly to the depth that RFE/RL does. Their focus is on world news.

RFE/FL can also be contrasted with VOA, which has a more...