UNITED
NATIONS,
January 8 --
With the US Broadcasting
Board of
Governors still not
having
addressed
censorship
bids by the
Voice of America
it oversees,
President
Obama today
nominated to
the BBG
Michael W.
Kempner, a founder
of New Jersey's
ConnectOne Bancorp
and a bundler
of campaign
contributions.
We ask again,
why does the
US government
need a
propaganda
network, and
why turn it
loose inside
the US? And
why would its
BBG, after
first granting
Freedom of Information
Act access and
fee waivers
then try to
reverse all
this after the
documents
released proved
embarrassing?
After that,
BBG's FOIA
Officer Andrew
Krog suspended
processing in
the October
2013
government
"funding lapse;"
then Appeals
Access
Committee chair
Marie Lennon
denied access
to any documents
about taxpayer
funded BBG
programming in
Sudan and Afghanistan
(see below.)
Back
on July 2,
2013, Inner
City Press published a
short critique
of Voice of
America and
its
Broadcasting
Board of
Governors,
here.
In the
three days
that followed,
mail poured in
providing yet
more detailed
accounts of
BBG and Voice
of America
incompetence
and assaults
on the
principles
they
supposedly
uphold.
The
union that
represents
workers there,
AFGE Local
1812, has written
that
“poor
morale was
made markedly
worse by a
decision in
2010 to
re-appoint the
present
newsroom
director
[Sonja Pace].
A
correspondent
since the
1980’s, she
had been
reassigned
from the
position of
news chief
more than a
decade
earlier. Fast
forward to
2010: An audio
recording of
an open
meeting in
VOA’s newsroom
shows that
strong
protests
against the
reappointment
of the former
news director
were dismissed
by VOA's
Executive
Editor [Steve
Redisch] a
former CNN
employee. In
the recording,
the Executive
Editor
rejected staff
concerns,
saying 'you’re
responsible
for your own
morale.'
Though he has
known of the
morale crisis
in VOA’s
Central News
Division
created by the
2010 decision,
current VOA
director David
Ensor has
allowed this
situation to
continue.”
Inner
City Press in
2012 had its
own experience
of these three
individuals. VOA's
Executive
Editor Steve
Redisch wrote
to the UN
asking that
Inner City
Press' accreditation
be “reviewed.”
The
only
communication
Inner City
Press had
received from
VOA or BBG in
Washington
prior to this
was from Sonja
Pace, that
“regarding
VOA’s Charter
and Code, we
absolutely
stand by those
mandates and
guidelines,
without
exception.”
Apparently
Voice
of America's
principles
don't include
the First
Amendment.
Subsequent
inquiring
under the
Freedom of
Information
Act found
David Ensor
involved in
the decision
to try to get
Inner City
Press thrown
out of the UN.
Ensor served
the US State
Department in
Afghanistan
and perhaps
re-formed his
view of press
freedom there.
In mid
2013, the
Obama
administration
nominated
former
Afghanistan
envoy Ryan
Crocker to
join the then half-empty
Broadcasting
Board of
Governors,
along with
John Kerry,
while claiming
that the
output under
the BBG is
entirely
independent
from the US
government.
This is not
credible.
The
Colombia
Journalism
Review, with
its own
conflicts, has
made
this point,
and BBG has
belatedly
responded.
Will any of
this finally
bring
accountability?
Watch this
site.
, 
