Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Communicators 20160111 : vimarsan

Entities. Host what kind of technologies does the bbg or voice of america, any of these entities, use . Guest well, all broadcasts, media platforms, everything from radio to tv, but increasingly digital platforms, social media as we expand around the world. Any way we can reach an audience and have influence with that audience is important, and well use it. Host who can listen to voa . Radio marti . Guest well, radio marti is on the island of cuba. Vice of america is throughout Central Africa voice of america is throughout central afghanistan, afghanistan, asia, indonesia. Its really a global media platform. Host and what kind of news is reported on these channels . Guest well, voice of america has a mission to tell americas story around the world. But to be clear, all of the bbg entities, including voice of america, are engaged in professional journalism. And our daily 3,000 journalists around the world that are working every day to tell stories whether it be inside of a country as a surrogate broadcaster meaning that theyre there to tell the stories within that particular country that may not be being told because of the repression of the press in certain parts of the world, or were telling americas story around the world. Host john lansing, the question that you get asked quite a bit, and its been asked for several years now, with all the new technologies that arec available, has thec mission become obsolete for the broadcasting board of governors . Guest i see quite the opposite. Its never been more critical. I think with the growth of propaganda around the world whether it be out of russia, why that or, certain china, or certainly isis, the world is awash in information. And much of that information the is propaganda. And for many people theres a concern that the bbgc is perhas not stepping up and fighting directly with that propaganda. But our view is and my personal view is that the best representation of the united the value ares of the United States is to bring professional journalismc and truth telling into regions of the world that dont have that. Host well, joining our conversation today is ron nixon who is the washington correspondent for the New York Times. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Let me just jump in and ask, theres been a lot of criticism about the bbg. Congress, chairman royce, House Foreign Affairs committee, former secretary clinton criticized the agency, and you hear words like practically defunct or dysfunctional. Your position is fairly new, created to cull all these entities together and have a person who assists daytoday. Can you tell us what arec you doing to sort of address some of those criticisms that have been leveled against the agency . Guest sure, ron. Before i accepted the position, ive been in the rolec since september, and as you know the role is new. There was somebody inc it prior to my being in this role of ceo, but that was andy lack who was in for just a few months. But my observation is i looked at the opportunity last summer, and i spoke with all of the constituencies on the hill; the white house, the state department. The fact that the bbg was set up originally without a ceo, and just take me out of the conversation for a second. Its not about me, but the role of a ceo sure. Guest imagine running an agency of five global media brands with 3,000 employees without a fulltime manager to lead that agency, but, rather a managing board, if you will, of nine individuals. To say that it was dysfunctional almost suggests that it could have been functional, if you will. And i think thats really the issue. I think having a professional Management Structure that reports to a board and, by the way, the board we have now and the reason im here is a really high funking, high quality high functioning, high quality board and our board chair whose day job is chairman of Nbc Universal pictures, is doing a fantastic job leading our board and our Management Team to create more functionality. Now, any media entity is going to have some dysfunction. Im sure theres some at the New York Times. I know there was in past experiences that ive had. And to some extent, a good newsroom will always have a little dysfunction, because a good newsroom is made up of people who are skeptical by nature and who ask hard questions. And so i welcome that. And one of the first things i did in september was meet with the newsroom and the voa and talk to them about their concerns. At the time there was some concerns about some pushing towards less objective coverage of certain subjects. And it was a very hearty conversation, very honest, and i felt very much in my element and found it to be welcoming to me, that people felt that they could say what they needed to say and say it out loud. So lets go back to the point that you brought up before about this idea of the world being awash in information, and a lot of it is propaganda. There has been this concern in congress that bbg, voa in particular has not done enough to counter russia or the chinese or isil or boko haram or any other groups out there that utilize social media in their recruitment of, you know, westerners. As an example, westerners, but there are others as well. Can you think practically what kinds of things that bbg is doing or planning to do to push back against those kinds of prop propaganda efforts . Guest absolutely. Well, the first thing i would say about propaganda is that its a fancy word if for a lie. And there really arent two sides to a lie. So this notion that you push back against propaganda suggests that youre taking something thats fundamentally untrue and giving it credibility by holding it up and explaining why its untrue instead of just dealing with the truth as the truth is. And so i would say the best countereffect to prop propagands independent, high quality journalism that is in the business of truth telling, whether that be about Foreign Governments or or own government. But in terms of what can we do, i know theres a lot of discussion on the hill about the organization and whether or not to reorganize it, and i think thats an interesting conversation. In fact, i think reform is always a good thing with a media entity, and reforming of the bbg is on my agenda, as a matter of fact. But the reforms that i see in our Management Team and our board sees is the need to push more of our content into mobile and social platforms and to be in these conversations that are happening that are peer peertor around the world. I think the old model of a Big Broadcast antenna or a big printing press, for that matter, going out with one message to millions of people will still exist for a while. But for younger audiences and for influential, younger audiences in parts of the world that are the most dangerous, i think the most important platforms are those that are more peertopeer. And i think if we can be successful in bringing high quality, professional journalism to influence those peertopeer conversations, particularly among moderate, perhaps moderate muslims in syria and iraq, places like eastern ukraine, the china periphery, i think getting into those conversations and having a reputation as Truth Tellers in those conversations is really the most important thing. And then the last thing ill say, ron, to that is the investment that we have, the differences. Really, lets just take a snapshot of russias investment in their state media versus the United States. Its really 100 to 1 difference, and were the 1. Were at about, you know, just under a billion dollars, and theyre at 100 billion. Wow. Guest so rearranging that billion dollars in different buckets is an interesting conversation. Calling it reform, i think, is an interesting approach. But i think the real reform would be to think about how serious we want to invest in the messaging that is our messaging which is the values of the United States as represented by high quality journalism. Lets talk about, again, just delve a little further into this idea of countering, you know, propaganda with straight journalism. You know, as you know, there are those in congress and other areas who say, well, we have cnn, so why do we need a governmentfunded cnn to do that . And the charter of voa calls for it to recommend the american viewpoint but at the same time provide quality journalism, so how do you balance those two competing and often seemingly contradictory missions . Guest sure. So ill start with the first one, that theres cnn and nbc news and fox news. But the reality is where voa particularly has news bureaus and where rsv rl has news bureaus, are reporting in china and cuba, theres no cnn in those places. I just returned from a trip to ukraine. The most widelyrespected and influential journalists in ukraine works out of our building at the voice of america. Wow. Guest along with her from voice of america, theres also a local reporter from Radiofree Europe whos the most influential Investigative Reporter in kiev. So in that one critical part of the world where russia theres a hot war on the Eastern Front right. Guest the most influential journalists in that country are two entities of the United States, voice of america and Radiofree Europe, radio liberty. So thats cnn does a great job around the world, and i admire the work that they do, but theres no comparison to the deployment of resources that we have. To the second point of your question, i think the abundance of information that were dealing with in terms of propaganda, i think its easy to overstate the influence its having. And i think theres i certain will hi take it seriously and understand that its voluminous, but in the research ive done in my own walking the streets of kiev talking to government officials, i spoke with the Foreign Relations chair of the parliament, and she told me that the work that is being done is having an absolute critical effect in countering the volume of propaganda because the credibility is real. And as journalists, sometimes it sounds a little idealistic. I still have a little of that idealism. Lets talk about the reforms. Again, as you know, theres been criticism about the duplication of efforts at the bbg. So you have voa, but then you have Radiofree Europe that will have people at the same event, and so you got people from the youve got people from the same recognizing that rfv is a surrogate, which ill ask you to explain that a little bit later. Guest yeah. But is that part of the reforms, is to to look at do we really need, you know, four sets of eyes reporting on it . Rather than weve already got voa there, so why do we need those others there . And then if you could also explain the structure of how the surrogates differ from, like, voa. Guest yeah. So the first thing that i did in my first two weeks when i came on board in september is read the legislation, the founding legislation of the bbg. And in it i noticed that it called for the formation of something called the International Coordinating Council. And i thought, well, thats interesting. Whats the International Coordinating Council . What it is, its the leaders of the five entities who the legislation envisioned would come together as a council on a regular basis and discuss how to be strategically aligned so that you remove duplicative effort and create more impact. And so i called that group together, and i said lets do that. [laughter] so we did. And so we have formed the icc, and it meets twice with me, twice a month. We are meeting tomorrow. And that group of five entity leaders has done a remarkable job just in this first four months together of really looking around the world at their various theaters of operation, if you will, and how they can cooperate for greater impact. So whats an example of that . Middle east Broadcasting Network was doing a series of documentaries in iraq targeting moderate muslims called delusional paradise. And the idea was to show the delusion of this notion that leaving home and joining isis brings you to some situational paradise. It was a heartwrenching series. It shows the families left behind. In one scene et shows a mother it shows a Mother Holding a cell phone saying i just got a call from my sons cell phone but it wasnt my son, it was somebody else telling me hed been martyred. So a year ago that would have run in iraq, and then they would have put it on a shelf. The International Coordinating Council came together and said can i run that in the china sphere . Can i run that in central or in eastern asia Radiofree Europe . Ocb ran it. So voice of america ran it. And so it became something that was disseminated and put in context in various ways around the world. And so that investment in iraq paid off around the world. The United States elections are coming up, obviously, and we have the iowa primaries. The this councils not coordinating coverage. Four years ago, it would have been uncoordinated and duplicative. This cycle it will be strategic and impactful for less money. And there are many more examples. The point is there was never an effort to coordinate and be strategic. And it wasnt that hard. Back to the idea of having central leadership. Right, right. Guest to your point or question about what is a surrogate, which i didnt know what it was either [laughter] right. Guest a surrogate is an organization, simply one that is doing journalism in a country where a free press is either limited or nonexistent. So theyre the surrogate free press for a country. So thats what Radiofree Europe is doing in the balkans, in central asia. Thats what middle east Broadcasting Network is doing in iraq. Thats what rfa is doing around the periphery of china, etc. , etc. And voa is not a surrogate. Right. Guest it tells americas stories in places around the world that dont hear americas story straight. Its journalism. Its stories about america, often governmental stories, but my hope is that well expand to stories that tell a broader swath of information about america; entrepreneurialism, health, finance, how to start a business, stories that are just not being told globally that are coming out of america and can be told. But there are parts of the world where voa, and this is where it gets confusing, where voa is also a surrogate, and thats in Central Africa. So the only independent news in many parts of Central Africa is voice of america doing surrogate news. So when burkinac faso had that problem, the only reporter on the air was the voice of america reporter when that coup went down. When the shootings, the terrible shootings in paris went down, it just so happened that a voice of america reporter was in paris and was able to do reporting for all of the other entities from paris. And is so voice of america and so voice of america wears two hats often. Its a larger, more Capable Organization for wearing two hats because of the way its resourced. Now, thats not to say, ron, that there isnt some remaining duplication, but in my sense of the way we think about that, to reform that duplication would not be to eliminate, but rather to structure strategically so you can have greater impact. Back to the point that the russians are spending 100 billion and were spending 750 million, i think my first impulse wouldnt be to stop doing some things, it would be to take what we have and deploy it more strategically. Right. Host so, john lansing, is it illegal to listen to Radiofree Asia in china . I mean, is the web site blocked . Are the air waves blocked from people hearing or finding Radiofree Asia . Guest for the most part, yes. Host how do you get around that . Guest well, theres, in terms of the internet, there are investments that we make in our Internet Freedom program that allows people to circumvent the censorship and access free content in places like china. And thats another thing that bbg does that many people arent aware of, and thats our open Technology Fund and our Internet Freedom office which invest through congress and their appropriations, invest in technology that helps people access the internet and other media they otherwise couldnt access without that technology. Host do you have any idea what the penetration is in iraq and syria . Guest yeah, no, actually its fairly impressive. Its 2528 on a weekly basis of audience members.  to yon that while our reach is important whether its in iraq or anywhere else, increasingly my goal is for us to measure impact beyond reach. I think anyc media today is really measuring engagement more than just how many newspapers got delivered or how many viewers watched a tv show. Now, you have to reach somebody to impact them, so i understand that. Were going to be shifting resources in our Research Area so we can report back to congress and report back to our board how were impacting people in these parts of the world, not just how were reachingc them. Host can americans read, listen, watch your stories . Guest well, its actually, the way it was structured, it was structured to not be available to americans. There was this fear at the time, i wasnt here at the time, but i thinkits ab important point, that it not be viewed as a way of the federal government influencing americans through investments in journalism. But i think that had to be amended to recognize that the internet is hard to block. So you can go on voa news. Org and look at the English Version of voa anytime. co whats the future of radio marti given our warming relationship with cuba . Guest cuba. Its a great question. Weve thought about that a lot. I think about why are we doing radio marti and tv marti on the island, and the reason is this is a limited ability for people on the island to access free information. The warming relations, i think, are a good thing, and i think theyll continue to point towards more, hopefully more freedoms. But to this point, the relations havent warmed to any point where the cuban government is allowing more freedom of information. And so for us, the trigger point for any change would be more parented the specific aspect of freedom. There is this notion, and not sure how true it is, that we produce it, but its being blocked on the island. How true is that, and what is the reach of, on the island . Guest well, its more difficult to do research inc certain parts of the world, and thats one of them. We have some ability to do research with people coming off the island and anecdotal research and focus groups. And its, the reach is i cant give a specific number on the reach, but it certainly is substantial. And i think the best evidence of that is when you hear the government of cubaq criticizing ocbs work and pleading that it be stopped and shut down. So this must be maybe the best measure of impact is the concern that they have that its there. Gotcha. Talk about the, you talk about impact, but its almost seeming as if the work that you do has, isnt well known because as you say for a long time americans werent allowed to listen to voa or even to get access to any information about it. But one of the things that i i was earlier this year talking to staffers is that the reporting that came out of nigeria about the former president andw3 hiric former apartheidouth african mercenaries to fight boko haram, that was broken by reporters from voa, right . But why isnt that widely known . Why doesnt voa tell its story more so people say maybe we should spend more . Given thats the kind of work thats being done . Guest no, its true. And thats, i think its an artifact, again, of there originally not being a Central Management system over the bbg and it being run by a board of nine individuals that met, you know, once or twice, i mean, maybe once a month, maybe six times a year, whatever it was. So some of the more natural things you would do in setting up a professional Media Organization like having a department that helps tell the story of what the organization is doing just wasnt as fully formed and funded. And thats another thing. Its not the most important thing, but its important, i think, that citizens know how their taxpayers how their tax dollars are being spent and the impact that were having around the world, and for that it is important. And so were going to be investing in that and doing a better job, like this, telling our story of what were trying to do in the world. Okay. Lets talk more on the technological side here. I was talking to a gentleman who used to work for the state department in their countering violent extremism, and he had mentioned that isis is like a startup, you know . Whereas voa and some of the other government efforts are like ibm, you know . Its like old, stodgy and really has no idea how to connect. One, do you think thats true and then, two, whats your answer to that and for what youre doing . Because we talk about mobile platforms and social media and those kinds of things, but how do you actually know that its working . And how do you know that you can actually access those people the same way that groups like isis cansome. Guest well, maybe by way of an anecdote, we have a program in iraq right now called raise your voice that was funded last year by the congress through radio and tv, and it is aok multiplatform effort to reach moderate muslims in iraq in an interactive, multimedia way. So it involves radio callin shows, the documentary i mentioned earlier, facebook pages that are with actively monitored conversations, twitter feeds, and the results on that program have been extraordinary in terms of numbers of interaction in the hundreds of thousands on all these various platforms. So much so that were hoping that we can do more of it. I mean, its a ten along the way, its an and its a step along the way, its an anecdote. To call isis a startup is sort of, the terminology, i think, piques americans interests and creates a vision that somehow theyre running silicon valley. Right. Guest the reality is we started 70 years ago as a radio enterprise. We still do some radio. But our ability to shift to mobile and social and put more resources behind that is certainly there, and were really no different than every other Media Company that you and i know about that have had to do the same thing, the New York Times just as well. Right. Guest and has done a fast tsaic fantastic job. And thats our mission, to shift resources, energy, focus and strategy to be more, as i said earlier, to be more in the peertopeer conversations instead of the onetomany conversations so that we can shift away from the stodgy, old media to new media. Now, we cant leave people behind. There are parts of the world, and today oohs a good todays a good day to discuss north korea. I know were taping, but the news today out of north korea and the potential for a Hydrogen Bomb to have been tested. The only way to get into north korea and we do every day is through short wave radio. Right. Guest and we do a very good job with that. So we wouldnt abandon, you know, short wave radio just because its the only place only way to get into a place like north korea. We recognize there are parts of the world where next generationing media is critical. Host john lansing, can you be critical of the u. S. Government in your reporting . Guest i think its critical reporting is professional journalism, and it requires any reporter to ask good questions whether it be of the federal government or of any other Foreign Government or any other issue or policy. And thats on both sides of the aisle. So when the iran deal was being debated on capitol hill, we carried it live, both sides, all of the debate. Live and complete. And thats really our mission s to tell americas story, every side of it. Host john lansing is the new ceo of the broadcasting board of governors which includes voice of america, Radiofree Europe, radio liberty, middle east Broadcasting Networks, Radiofree Asia and the office of cuba broadcasting, radio and tv marti. You can read ron nixons reporting in the New York Times. Gentlemen, thank you for being on the communicators. Guest thank you. Thank you for having us. Cspan, created by americas Cable Companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. 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