In mid-January, the State Department's Office of the Inspector General issued a scathing report on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the nine member panel that oversees all of America's official public broadcasting abroad. It concluded that the board is seriously flawed in its operations and deeply "dysfunctional" in terms of its organization.

As the public swearing-in of U.S. President Barack Obama for his second term takes place, Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) journalists will be there to provide complete coverage of the day’s events along with expert commentary on U.S. policy, the 44th President and the road ahead.

The passage of the Smith-Mundt Modernization act as part of the NDAA removes the restriction on the State Department and Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) banning the broadcast or distribution of materials produced for overseas consumption inside the US.

The broadcaster, Voice of America, has been the U.S. government's method of communication with populations abroad since 1942, when the institution broadcast anti-Nazi radio addresses to the German people in their native language... But 70 years after taking on Adolf Hitler and then communism, VOA is plagued with bureaucratic problems, including a bloated budget, redundant programming, and a uninterested board of governors.

A young Russian journalism student Kirill Filimonov, protesting against U.S. decision to stifle Radio Liberty broadcasts and to fire its journalists, was detained by the police but released and, with about 30 mostly young, Russian demonstrators, continued the picket Tuesday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

“The Broadcasting Board of Governors is structurally a mess,” a former chair of the governmental organization that runs the premier Voice of America and Radio Free Europe told a panel discussion on countering Islamist Extremism at the Hudson Institute Wednesday afternoon.