Despite its undoubted global prominence, China's onstage presentation remains amateurish, and even clumsy, according to some observers. The country's efforts in building so-called "soft power", a phrase coined by American scholar Joseph Nye, are defined as a doomed charm offensive, and its media are widely regarded as a government mouthpiece.

Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Ltd will receive an unspecified level of financial support from Bank of China Ltd to boost the development of China's cultural industry, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

VOA faces net cuts totaling $17 million, several times more than any other broadcaster managed and funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, VOA’s parent agency. VOA would lose 170 professional front line broadcasters and producers in the proposed budget if it is passed by Congress.

In an article published in the Department of State’s Bulletin on November 7, 1948, entitled simply “The Voice of America,” Allen stated the purpose of the Department’s information activities, including VOA, the Congress had authorized earlier in the year with the passage of the Smith-Mundt Act

Challenges to U.S. international broadcasting and public diplomacy continue to mount. Iran, joining China and Russia, also nourishes ambitions as a global power and is moving forward with soft-power advances in Latin America. (Not that there is anything “soft” about Iranian soft power.)

With sparkling new offices in Washington, D.C., on New York Avenue since February 6, and a staff of 75 soon to be 100, CCTV America is making a serious and well-financed bid to be a player in the U.S. media market. CCTV America is a subsidiary of China Central TV, the Chinese state broadcaster, whose global ambitions have been making headlines.

Millions of Iranians hunger not only for news, but for democracy. For the U.S. government’s international broadcasting complex, Iran is a place where a good communication strategy is a necessity; Tragically, America’s principal instrument, Voice of America’s Persian News Network (PNN), has simply not been up to the task.