When CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric addresses Tufts students and community members this afternoon as part of the sixth annual Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism, she will be joining a canon of prominent journalists who have been invited to the Hill to carry on the excitement for journalism to which the forum's namesake devoted himself.

How much of a role does the media play in shaping the discourse of international diplomacy? As Cote d'Ivoire's bloody leadership contest draws to a close and the surrender of Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent president, seems imminent, a long list of atrocities and electoral irregularities mark the records of both him and his opponent, Alassane Ouattara.

Public diplomacy is a tool with long-term benefits that are often difficult to measure. Public diplomacy is of limited value in short-term crisis situations. However, during a prolonged struggle, such as the Cold War, a sustained public diplomacy program can have profound effects. One public diplomacy program that is currently in play that bears watching is Poland's efforts with respects to its totalitarian neighbor of Belarus.

One of the more poorly understood aspects of public diplomacy is that it is not a tool for short-term policy goals. Public diplomacy is a tool with long-term benefits that are often difficult to measure. Public diplomacy is of limited value in short-term crisis situations. However, during a prolonged struggle, such as the Cold War, a sustained public diplomacy program can have profound effects. One public diplomacy program that is currently in play that bears watching is Poland's efforts with respects to its totalitarian neighbor of Belarus.

After years of spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get its message out to Afghans, the United States is still experimenting. The State Department, for example, is trying a new communications approach in Kandahar by turning to old media — radio and television.

Much attention has been paid to the crucial role played by new media in promoting and enabling the revolutions that are sweeping across the Arab world. However, Radio Netherlands Worldwide highlights the concurrent surge in importance of mainstream media in the region, and reasons that both were central in the recent Arab uprisings.

Some of America's rival broadcasters have expressed outrage at the fact that the BBC World Service Trust has applied for the US government funding to help combat censorship in countries like China and Iran.

During recent testimony in front of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee Secretary of State Clinton made a splash when she commented, "I remember having an Afghan general tell me that the only thing he thought about Americans is that all the men wrestled and the women walked around in bikinis because the only TV he ever saw was Baywatch and World Wide Wrestling.” She went on to comment about the effect American media has on the image of the U.S. abroad. Predictably, the significance of her remarks were lost in the usual cacophony of howls about Al Jazeera and Russian media.