international broadcasting
So much World Service discussion habitually worries about cuts to inherited structures, but here was a bracing counter-blast: never mind soft power; now let’s make all the hard choices that help us, not Whitehall.
Washington would do well to incorporate the business approaches of the BBC and other successful models that mix entertainment, education and news with a massive stock pile of programs for the foreign audience to consume.
President Barack Obama declared Friday that Sony “made a mistake” in shelving a satirical film about a plot to assassinate North Korea’s leader, and he pledged the U.S. would respond “in a place and manner and time that we choose” to the hacking attack on Sony that led to the withdrawal. The FBI blamed the hack on the North’s communist government.
It's peculiar that the US president has more say about the death of an Arab than the life of an American, and yet despite all the Middle East turmoil, he has not sat down for an interview with an Arab journalist since 2009.
George W. Bush offered some solid advice to aspiring artists during an interview with CNN over the weekend: “Never paint your wife or mother.” The former U.S. president-cum-painter, whose paintings include self-portraits, family members and Russian President Vladimir Putin, among other world leaders, appeared on the program to discuss his new book about his father titled “41: A Portrait of My Father.” The book cover includes a portrait of George H.W. Bush painted by his son.
French international news channel France 24 is now broadcast live 24/7 in three languages (English, French and Arabic) on YouTube, the n°1 online video platform. This agreement allows France 24 to further facilitate accessibility to its three channels and allows all Internet users to watch them in high definition on any type of device.
The U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy just published their congressionally-mandated 2014 Comprehensive Annual Report on U.S. Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities, which details the cost, origin and scope of these activities worldwide. This report itemizes major public diplomacy and international broadcasting activities conducted by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).
The mass media have a deeply important role in conflict situations or their resolution; they can determine the rise on violent episodes and on distrust, or the other way around. Mass media are also fundamental in determining people’s perceptions about the conflict or their engagement and confidence in a peace process.