America’s broadcast voice in Russia will soon be silenced following Moscow’s ratification of a new law that will force a legendary broadcasting company to abandon the Russian airwaves. Radio Liberty (RL), a division of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE), recently fired a large portion of its staff after the passage of a Russian law prohibiting foreign-owned media outlets from broadcasting on AM frequencies.

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.

RFE/RL’s Georgian Service, Radio Tavisupleba, is partnering with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and IREX to launch the Radio Tavisupleba Media School, a new one-year certificate program in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

With the fall of Hungary’s Western-style, pluralistic democracy, the time is right for the United States to reinstate Radio Free Europe’s Hungarian-language broadcasts. Hungarian would then join 28 other languages in which RFE transmits its programs on radio stations in countries of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, South Asia and the Balkans.

The United States government has quietly gathered a collection of tech and media superstars to advise on propaganda and public diplomacy. Just think of the new Broadcasting Board of Governors' Commission on Innovation as the Justice League of Public Diplomacy...

The president’s 2013 budget proposal this week was big news in Washington, but for those who care about public diplomacy and international broadcasting, the most interesting parts involved the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio & TV Marti, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks of Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV.

U.S. policy makers have used traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy and government-sponsored journalism to promote America's interests and to influence public opinion abroad. On the journalistic side, the so-called surrogate radios: Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcasting since World War II – remained under greater control of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

These days, Soviet-style samizdat is doing the rounds at the Prague headquarters of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty. It is a press release on the letter to Croatian government by Snjezana Pelivan, a Croatian journalist living in Prague.