Two Pakistani journalists filing reports home from Washington are quietly drawing their salaries from US State Department funding through a nonprofit intermediary, highlighting the sophisticated nature of America’s efforts to shape its image abroad.

The U.S. government is struggling to coordinate the volumes of information from the many agencies and departments that make up slices of the public diplomacy and strategic communications pie. Congress needs to use its oversight to evaluate the variety of agencies, set specific goals, and ensure that the vital work of public diplomacy moves forward.

The anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks in recent days has dramatically accelerated the pace at which it posts confidential State Department cables, exposing the names of people who spoke to American diplomats in confidence. The development has alarmed U.S. officials and human rights groups, who say it will endanger foreign nationals who helped the United States and make it less likely that others will do so in the future.

Using music and culture as diplomatic tools to bring people together and foster mutual understanding, The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad is the premier 21st Century showcase of traditional American musical forms. To date, 155 musicians from 40 ensembles have toured with The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad program visiting more than 100 countries on five continents.

According to McEldowney's report, "the goal of the Embassy's public diplomacy initiative is to spur debate and discussion about biotechnology, create positive public opinion, and to provide broader availability of scientific information about agricultural biotechnology to both the media and consumers...Gaining key opinion leaders' support will help increase the public's awareness...

Digital diplomats broadcast messages and multimedia, attract commenters to specially designed forums in foreign languages and monitor trending topics in an attempt to take the world’s pulse. But whether conducted online or off, public diplomacy has always been an inexact science. how do diplomats know whether their efforts are paying off?

For the first time the U.S. State Department has placed three international fellows in an LGBT organization as a part of a newly launched professional development program...Luis Melgarejo from Bolivia, Tovian Estella Nelson from Liberia, and Sam Muhumuza from Uganda....

What should President Barack Obama do next as a U.S. public diplomacy measure vis-à-vis the Arab world? As the regime in Libya crumbles to the cheers of Arab citizens across the region, the Syrian regime is still clinging to power, and even lending a voice to Libya’s fallen leader Muammar Qaddafi, who has been broadcasting defiant messages on a private pan-Arab satellite channel called Al-Oroba, which now shares its broadcasts with Syrian-based pro-regime channel Al-Rai.