At a time when the news is full of lives lost before their time it sometimes seems unreasonable to be saddened by the passing of a man at the age of 97, but the community of public diplomacy scholars and practitioners should pause for a moment to mark the passing of the great American public diplomat Walter R. Roberts, on June 29, 2014.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and other international broadcasters have claimed television and radio broadcasts on the Arabsat satellites have been intentionally jammed by the Ethiopian authorities. BBC, Deutsche Welle, France 24 and the US Broadcasting Board of Directors, which oversees the Voice of America, have all been affected, and have condemned the action, which they said was a “flagrant violation” of international procedures on operating satellite equipment.

The House is moving to overhaul the handful of taxpayer-funded media organizations, but critics say the changes would turn the Voice of America into a tool for pro-western propaganda. Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed a bill to make “dramatic reforms” to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees the government-backed outlets.

As governments around the world are scrambling to respond to the crisis in Ukraine, the networks of the Broadcasting Board of Governors are providing Ukrainians and Russians with extensive coverage of multilateral discussions and conversations with world leaders.

Haitian President Michel Martelly and Albanian President Bujar Nishani sat down for separate interviews Friday at the VOA headquarters in Washington, where they discussed developments at home and their participation in today’s National Prayer Breakfast.