Voice of America Reaches Out to Haiti

Helle Dale / January 20, 2010

While television and new technologies like Internet and cell phones are the focus of strategy at the Broadcasting Board of Governors that oversees the U.S. government’s international broadcasting assets, shortwave radio remains by far the most effective means of reaching audiences around the world, particularly in the developing countries. It is far from an outdated technology, as is sometimes allleged. A highly relevant case in point is earthquake-stricken Haiti, the poorest and most underdeveloped country in the Americas.

Since the earthquake on January 12, Voice of America has expanded its broadcasts in creole to 10.5 hour a day during the week and 9.5 hour during weekends. The international broadcaster reaches 45 different countries and has a worldwide audience of more then 125 million with 1,500 hours of news and programming weekly. The effort to reach out to Haiti is an example of a desperate need for information being filled that is not related to the Middle East or the war on terror, which has been the focus of efforts of U.S. international broadcasting in recent years. To achieve this focus, the BBG has been cutting important services (like Ukrainian, Georgian and Russian) and broadcast hours in English to increase programming to the Middle East. Yet as the case of Haiti shows, surge capacity remains critical when catastrophic events elsewhere in the world demands it. (more…)