Tackling the Challenges of the Broadcasting Board of Governors

Helle Dale / July 14, 2010

The new Broadcasting Board of Governors, announced on Friday by the Obama White House, have their work cut out for them. For a variety of not very satisfactory reasons, the U.S. broadcasting entities (Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, et al.) on whom the federal government spends $745 million a year of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money, have been without strong leadership and management for an unconscionably long period.

Members of the board whose terms have long since expired have been doing yeoman service holding down the fort at the BBG since before President Obama took office. Yet, the assertive institutional leadership needed to face 21st century challenges has been absent. In fact, wrote Sen. Richard Lugar (R–IN) recently in The Huffington Post, “The BBG has been at full strength for only six of the past 15 years. The average seat is vacant for 460 days, and one seat has been empty for more than four years.” As an institution, it has often been a political football as Congress continues to seek some way of exerting oversight over U.S. international broadcasting. (more…)