VOA’s Austin Warns Other Nations on Web Censorship
Voice of America Director Danforth Austin Speaks at Media Conference in Bonn, Germany
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/2/2008 1:00:00 PM
The head of Voice of America, the U.S. government's international broadcasting arm, advised other countries Monday that they must be on guard for Web censorship and "influence operations" disguised as journalism, and that they must protect journalists' rights to gather information without fear of overzealous courts.
In a speech to a media conference in Bonn, Germany, VOA director Danforth Austin called for "a legal environment that provides a degree of protection for journalists," saying that there should be a body of media law that includes "open-meeting laws, freedom-of-information statutes and transparency in the workings of government."
And while he generally framed his comments in the context of other countries that use the media to "mislead and manipulate," some of his comments could have easily resonated with those dealing with domestic media issues including alleged Internet-content blocking and the Defense Department's embedded analyst program.
Austin talked about the fundamental change digital media has wrought and the openness the United States should be demonstrating to those that it wishes to educate.
"The days of shortwave-radio broadcasts produced offshore and beamed to information-deprived masses yearning to breathe free are waning," Austin said, according to a copy of the speech released by VOA. "But the same inexpensive software and hardware that enables citizens to reach across borders empower those who want to censor content. There's no need, for example, to invest in expensive jamming equipment if a simple software program launching a denial-of-service attack will do."
Denial-of-service programs have been central to the debate over what constitutes reasonable network management versus censorship in this country.
But it should be no surprise that Austin's message could be applied both at home and abroad. "There is no longer any technical distinction between a domestic broadcast and a worldwide one," he told his audience.
Among the suggestions Austin gave for promoting the more responsible use of old and new media was one that hit particularly close to home in the wake of The New York Times’ story about the Pentagon's concerted effort to get its Iraq War message out via TV-news analysts.
"There is another area in which I believe we can promote responsibility," he told his audience, "and that is in rigidly enforcing the dividing line between government-financed efforts to inform people and government-financed attempts to influence and even mislead a population without revealing that government's involvement or motives.”
"The Voice of America does not do propaganda," he pointed out, adding, "Neither do other international broadcasters that recognize that credibility with an audience is the most powerful tool they have and that reporting news accurately and fairly in order to help people reach their own decisions is an end, not a means."
Then he turned the glass inward. "If we draw the line between honest, fair reporting and analysis and ‘influence operations’ that are disguised as journalism, we show the world what it means to be responsible. We also give the people of the world, who often know propaganda when they see it, a clear choice of whom to believe and whom to ignore or reject. "
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