Russia

International Broadcasting, RL, Russia, VOA

Op-Ed: From Russia with Censorship 2009 – Republished 2021

One of my commentaries on media censorship in Vladimir Putin’s Russia was first published in Digital Journal on September 16, 2009 as “Op-Ed: From Russia with Censorship.” Since then, both the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Liberty (known in Russia as Radio Svoboda) have improved their Russian coverage, but Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is now facing a defining…

Read more
Blog, Children, Highlights, History, RFE, Russia, Women

Planned assassination of a journalist linked to Polish children prisoners in Soviet Russia

Having served briefly (Dec. 2020-Jan. 2021) as Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) President and having been before Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service chief in the 1980s and VOA acting associate director in 2005/2006 in charge of central programs, I wanted to repost my 2019 Silent Refugees website’s article on how early VOA managers, editors and journalists lied about Stalin’s crimes and repeated Soviet propaganda. Fortunately, VOA no longer repeated such Soviet disinformation during the Cold War, and dropped all restrictions during the presidency of Ronald Reagan on reporting on communist human rights abuses. To their great credit, neither Radio Free Europe (RFE) nor Radio Liberty (RL) ever censored news about the Soviet Gulag, which the Voice of America occasionally did even as late as the 1970s.

A Soviet-instigated plan to kill an anti-communist woman journalist in the early years of the Cold War was linked to her attempts to tell the story of thousands of Polish children who in 1940-1941 had been deported with their families from eastern Poland to Siberia and Central Asia where many died from brutal treatment. The assassination plan was revealed in 1953-1954 by a defector to the West from communist-ruled Poland and was never carried out.

Read more
International Broadcasting, RL, Russia

Neglect of Media Freedom Contributed to 2006 Murder of a Russian Journalist

Russian President Vladimir Putin is again increasing pressure on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where I served briefly as president in December 2020-January 2021. I had worked also indirectly for RFE/RL from 1993 to 2003 in Munich Germany and at their current headquarters in Prague as International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB)-Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) regional Eurasia marketing director. Toward the…

Read more
Cold War, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Russia, VOA

George Soros’ building in NYC saw Voice of America’s early love affair with Stalin

By Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum The Argonaut Building in New York City at 224 West 57 and Broadway, where first Voice of America (VOA) radio programs were produced in 1942, is now the headquarters of Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, originally created and funded by billionaire investor and philanthropist  George Soros to help countries move…

Read more
Children, Glos Ameryki, History, OWI, Photos, Russia, VOA

Polish children refugees from Russia – silenced by Soviet and U.S. propaganda

U.S. Government Propaganda Photo (OWI – 1943) By Ted Lipien U.S. government propaganda pictures taken in 1943 by the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) photographer in Iran showed Polish children and women several months after they had come out of Soviet Russia in a mass exodus of former Gulag prisoners and their families.[ref]Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White…

Read more
Digital Journal, International Broadcasting, Public Diplomacy, RFE, RL, Russia

Op-Ed: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty can’t cope with Putin propaganda | Digital Journal

By Ted Lipien Published May 8, 2016 by Digital Journal Arguing that the United States has so far failed to invest seriously in understanding or pushing back against the problem of Russian propaganda and disinformation, Anne Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Washington Post columnist, and Edward Lucas, a senior editor at the Economist, are launching this week a counter-disinformation initiative at the Center for European Policy…

Read more
Digital Journal, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA

Op-Ed: Anti-Israel RFE/RL Facebook message may inspire terrorists | Digital Journal

By Ted Lipien Published March 28, 2016 by Digital Journal Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the independent federal agency in Washington, DC, wrote in an introduction to its Facebook post on March 25, 2016 that there is “wholesale racism” in Israel. [Emphasis added.] This stunning and, in my view, false and irresponsible message from a…

Read more
History, Poland, Russia

U.S. Responses to WWII Soviet Propaganda Against Poland

U.S. Responses to WWII Soviet Propaganda Against Poland — Lessons for Confronting Putin’s Propaganda By Ted Lipien Aggressive propaganda in support of territorial claims against other, almost always smaller and weaker nations, has been a constant feature in Soviet history. There are many similarities between Soviet propaganda and propaganda currently employed by the Kremlin against Ukraine and the West. Soviet…

Read more
Cold War, Digital Journal, Featured, History, International Broadcasting, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA

Op-Ed: Voice of America in intellectual twilight zone against Putin | Digital Journal

By Ted Lipien Published August 12, 2015 in Digital Journal The Voice of America, one of America’s taxpayer-funded weapons against Russian propaganda, had something in common with Russia’s propaganda weapon RT last week. RT (formerly Russia Today), a multimedia English-language website, still looked vastly more polished, more frequently updated and far more visually appealing than VOA’s late 20th century GI (Government…

Read more
Cold War, Glos Ameryki, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Russia, VOA

1944 Warsaw Uprising Betrayed by Pro-Stalin WWII Voice of America

August 1, 2015 marked the 71 anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Uprising, a 63-day unsuccessful operation by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. About 16,000 Polish fighters were killed and between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. After the Home Army capitulation in Warsaw, the Germans…

Read more
Cold War, Digital Journal, International Broadcasting, RFE, RL, Russia

Op-Ed: Kudos to RFE/RL | Digital Journal

By Ted Lipien Published July 31, 2015 in Digital Journal Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is one of America’s best investments in peaceful backing of freedom abroad, which brings security at home. Funded by U.S. taxpayers through the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), RFE/RL “serves as a ‘surrogate’ free press in 21 countries where the free flow of information is either…

Read more
Audio, Glos Ameryki, History, Photos, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Radio, Russia, VOA

WWII Voice of America aired Stalin propaganda to cover up his role in Katyn massacre

WWII Voice of America aired Stalin propaganda to cover up his role in Katyn massacre From deliberate pro-Stalin WWII propaganda to careless “pro-Putin bias” — Avoiding propaganda pitfalls at Voice of America By Ted Lipien Official documents declassified and released by the National Archives since 2012 show that during World War II and for years afterwards, the U.S. Government-run Voice…

Read more
Digital Journal, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA

Op-Ed: Voice of America disappoints | Digital Journal

By Ted Lipien Published May 12, 2015 by Digital Journal To no great surprise, I did not find any Voice of America English News (VOA News – voanews.com) reports posted Monday on President Putin defending the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact. The secret protocol to the non-aggression pact between the two dictators led to the outbreak of World War II and the attack on…

Read more