VOA Archives - Ted Lipien

Voice of America bans calling Hamas terrorists illustration by Linas Garsys /

Congress, Featured, Hamas, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Israel, Media, Newspaper Articles, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Radio, Russia, Terrorism, Ukraine, VOA

Why I can’t be silent when Voice of America bans calling Hamas ‘terrorists’ | Washington Times op-ed by Ted Lipien

By Ted Lipien November 22, 2023

I cannot remain silent because those who refuse to expose terrorism or delay condemning it today will find themselves unable to stop it later. Ted Lipien, former Voice of America Polish Service chief during the Solidarity trade union movement’s peaceful and successful struggle for national independence and democracy in Poland. Washington Times, November 21, 2023. USAGM Watch Media Commentary If…

A clip from raw footage posted by the Voice of America in 2017 without any balance.

Congress, Featured, International Broadcasting, Media, VOA

Voice of America’s refusal to call Hamas attackers ‘terrorists’ helps to perpetuate violence | Ted Lipien in The Hill

By Ted Lipien November 12, 2023

A clip from raw footage posted by the Voice of America in 2017 without any balance. VOA’s refusal to call Hamas attackers ‘terrorists’ helps to perpetuate violence | BY TED LIPIEN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR FOR THE HILL Here is some background reading for my latest op-ed in The Hill, in which I react to how Voice of America (VOA) senior journalists,…

Cold War, Congress, Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Iran, Poland, Radio, RFE, RL, Russia, Ukraine, VOA

Why are US-funded USAGM journalists defending Russia, Iran over the Hamas massacre? – Ted Lipien Op-Ed in The Hill

By Ted Lipien October 13, 2023

My new op-ed in The Hill includes comments on the latest barbaric attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israeli civilians—defenseless Jewish women, children, and the elderly. I discuss the hard-to-understand and explain defense of propaganda and disinformation from Iran and Russia by U.S. government-managed and funded U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) journalists, including federal employees working for the Voice of America (VOA). They went…

Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia, Video, VOA

Ted Lipien Comments About Prof. Richard Pipes for a Polish Documentary Film

By Ted Lipien July 1, 2023

A documentary film, Najważniejsza jest wolność (The Most Important Thing Is Freedom), about Prof. Richard Pipes, an American academic specializing in Russian and Soviet history, who in 1981 and 1982 served as a member of the National Security Council and advisor to President Ronald Reagan, has been released in Poland. Its creators are Polish filmmakers—director, co-writer, and camera operator Roman Anusiewicz—and…

Congress, Highlights, International Broadcasting, Poland, Ukraine, VOA

VOA’s Russian influence crisis calls for congressional intervention | The Hill op-ed by Ted Lipien

By Ted Lipien June 6, 2023

Featured, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Poland, Russia, VOA, Women

WWII Pro-Soviet U.S. Government Propaganda in Polish Was Spread in Pamphlets and Voice of America Radio Broadcasts

By Ted Lipien April 6, 2023

WWII Pro-Soviet U.S. Government Propaganda in Polish Was Spread in Pamphlets and Voice of America Radio Broadcasts During World War II, the Office of War Information (OWI) produced and distributed printed propaganda material in the United States and abroad and was also responsible for the Voice of America (VOA) shortwave and medium-wave radio broadcasts for worldwide audiences. Sometime in 1942…

Cold War, Congress, Featured, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, OWI, Poland, Russia, VOA

Polish Radio Host Who Resigned from Voice of America to Avoid Broadcasting Soviet Propaganda Lies About Katyn Massacre

By Ted Lipien February 28, 2023

Cold War Radio Museum By Ted Lipien We know of only one Voice of America (VOA) journalist, Konstanty Broel Plater, who resigned from his job at the U.S. government radio station during World War II in protest against the orders from the VOA management and the editors in the Office of War Information (OWI) in New York and Washington to…

Cold War, Featured, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, RFE, VOA

From Risking Life As A Young Anti-Nazi Scout In Poland To A Cold War Broadcasting Career At Radio Free Europe and Voice of America

By Ted Lipien February 11, 2023

By Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum Marek Walicki, the former journalist of the Polish Service of Radio Free Europe and the Polish section of the Voice of America, is the author of Z Polski Ludowej do Wolnej Europy (From People’s Poland to Free Europe), Bellona, Warsaw, 2018, a memoir of his life and radio career. During World…

“Radio Broadcast Sent To Russia By State Department” photograph from the National Archives, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Description: Interior view of seven men and women taken during a radio broadcast sent to Russia from the State Department’s studios in New York. Identified as left to right: Boris Brodenov, Kathrine Elene, James Shigorin, Vladmir Postman, Mrs. Lucy Bates, Victor Franzusoff, and Mrs. Tatiana Hecker, all American citizens. Lettering on top of microphone is in Russian language. (Charles Thayer supervised the programs.) Date(s): ca. February 1947.

Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Radio, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA

Why Voice of America and BBC Had No Russian-Language Broadcasts Until After WWII?

By Ted Lipien December 29, 2022

Cold War Radio Museum By Ted Lipien A partial answer to the question of why the Voice of America (VOA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had no Russian-language radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union until after the end of World War II can be found in the biography of William Benton by Sidney Hyman. William Benton (1900–1973) was a…

Cold War, Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Religion, Russia, VOA, VOA80

Religious Programs at the Voice of America

By Ted Lipien December 8, 2022

Anti-communist atheist Bertram D. Wolfe discovered that Voice of America (VOA) English writers could not write persuasively about religion in communist-ruled nations in the early 1950s. Religious programming was then and continues to be a challenge for VOA’s American-born officials and broadcasters, partly because of the wrongly perceived separation of church and state concerns and partly because of a certain…

Featured, Highlights, Media, VOA

Voice of America – USAGM Management Censored News to Protect Communist Vietnam — Radio Free Asia Did Not

By Ted Lipien November 20, 2022

USAGM Watch Commentary As reported by Paul Farhi in the Washington Post on Tuesday, the Voice of America (VOA) management in the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which is now headed by a former VOA Director, Amanda Bennett, removed a news story that embarrassed Vietnam’s prime minister. The removal of the story by the Voice of America was requested…

Cold War, Featured, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Poland, Public Diplomacy, Radio, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA

A Book for Experts and Students of Cold War History

By Ted Lipien October 3, 2022

Mark Pomar’s new book about the Cold War political radio could help American government officials unfamiliar with the history of U.S. international broadcasting. Mark Pomar’s book Cold War Radio [Mark G. Pomar, Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2022), Amazon Link] is, in my…

Voice of America Director Evelyn S. Lieberman (1997-1999). VOA Photo.

Featured, Highlights, International Broadcasting, Photos, Public Diplomacy, VOA, Women

With Voice of America Director Evelyn Lieberman in Russia

By Ted Lipien August 29, 2022

Evelyn May Lieberman (née Simonowitz; July 9, 1944 – December 12, 2015) was the Director of the Voice of America (VOA) from 1997 until 1999 during the Clinton administration. She was the first woman to serve as White House Deputy Chief of Staff and was the first United States Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. It was Lieberman who transferred former…

Cold War, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, Poland, Radio, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA, VOA80

Jamming Was a Sign of Effectiveness of Western Broadcasts

By Ted Lipien June 10, 2022

Soviet jamming was a sign of the effectiveness of Western radio broadcasts. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were consistently jammed. The Voice of America was jammed only during some periods. Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum In his book Operation Suicide: “Those Strange Bridges to Communism,” published in 1967, American journalist Eugene Lyons, a former communist sympathizer who interviewed Joseph Stalin…

Cold War, Featured, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Poland, Radio, Russia, VOA, VOA80

Beware of Government Propaganda “Experts”

By Ted Lipien June 10, 2022

Disinformation governance by government propaganda experts can be dangerous, judging by the record of the early officials in charge of the Voice of America and journalists duped by Soviet propaganda. As the Voice of America (VOA), the United States government’s radio station for international audiences, observes its eightieth anniversary in 2022, it may surprise some Americans, assuming they have heard…