Former Voice of America (VOA) Russian-Spanish freelance news reporter Pablo Rubtsov González was greeted in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin after exchange for American journalists imprisoned and held as hostages in Russia. Had I stayed at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty #RFERL, I would have continued to work for the release of imprisoned reporters and warned others in no uncertain…
End the culture of corruption at the US Agency for Global Media | Ted Lipien | THE HILL
In my new op-ed in THE HILL, I explain how U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) leaders and their careless or calculated personnel policies and disregard for employee and institutional security have undermined an institution that helped to win the Cold War. I was part of the winning team as a journalist and media executive. Since then, the agency’s leaders,…
The Hill Op-ed Against Anti-Semitism in Media and Walter Durnaty-Style Journalism at USAGM’s Voice of America (VOA)
USAGM Watch Commentary In his latest op-ed in The Hill, former Voice of America (VOA) acting associate director Ted Lipien, who also served briefly in 2020-2021 as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) president, quotes his former VOA Polish Service colleague, Jewish-American writer Henryk Grynberg: “the president of a leading American university cannot apologize for her lack of basic human values”…
Why I can’t be silent when Voice of America bans calling Hamas ‘terrorists’ | Washington Times op-ed by Ted Lipien
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…
Voice of America’s refusal to call Hamas attackers ‘terrorists’ helps to perpetuate violence | Ted Lipien in The Hill
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,…
Why are US-funded USAGM journalists defending Russia, Iran over the Hamas massacre? – Ted Lipien Op-Ed in The Hill
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…
Ted Lipien Comments About Prof. Richard Pipes for a Polish Documentary Film
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…
I’m fortunate to have found and bought a rare autographed copy of Black Man in Red Russia by African American journalist Homer Smith Jr. He was a 20th-century fighter for freedom and human dignity who deserves to be admired and remembered by more people, as I wrote about him in a newspaper article. There is more information about Homer Smith…
WWII Pro-Soviet U.S. Government Propaganda in Polish Was Spread in Pamphlets and Voice of America Radio Broadcasts
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…
Polish Radio Host Who Resigned from Voice of America to Avoid Broadcasting Soviet Propaganda Lies About Katyn Massacre
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…
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 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…
Why Voice of America and BBC Had No Russian-Language Broadcasts Until After WWII?
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…
Religious Programs at the Voice of America
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…
Protecting Communists from Embarrassment: A History of Censorship at the Voice of America
There is a long history of censorship at the Voice of America, which shows how easily some VOA leaders, editors, and journalists were duped by propaganda from communist and other authoritarian regimes. During World War II and in some periods of the Cold War, the VOA management protected Stalin. Today’s VOA leaders protected from embarrassment Vietnam’s communist Prime Minister Pham…