we can't just leave it. one of the most powerful ways though to project american values and help our friends around the world is to explore the first amendment by broadcasting truthful journalism. because the united states is one of the relatively fu nations around the world where there is no state broadcast on the air, few americans realize this the voice of america is one of the most influential media organizations on the planet. because in november, this past november, voa's parent agency issued its annual report of global audiences. in the past four year, boa's audience has grown 40%. to almost 188 million people a week. they listen to, watch or read voa on everything from short wave radio to satellite television from smart phone apps to facebook and twitter.

this robust growth has come despite budget cuts in real terms. it is also come despite basic problems with the government's structure over voa and its sister entities. the idea behind it was laudable. to create a fire wall protecting the independence of the journalism from interference by policymakers. but ask yourself this question. how can nine busy people run a large, complex collection of companies as a part time activity? the bbg has had difficulty sometimes playing an effective executive decision making role. it has not helped that the white house and the senate have opted -- bbg chairman jeff shell and the current board understand the structural problem and what

to do with it. they rightly want to get out of the business of running u.s. international broadcasting month to month. the bbg's recent appointment of a full time executive officer for u.s. international media is an excellent first step in my view because what's needed is a full time professional boss. but john lancing, the seasoned media manager, who's in that role now, now needs legislation giving him clear authority over all budgets and all personnel. unfortunately, there is a bill currently before the house of representatives which unless amended, could actually make things worse. the current draft of hr 2323 would create yet another board and yet another ceo to oversee three of boa's sister entities, radio for europe, free asia and a middle east broadcasting network. so, now, there would be two separate and competing u.s.

civilian broadcasting efforts. there would be a needless duplication of oversight and management players. it would exacerbate an unhealthy rivalry over funding and market roles during the radio frees and voice of america. furth furth furth furthermore, to only cover news relating to the yit or u.s. policies. that would be a poise p pill. it would be a recipe for declining audiences and impact. instead of confrontation and divorce, what we need is a model of collaboration between voa and it sister organizations. we need more projects like the russian language tv show current time, which was created after the seizure of crimea.

the show has anchors in washington and prague. it's coproduced by -- and voa. seen on 29 stations in nine countries and almost 2 million are able to download it, stream it off the internet or see it on satellite television. neither rmb or voa could have done this project alone. it takes collaboration. i would urge those interested to take a look at the bill and let your representatives and senators know what you think. i understand there's an argument being made in recent days by some that somehow, it might not be acceptable or legal for a federal ceo to oversee the independent grantees. the point is this. john lancing is not an administration federal appointee. he was chosen by a bipartisan

board. he's protected by a political fire wall at the bbbg represents and i think accountability to a full time professional with oversight of the whole effort would be good for everybody. and good for our country. let me turn now for a few minutes to what i think is a key request in our fast changing media world. what should voa and its sister entities be? in a digital world where broadcasters like rt pedal half truths, spin and disinformation, is journalism done with the old fashioned goals of objectivity and balance still the answer or is it time to advocate for government policies as many of the newer state broadcasters are already doing. this is not a new debate. it's been revisited many times since voa's founding as alan's excellent history of voa tells us, but once again in recent

years, a number of influential voices have called for voa to be a full throated advocate rather than journalistic. for this paper i've been working on for the last few months at harvard, i took a look at the two models in the marketplace. comparing voa and the bbc world service with newer channels that advocate and spin for their governments. i looked at some data on russia's rt. china's cctv and coverage by al jazera arabic and how that played out for them. if the goal is to seek to influence public in strategic places around the world, i would say the evidence is pretty clear. influence is a difficult thing to measure. but rest assured, without measurable audience, it will not happen. rt, for example, claims a worldwide reach of 700 million people.

but that claim is deliberately misleading. the russians are using potential audience reach as their metric. in other words, every single person who sits underneath a satellite which has the rt signal on it or who has a cable menu of hundreds of stations available to them, one of which is rt, counts in that 700 million. no one in the business uses that metric. it is meaningless. what we professionals measure is actual audience. thus, the voa audience estimate of 188 million is based on careful polls and others as is the bbc world service estimate that has a worldwide audience of 300 million people per week. now, after the shooting down of a malaysian air jet over ukraine, the world reported on the mounting evidence that the weapon used was russian made and could have been fired by a town of russian rebels.

rt in those early days, cranked out a new theory on who could have been responsible for every news cycle. maybe it was the ukrainians trying to shoot down president putin's plane. maybe it was a cio conspiracy. if the goal was confusion, rt's approach may have been partially successful. but if the goal was credibility with lots of people, not so much. rt has not put up detailed evidence, there are some numbers out there. rt was 175, it had object 120,000 viewers. as rt's coverage became one sided and shrill, that number dropped. a year later, it was 90,000.

less than two tenths of 1% of the u.k. viewing population. in the united states, rt claims a solid audience, but doesn't make public day to tabak that claim up. a few years ago, a nielsen press official told one reporter that rt's america audience is too small to be measured. china's cctv with a budget in the multiple billions of dollars, has poured money into broadcasting in aftrica. yet, the results also appear to so far have been relatively disappoi disappointing. for example, data gathered for the bbg from kenya in 2013 showed 52% of kenyans watching a local channel called citizen tv. 17% watching cnn and bbc and 2% watching cctv tat market this that time. in egypt, when al jazera air bik moved to favor the muslim

brotherhood, it lost a substantial share of its audience rapidly to some newer egyptian channels, but also to bbc arabic, so i'm not sure that the americansaganda any way, bu on the air is not only the right thing to do, it's also the best business strategy from the voice of america and other broadcasters funded by the united states government. now, of course, that means telling the truth. even about us. coverage of the abu grave scandal, the snowden revelations, protests in missouri, that coverage was and had to be thorough. complete. each time voa reporters explain how this country deals with its challenges, their journalism amount to a civics lesson. that's more powerful than

propaganda could be. after four years at the helm, i have a lot of specific suggestions about how to build impact and audiences in specific markets. from what we call denied areas like russia, china and iran to more mature markets like indonesia, latin america, to key growth areas like africa. but i'd rather get to questions and discussion, to i think i'm going to just say those points i have to make on all those markets and what could be done in my view are summarized in the paper, which can you find on the website at harvard's kennedy school of government, but briefly, we can do much more to influence our world for the better. but we will need to set up a clear leadership structure and we will need to more adequately fund both international broadcasting and public diplomacy. back in 1961, president john f.

kennedy recruited the famed journalist to advise him on policy and to run usia. perhaps president obama or his successor should hire an information adviser who is similarly experienceded. in the age of rt and isis online recruiting in our digital age,s it's time for our country to more engage in our marketplace of ideas. we should not delay. thank you. >> thank you, david. i see one hand. good afternoon. my name is arnold. journalist in china and you've mentioned russia, you've mentioned isis. you've mentioned middle east. afghanistan. you haven't said anything about

china. i wonder if you can assess the impact of china in the so-called information war, especially with the recent discussion by president xi, of inserting the factor of sovereignty into the internet. >> well, china and the recent years, has taken the whole subject of self-power very seriously. there are you know, reportedly having a sign of a budget of over $7 billion to various kinds of projects in what we would call public diplomacy and broadcasting. yp i don't know if you've ever seen the headquarters of cctv, but it's one of the most extraordinary pieces of architecture and clearly not cheap. there are scores of con fu shouse institutes that have been

set up around the world. so china takes it very seriously. they read jonai from harvard, who coined the term, soft power, they read his books carefully and quote them back in conversations about the matter. what the problem for them is that at least in my view and i'm you know, you've got my resume, you know what i'm coming from. the truth is more powerful than propaganda will ever be and if you look at for example, i was talking kenya, the market, the numbers for cctv in kenya. looking at some of the coverage and talking to people who have looked at much more of it, you know, the chinese were telling their african employees who worked on station you can't mention the name of countries that have relations with taiwan. you know, countries in africa. they can't even be mentioned on

the air or when you doing a story about ivory poaching, you must not mention the chinese demand side. so, you end up with journalism that's desiccated. it didn't truthful and i think as long as they don't face up to the fact that that doesn't really sell all that well, they're going to have a problem and we don't have to spend $7 billion to compete with them because our project is a better one. with that said, it worries me. the size of the budgets. the you know, some of my colleagues who at abc and cnn, very good people. are now working for cctv. they can afford the best. they have terrific production values, snazzy sets. they have no, no money to spare terms of distribution from

satellites and so forth. so, it's a formidable effort by china and they have the long view. so, they are a competitor that i respect and have certain strengths. i just wish we would become a bit more of a competitor, too. but we've got to get serious about i, which is the point i'm trying to make in this speech. we used to be good at this. and the world is changing really rapidly right now. ways in which human beings communicate with each other are proliferating and changing daily. we need to be honest. so honest. and we're not. in my view. >> hi, wondering if you could comment on the seeming dichotomy between putting more money in social media when that is the easiest format for countries around the world to close off, build a fire wall or smaller

firewall so you can never reach the designed audience. what's the dichotomy between that and the other half? >> well, if you know, if broadcasting satellite, things that are more difficult to block. in other words, if -- you could shutt twitter off or facebook with a flip of the switch in any country of the world if you desire. >> not quite as simple as that. this is something he works on pretty word. the bbc spends, i don't know the exact budget, per year, but it's millions. multiple millions. ten or 12, i think. 17. 17 million. on internet circumvention efforts of various kinds. and it funds a continuous effort, hourly effort, if not faster by certain companies that are good at this to set up work

arounds so that young chinese people and others around the world can still get freely on to the internet despite the great fire wall and to shut things down in china and other countries. is that enough? no, it's not enough. but it means that for example, voa, there were new numbers not too long ago and the number of people in china who reach voa materials weekly, you know, is i think it's well over 2 million now. okay, it's a huge country. you might say that's not many, but it's not an insignificant audience. if we work at it, probably put a little more robust funding and clearness of leadership and direction, we could do a lot more than that. you know, 2 million people in china. that's worth, that's an audience worth reaching, so, i wouldn't say that it's not worth the money.

to be on the, to be trying to reach people in china and other countries on the internet or for that matter, through social media. that said, doing that alone is clearly not a public diplomacy strategy. i'm a big believer in some of the more traditional levers that we've all used. when don bishop and i were in afghanistan, we greatly increased the number of full bright scholarships. that brings people to our country. you know, who are going to have an experience that they'll take back with them. it changes people forever. i think many people know examples of the difference that makes. how many world leader, national leaders, have had that kind of exchange experience or studied at one of our universities. programs encouraging that sort of thing are deep and power l. we need to do those as well.

the point of your question is that we shouldn't just put our eggs in the social media basket, i agree. on the other hand, we should be in that basket big time. >> thank you. >> first of all, david, congratulations on your career, great career. secondly, tribute to max capis who died the last forum, the day before he died. working to improve things. my question is, how do you solve the problem like the donald. the image we project now is trump and ted cruz and this is the man who might become president. how do you -- diplomacy with people who encourage hatred?

>> thanks for the temptation to get into politics, i'm going to forgo the pleasure, however. i am worried about the tone of the debate that we are hearing thus far and the way it resognates yore seas as i know many of the people in the room realize, which can be quite negative. but we're going to have to buckle up our seat belts because it's probably going to bet bumpier before we have a president-elected. i think that's just the kind of thing we have to keep emphasizing to foreign audiences, as well as domestic ones, that in the heat of the campaign, a lot of things get said. what the next president will do. that's what matters. there's more heat than light in american presidential campaign many times. but it's, but you're kind of, you're asking me to go rather beyond where i want to go today. to be honest. thanks for asking. should by pointing to people?

>> ken. is is it very coherent and per swat presentation, thank you. it sounded out like you said we need a kinder, gentler information effort, that is not a war of ideas, but a marketplace, but i recall the war of ideas coming out of the nfc and the white house because we had these gentle arts and education programs, which didn't have a policy content. there was no point. then we needed something harder, more muscular. i wonder if we're going the move to something which you seem to suggest that we don't need to spend more money on because this, the efforts that come out of the pent fwoagon. the secret fundinging of new sources, this would be closeded down or is this something which is also worthy. is this something you're arguing against? >> what i'm trying to say is my

opinion, all of that other stuff you just mentioned, the gray programs, if you will, that's all part of an information policy for a country. i mean, our country has white, gray and black programs in the area of information. and what we don't have is someone in overall charge of it who thinks about how these things relate the each other. froms we should. we should have, this is a serious matter. it should be handle d at a high level. there should be people doing it full time. that's my main point. the other point is it's w underreresourced. also including frankly, various kinds of messaging that other agencies may be involved in. we're just not taking this seriously enough. it's not well enough thought through or funded. that's what i strongly believe.

>> going back to your idea of having one person in charge. you said overseas, you have violent extremists recruiting in other countries and it would be best to leave them to take the -- extremism message. i get back to the question, here in the united states, we have massive recruiting among smallys in minneapolis, to go join these terrorist movements and yet, we were all raised, can't violate this fire wall. do you see a role for this one person in charge going across into domestic messaging out of the white house or where ever it is? is that doable or how would you score that circle? i'm aware of an exchange student right now who is actually get ing harassed. we who are field officers would send people back to the states and he just said it's a wonderful experience, would change their lives.

what happen to a young muslim student who comes to the united states and in fact has a bad experience? are we failing to message the american people about what needs to be done? that's the tough question. i'm going to give it to you. >> on the first half, i don't think i can help much on the second half. that's very regrettable and there needs to be work on various fronts by leadership in this country to try to minimize the number of times that happens. most people come have a good ek appearance, but it's terrible when someone doesn't. but on the first point about smith monten separation, you may or may not be aware that a couple of years ago, congress quietly amended it to basely reflect reality. the internet had kind of made an ass of the law, let's be honest. the law said for example on voice of america, thou shalt not broadcast to the united states, period. but all you had to go was go on

a website and click and you had a live stream of our somalia service. what's wrong with that? congress thought so, too. so, in a recognition of reality and a very sensible move u, they amended it to say that if a broadcaster asks you, you can offer them broadcasts. no. set up a system under which that can be done. so, you're now beginning to be able to hear voa somalia in minnesota and creole in florida and other broadcasts that are not designed for u.s. domestic consumption and not one dollar is spent for coverage aimed at this country. yeah. i guess i would say this. we need to think this through. yes, i think there are, the

concept of national barriers is getting weaker all the time. and we need to face that reality. technology's moving ahead. an and many of the platforms we now broadcast on, talk op, communicate on, are global in nature. they don't respect borders. so, our strategy should reflect that reality. and the amendment is probably i think you're implying, i think you're right, probably just one step of a number that ought to be made to make it easier to address the global audience. the somalias in minnesota are somalias, too, as well as americans, and they can be influential on people who might be recruited. so, it's really a global problem. needs a global solution. very much agree with that underlying sentiment i get from your question. >> yes, thank you very much. my name is is greta morris, i'm a retired diplomacy officer.

you've mentioned a couple of times the need for overall and very strong and capable leadership of the u.s. information effort. and of course mentioned edward h. murrah and i'm just wondering what you see as the ideal profile for a director of that, a leader of that effort. and secondly, should that be a whole of government effort or are we talking about someone at the state department or nsc or perhaps overall the various entities that are a part of this information effort. >> i appreciate your question. i feel a little uncomfortable. might be presumption of me to put my own architecture up there and say, this is what it should be. i think better heads than mine can figure this out. i would say one thing.

i think that the next president needs an information policy adviser who's in all the meetings. and then maybe it's a question of just having the right structure. i talk ed about structure over t the bbc. i very strongly believe that one full time boss is what the broadcasting entities need. i know that many on the other, from the others, from the grantees are nervous about that. afraid they'll sort of be corralled into a federal space where they feel they don't belong. i would just say that i don't think that would be a problem. and i think the challenges our country faces abroad are so large now. in the information area. that we really don't have the luxury of having lots of people running off old corrections. we need a clearly well led effort. and i think the radio free is

going to contribute a lot from where they are. and should continue to do so. but under a full time professional boss who kind of makes it all work in a cohesive way, i mentioned the current time show, you know, it took leadership from folks at the bbg to help get to where they could do that and shows better than either network could have produced and has a larger audience. it's not perfect. it's not enough. those kinds of efforts are only possible if you have one board, one ceo, un fied structure and everybody pulls in the same direction. i'm less expert on the state department diplomacy side, although i did serve in the embassy as a public service officer and very proud to have done so. i have some views on what works and what doesn't in that area. if you look at what the budget

was when usia handed it over to the state department, it's smaller now. many years later when the dollar isn't worth what it was. why is that the case? it should not be. if anything, it's getting more important, not less. so, i think the leadership of the state department needs to look closely at this and really sould should put a higher priority on it and we should have an undersecretary who stays for a while. we have one now who wants to stay and that's wonderful. there have been too much turnover in the job. i'll say that. yeah. >> thank you for your comments. monty mcghee, i work with the state department, but i'm not here speaking on behalf, i'm speaking for myself. i really enjoyed both of your pieces. the fb as well as the more in depth part of the piece. i wanted to go back to a point that was made earlier, but address anytime a little bit of a different way. this idea of new media versus

traditional. you focus a lot on the idea of a shrinking budget and the need to investment. what i'm interested to know is given the fact that much of the next generation, is under an age where traditional media would be to look for their news and information. and new media, social media platforms are where many people get their information. now, so, can you help me understand how reinvesting more into traditional media is actually where our dollars should go as opposed to accountinging for where the current and future information will be signed? >> if you took from my remarks that i think traditional media is where we should put our eggs,

then i didn't explain it properly. i do not believe that. i believe that each market, people used to ask me, what's your overall strategy at voa? i've got 45, which one do you want to talk about. 45 language services. in north korea, yeah, short wave radio is probably the best thing. there may be a little bit of medium wave along the border and so forth. at night, you can get people that way, but basically, there's not much more that's going to work in north korea. but in russia, where putin has thrown international broadcasters off of their partnerships with tv and radio stations around federation, clearly, an internet strategy aimed at mostly young people is our best and main way of reaching people in the russian federation. that said, as i said, there's television, radio, music partners, getting things on to youtube, getting clips out of shows on youtube every day. stimulating, thought provoking. you need a strategy that's

different for each market. in latin america, while i was director, when i arrived, we had about 3 million listeners or viewers in latin america. we now have over 30 million. because we, i don't claim credit for this, my predecessors thought this up, but i helped enact. we went to a new strategy. we recognized that latin america has most markets, mature media. they're doing the news. they don't want us to do it for them. however, if you go to tvs tech owe mexico and you say, that's a great evening news show you have there. we notice you don't cover the country to your north though very much. why is that? could we help you with that? maybe have somebody perhaps mexican born, who went to an american journalism school and now works at voa who will cover whatever suspect within reason you want covered. maybe on your evening news every night for three or four minutes.

people vujump at that. so, that's a mature market strategy that is paying dividends in latin america, indonesia, ukraine, believe it or not and many other markets. it depends where you're looking. in northern nigeria, the housing service. very, very strong service. has for years had a solid audience in the millions. short wave radio broadcasts. that is dyingi ining off and the of short wave satellite is dropping at the moment. so, what has the service done? launched a mobile app in house. with news and sports and various other sort of lifestyle features, stuff about america. that click on your phone. the app figures out what kind of phone you have.

the last figures i saw, we're losing something like 2 million and gains 2.5 million or so on emotional app, so, you've got to move to the place where the market's going and where the young people are going because they're going to be the audience for long and voa is doing that with proper funding. with more robust funding, a lot more could and should be done. but no, i don't think we should be bias in favor traditionally. i will say this. a lot of people around this town talk about new media as the answer to everything. the biggest audience growth over the last four years is old fashioned television. you know. old media. and there's a tremendous amount of growth still possible on traditional media. radio and television. fm radio. done right, it's powerful media. and it will remain so around the world for a long time. so, we have a little bit of a tendency to see the world's

media through an american lens. and you know, it's like surfing. you've got ride the wave. don't want to be too far ahead of it or behind it. you've got to be on it. as people's tastes change or as they, as the ways in which they wish to consume news change. you've got to be right there with them. that's why i believe in very much relying on language service heads and division directors letting them figure out in each place and keep a hard eye on what's happening. you know, what's the best way to reach people. and i think we had a lot of success because we delegated those kinds of decisions as much possible to people who really knew the markets, so i hope that will continue under my success or. >> i rarely come to these sessions while i speak. in the mid 1970s, i was working

in poland. soon after coming back, our ambassador was richard t. days. officers would actually done a a tour of tuty and when i got back here, the ambassador and i were invited to speak at a community gathering out in chevy chase one ooempk and that is all time ago, must have been in 1980 or '81. someone in the audience said, isn't there a lot of waste and duplication, having this separate u.s. information agency? why isn't its functions folded into the state department and a lot of money. mind you, this was well before we were sold up u as a cold war dividend. dick davesiies said i'm a caree officer, i served a tour of duty

in u.s. he had been director for eastern europe and the soviet union and he said, i assure you, that is a terrible idea because the tate department doesn't have the slightest interest in the programs tharmanaged by the u.s. information agency. not the slightest interest. now, i think he was right. i think the state department has very little interest and here we are in the center of the american foreign services. most of the people in that association are current state department officers. we have a problem right in our own tent. most of our colleagues don't give a whip about the functions that we perform. david had said, i'll try to -- david has said there's not enough money than when the merger took place.

we need to do all of the above, but we can't with less money and it should be obvious one of the things david is saying is we need a different management structure. yeah. the question i have is when do we as a group, i think most of the people in this room are former public diplomacy officers. when do we begin to recognize that a major problem exists with a key audience with whom we are closely associated? the american foreign services. how do we begin to get at career foreign service people so they have a better understanding of the need for this function and its increase importance in today's world. >> in different parts of the department, there are very different levels of sophistication about this issue you've just been talking about and part of it is simply that

broadcasting is more or less effective in different places than you know people are aware of that. the africa bureau, for example, is clean ly keenly aware becaus it is considerably in africa. voice of america is a big deal in africa. when i traveled there, went to mali, nigeria, senegal, i was received well. because i wasn't director of the voice of america. it was a big deal. the government of mali handed me the keys to a new fm transmitter on the hill high over the city and said, please, we want you to be part of the mix here. here, maybe this will help. it sure did. all of a sudden, we had a big, clear signal over the whole capital city. it was terrific. but themted us there. they saw the power of what we do. they wanted to be, they wanted their people to hear what american journalism sounds like. in their own languages. and folks at the embassy totally got that. we've even in one or two cases in africa, have been able to work with ambassadors who were

willing to have our transmitters and towers put inside the embassy come poun and at least one case, that meant we were the only people left on the air during a coup attempt and we were able to provide three times, i'm told, this has happened. so, working closely with public affairs officers and ambassadors from around africa, has been profitable for our country. and i would love to see similar types of collaboration with other parts, with other areas. area experts around the department. i work for the department. i'm a great believer in the american foreign service. i have the honor to be amongst them to lead some and be led by others. i'm a huge fan. you know.

but they have a lot of things to do. and they cannot be worried about what broadcasts say. in addition to trying run diplomacy of this country. most of them don't want to either. so, i do agree with you when you're underlying point that there needs to be a separation. it's healthy for there to be so, but i think at the management level, which is is where i was as director, there's a lot of collaboration and cooperation that can go on between state department and international broadcasting to the mutual benefit of both and particularly, the benefit of our country. >> thank you for your presentation. i was very interested by what you said about russia and russia today and, which is active in europe at the moment and was struck by the fact that you said that in terms of creating confusion, russians have been pretty effective. maybe not in being totally convincing about what they say, but they have created this

confusion and i'm wondering if it's not in fact the main measure, the major danger now in europe that there is a lot of confusion about where our alliances lie. there is a lot of confusion where we should go in terms of political power and there is a lot of fascination for putin and for the russian authoritarian path, as you know, so, i'm wondering what is to be done in europe? why is it more effective in cold war, the information of the u.s. and what should be done now? thank you. >> that's a big question. i'm trying to think of how i can add value. it's such a big question. one i care passionately about as well, like you.

i mean, i think and its a alleys get together on the subject of prafting in russia broadcasting in russia as an example. i think it would be crewsful for the united states and its allies to get, the leaders of the big broadcasters -- and the others, to try to figure out if there isn't something we could together do or do perhaps in clb ration with someone in the private sector. what's needed i think is a russian language satellite television channel that is popular. it has the right sports events on it. the right soap operas on it. the right entertainment broadcasting. and also has news and

information programming prepared by in some caseses, our companies. would also air perhaps voa programs or radio free europe programs or -- programs. in amongst a diet of really popular programminging. i don't think it's beyond our governments to figure out how to make sure such an entity got gret sporting coverage and good ramming choices, so, i would love to see us get together as we do on other issues and figure something out. t the, a kem pet tor to kremlin tv that has eye candy on it. that pulls in an audience and that tells the truth. shocking concept. about what's fwing on in ukraine, elsewhere in the world. so, i've had conversations like this with some of my european friends and not all of them are

keen to be part of the club, if you will. many like to go it alone. but this is a pretty big issue and i'm not sure that going it alone is going to be as successful as working together might be. so, i'm no longer in office. that's why i can stand up here and say whatever i feel like, which is great fun, but those in office, and i was there recently, it's a tough matter. it would take leadership atop the government level to get something like to this happen, but i would like to see it. a station based in kiev or -- that was 24/7 and had programming that russians really wanted to see on satellite. the number of russians who have a satellite dish and would at the moment get that program is is not all that large. but they are there.

and if the programming was also streamed on the internet, you'd have a decent audience. quite decent audience in major cities among young people and it would be impossible for the kremlin to ignore and i think overtime, it could change the conversation in russia. in ways that would be useful. so, there's just one idea. and i have more. but you know, that was one of the ideas on the paper. just a concept. don't know exactly how to put it together. it would depend. would there be a wealthy perscripti person who wants to set up such a station somewhere that these governments could help a bit? might be in everybody's interest. we're in for a long haul here. in information in the battle of ideas. please.

>> i used to be a pao once upon a time. as you've talked about funding, excuse me, one of the things i rook back at look back at your career with with envy as the uber pao in afghanistan, was you were running a team that had 30 americans, including three full-time qualified grant offices. >> yes. that's right. >> and a budget of over $150 million. >> that's right. >> five years later, could you look back at the things that worked, maybe the things that you and your team would have been wanted to do dirvfferently but more importantly are there any lessons that you learned from that experience that you would suggest to the poor undefunded paos that don't have $150 million in counterterrorism funding? >> gosh, yeah.

it was, i think, the biggest budget ever for public diplomacy ever. it was a privilege to be there. all the afghans loved me as a result, which was nice. i was trying to do in a very short time as much as possible for our country to make a difference, to help the afghan government, to help the afghan people feel that there was change in their lives, and to make them aware of the u.s. intense desire to be helpful. you're asking me sort of what worked and what lessons did i learn. you know, it's going to take probably quite some years -- historians will probably analyze what really worked and what didn't. i think one thing that worked was the program that we -- we put out a grant to the -- we said, dear marketplace, we're looking for a company that will

do -- that will set up a social media platform for poor people, basically, a simple basic thing that you can use on your very basic phone to send messages. the way i described it was i want the kandahar fruit seller to be able to tell what price he'll be able to pay for green melon at 6:00 a.m. i want something like that that will help the family business because that's what this country needs to build itself back up on. none of the big four companies there wanted to do it. i'm not so sure. we're going to put $3 million of america's money on the line to see if you're right or not. we'll bet. well, that company that was set up by afghan americans from northern virginia who were

working for telecoms is a very successful company now in afghanistan. in fact, when i was working on the harvard paper, i thought about doing a broader paper. i called one of the guys from the company. he was in myanmar. i said what are you doing in myanmar. he said, we're setting up here. now it's hungry for more. and going to places that all need it like myanmar. so that was a very, i think, successful effort. it was more popular -- i don't know if it still is -- but it was a more popular platform than facebook in afghanistan. it also became the lonely hearts base of operations. it changed society in some interesting ways. let's see.

i think bringing sesame street to afghanistan was powerful not only because it teaches the abcs to little kids, but it teaches their mothers and their fathers as well. i thought it was a great contribution to the afghan future. we did, as i mentioned, doubled scholarshipe scholarships. we also fell on our faces a number of times. i don't even want to talk about it. but the ambassadors that sent me there said, we're hiring you to do this because you're not in the system. you're not trying to make ambassador and you will take risks. you can afford to make more risks than some of our other very fine officers can, so go ahead. fail. try to be more successful than not. and we did fail sometimes. we built one tower in particular

that really went nowhere. we also built a lot of towers that have been very, very useful and have made a big difference for the country. it was a mixed bag. we were in a mad hurry. another thing that i worked on that i thought was important and this is maybe relevant particularly to public affairs officers in the middle east area or in muslim countries -- it took me almost a year to convince state department lawyers and others, who were rightly worried about it, that we should be allowed to pay for programs that would take afghan imams and other civic leaders out of the country on programs that would allow them to meet with their co-religionists at the university in cairo or in jakarta or in other places where muslims gather and be reminded of what a great world religion

islam. the narrow-minded cul-de-sac that the taliban pushed them into was not islam. that program, once we did get permission to do it, take a dozen here, take a dozen there. you take a 25-year-old from afghanistan to cairo for a week and expose him to some of the great minds of islam. he's never the same again. it was a conversation that needed to go on among muslims and all we had to do was facilitate it. it was greatly in our interests and i'm so glad we did it. we now do quite a few things like this. that's very, very wise spending public diplomacy in my opinion. lawyers were worried about separation of church and state. understandably. we did have to work our way through these issues. we ended up defining the people we were sending on trips as community activists, which they

were, and we ended up broadening the pool to include mayors and deputy mayors and others that were leaders in communities. all good. so we got to where we needed to be. it took awhile, but now that we're there i would other public diplomacy officers to look at those kinds of programs. i think they're valuable. >> just as a close, you mentioned the $150 million in afghanistan. >> 186 actually. >> what's the total worldwide budget for voice of america? all languages, all services. >> i'll be corrected perhaps. i think it's 212 at the moment. there's a proposal for a little bit more, but 212 at the moment. million dollars. >> with respect to the rest of the federal budget, it's a fairly small investment. >> i'd like to say it's about the equivalent of two f-35 jets, of which we are scheduled to by

2,047 in the next seven or eight years. so for the price of just a few fewer jets, we could have a really powerful public diplomacy and international broadcasting program. and i would submit we need both. i'm no dove. we need both. but we are not doing -- we don't have this imbalance in my opinion. i don't know what to do about it exactly except talk about it and try to urge people. we have professionals in the room here. we all know this. i'm sort of speaking to the converted. i realize that. please don't be silent on this issue. speak out. reach out to your senators and congressman on this issue. i mentioned a bill that's currently pending in terms of international broadcasting. it's pending right now. people are deciding what version

of it to support. if they were reached now, the next couple of weeks would be really worthwhile. the same may be true in other areas of publicly funded diplomacy. i'm so pleased the public diplomacy council is so vibrant and has such strong leadership at the moment. the immediate past president was wonderful. places got some spark, you know. and i hope we can, as a community as people who care about public diplomacy and public journalism, be a little more active. write a few more letters and e-mails to your representatives and so forth because it's worth it. and i think it could have impact. never underestimate the impact you can have. i just wrote my senator