A new Voice of America director settles into the job

After years of acting directors and several Congressional investigations, the Voice of America installed a new permanent director earlier this summer. The long time newspaper editor and more recently president of Freedom House, Michael Abramowitz joins the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss more.

Interview transcript: 

Tom Temin
I think it’s fair to say that VOA and maybe its parent agency have been in some turbulence over the last few years. A series of acting directors at VOA and some people that didn’t last long, some congressional oversight people were unhappy with coverage. When you walked in, what kind of an organization did you find in terms of employee stability and so on?

Michael Abramowitz
Well, it’s an amazing organization, and I’m really proud to be the head of it. We have roughly 2,000 people working for us in some form, whether it’s full time federal employees, but also contractors and stringers. It’s an incredible mission. We are an organization that serves as a consistent, comprehensive, objective source of news and information for all parts of the world, including many countries that don’t have access to a free press. And we represent all of America, not just any particular segment. We try to be comprehensive and fair and balanced. And it’s an incredible mission in an era in which news and information is under severe threat around the world. So it’s a great mission, and I think the organization is strong. There have been a handful of controversies, which you’ve alluded to, but I think in general, the employees here are incredibly mission driven. Many of them have worked here for a long time, know what they’re doing, and we are a major source of news and information for parts of the world that badly need it. So in general, I’ve been quite pleased with what I found.

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Tom Temin
And maybe just review for us, VOA’s place in the larger structure the US Agency for Global Media, because it’s a multi component. A little bit of a complicated setup.

Michael Abramowitz
So the US Agency for Global Media is kind of the parent agency for the US International Broadcasting Services. And so they oversee not just VOA, as well as the Office of Cuba broadcasting Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Network and a number of other things. And so the overall kind of budget of that combined operation is about a billion dollars. And VOA, our budget, roughly $260 million this year.

Tom Temin
All right, and by the way, refresh for our memories, whether VOA broadcasts are in fact available in the United States. They weren’t at one time, but I think they are now.

Michael Abramowitz
Well they’re available, I suppose, in the sense that anyone who has access to the internet can can see what VOA is saying. But our broadcasts are really intended for overseas audiences. We have 48 different language services. By law, actually, we are prohibited from directing coverage at the United States, because, long time ago, Congress decided that they did not want the US government agency broadcasting in the United States. The internet is a global reach, so it’s impossible to block that. But our focus is really beyond our borders, trying to get information to places like Russia and China, Iran. And what I’d say is, I think the thing that’s quite interesting about the job right now is that countries like Russia and China have a very active information campaign going on. And actually, I would say disinformation campaign. They are spreading a lot of false information to the world, and our job is to kind of counter that with accurate and truthful information.

Tom Temin
And over the years, as you point out, the Internet has become as important almost as any medium of whether it’s broadcast or print and so on. Are you able to measure the audience in the different media, in the different places that you do broadcast. That is to say VOA claims 350 million people, roughly. Are they listening to the radio? Are they streaming? Or what are they doing?

Michael Abramowitz
All of the above. So, our weekly audience is roughly 350 million people. It’s a big audience. We started off as a radio operation 82 years ago, and radio is still an important form of communication in certain countries, certain countries in Africa, for instance, in other countries. So people do listen to us on radio. People also listen to us, watch us on TV. Iran, for instance, is a place where a lot of people have satellite dishes watch VOA content. And then increasingly, we’re digital. So telephone, mobile phones and computers, desktops, people are increasingly accessing us from digital. It’s probably not wise to talk about a global sense, because it’s going to be different for different countries. Certain countries people can’t access us by TV or radio, governments that control the countries jam our information, but people do, who have VPNs can access our information digitally. So our job is to use every possible form of platform to try to get to people to get the information to them.

Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Michael Abramowitz. He is recently installed as the director of Voice of America. And increasingly, especially in Russia and probably in China, also, there are always developing countermeasures on the internet or jamming. If it’s an over the air type of RF signal and so on. What kind of resources do you have devoted to making sure that whatever it is the signal gets through in the first place.

Michael Abramowitz
We work closely with the US Agency for Global Media. They actually provide a lot of the resources to try to guess what you call colloquially, try to circumvent the sensors. But for instance, with China, we have a very significant commitment to basically news for Chinese speaking people inside China, as well as news for people who speak Chinese beyond our borders. So I think there are roughly 60 million people, estimate, who speak China, who actually don’t live in China. And that’s an important target for our for our China coverage, because we know that’s a sort of a conduit to people inside China. So I would say, of all the different issues that we work on, one of our top priorities is China. China is investing a huge amount of funds in, I guess, what you might call external propaganda. There’s been some estimates, it’s as many as ten billion per year. And honestly, we are relatively small in comparison. Even if you kind of add up all the other agencies that also cover China for the US, we’re still small. But I think our important kind of strength is that we are seen as credible. People do trust us, and they don’t necessarily trust Chinese news sources, because that’s pure propaganda. We are not propagandists.

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Tom Temin
And what do you see as what you need to do, as your priorities coming in here?

Michael Abramowitz
Well, it’s a little early. But I would say, let me mention three or four things that are sort of top of mind for me. One you did, we just talked about China. I think there is a bipartisan consensus in Washington and beyond that, the kind of information threat from China is super important, one that is dangerous to America and the United States, and we want to push back against that. So China is very important. I would also loop in some of the other authoritarian powers right now, Russia, Iran, too. We’re thinking about those countries as well. But also, just to remember, on China, it’s not just the Mandarin service, but it’s also the fact that in countries that in Latin America and in Africa, the Chinese are making very strong efforts to present their point of view in those continents. And I think it’s important for us to support the language services in those regions so that we can push back. But I would just say China.

I think the other thing that is very kind of a distinguishing feature of VOA is that we are really focused on coverage about America. We are really the place that is supposed to tell America’s story to the world. We’re not supposed to be propagandists. Our charter is very clear. We present the policy the United States clearly and effectively, and we present, discussion across the board by the United States. So I think really strong coverage about American foreign policy and what is happening in America. There’s a huge amount of interest around the world in American technology, American business, American education, the immigration story, what diaspora communities are doing inside America. So I would say coverage of America would be a second major focus. And then I think the other issue, is the issue of people call it different things, disinformation, foreign malign influence. And what we’re talking about at the beginning, there is a very aggressive efforts by authoritarian powers to kind of spread disinformation. And we want to present, we want to do, we want to present the facts. We have a product called polygraph, which is a kind of a fact checking product, which kind of monitors and polices what authoritarian leaders are saying. We want to do more of that. So I think that’s very important. So I’d say those are sort of the top of the list. And I obviously I want to make the case. We want to make the case to Congress and to others about the importance of VOA.

Tom Temin
And what are you doing say on the employee front? Because Voice of America doesn’t rank very high in component agency, best places to work in the federal government. People don’t feel the sense of connection with the mission and the agency leadership, mainly, that some other agencies enjoy. What have you found there? And what do you have, if any at this point, plans to kind of improve that score, the engagement score of your own employees.

Michael Abramowitz
Well, I think in general, and that is a very high priority for me to make sure employees feel better connected to VOA in particular. I think, actually, if I’m not mistaken, I think the scores in general for USAGM have gone up a bit, in general. But I would say it’s not that unique. Every week I’m sending a note, communicating directly with the VOA staff, about what we’re doing, informing them about what’s happening across the agency. I am on a sort of a, what I guess would you call a listening tour of sorts, where I’m going to all the divisions of VOA. I’m going to all the language services of VOA. I’m having inviting anyone who wants to talk to me directly to come talk to me. I really believe that a big part of this is listening to your employees and hearing what they have to say, what’s on their mind. That’s really important to me. I did that when I was in previous jobs at Freedom House and at the US Holocaust Museum. And I hope to really strengthen the relations between management and staff over the next several years.

Tom Temin
Many years ago, you were a newspaper editor. Do you resist the urge to walk into the newsroom and say, Wait a minute, what about this, this and the other? Because as management, you’re really not supposed to do that.

Michael Abramowitz
Well, that’s a good question. I feel that I want to be seen. I’m pretty much coming into the office every day, I try to walk around the building. One of my funniest evenings at VOA during my first month on the job was being in the newsrooms, I say plural, on the debate night, and visited the different language services that were broadcasting the debate in real time, in translation. That was an incredibly important thing that we do, that people in Iran and China could actually, they could get around the sensors, they could watch for themselves the presidential debate in real time. And that’s a service that no other news organization that I’m aware of provides. So I am not a micromanager. I just met, a couple weeks ago, with all the division directors. I am looking to them to tell me what the audience in their regions want. But I think in general, I will lead the agency. And in terms of the large direction of the agency, I need to set that broader direction. So I expect to work very closely with all the staff, but also going to lead as well.

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Tom Temin
And in conjunction with that idea of presenting the United States fairly and objectively to the rest of the world, how do you navigate the fact that maybe the United States itself doesn’t know what it is in some ways, this day? I’m thinking of energy policy. One party has a green agenda, and they’ve got the Inflation Reduction Act. The other party vows to drill, baby drill. Two extremes here, and the policy could flip flop 180 degrees. That must be a challenge in saying to the rest of the world what the United States is at a given moment.

Michael Abramowitz
It’s a great point. What I would say is we are one of the few organizations in the world, and this is not something that I came up by myself. Some of our staff have said this. We are mandated by law to be fair and balanced. And that’s really true. We have to, our job is to present whatever administration happens to be in power, their policies fairly and objectively, and then also to present the debate about those policies. So I’m actually quite proud of that, and that’s a unique mission. If you go and read, for instance, the stories about the campaign, the reporters are very focused on making sure that the stories reflect a diversity of opinion and views and perspectives. And if President Biden makes a speech, we’ll capture it, but we’ll also present the critique of that speech, and vice versa with candidate Trump. So I think that’s something that we’re very committed to. Really presenting a very balanced point of view for an overseas audience. We can’t take sides.

Tom Temin
And something I’ve always been curious about, and we can end here, is when you talk about the audience, which is overseas in these different nations, you do have the metric of how many people you reach every week. Is there any measurement or any way of getting at, do you have metrics for, say, that audience’s affinity or their trust level in VOA material? That’s hard to get at. It’s hard to get at, even in the United States with an English speaking audience.

Michael Abramowitz
It’s a great point. And if just let me just say two things about that question, Tom. Number one, I do think we want to be very audience driven. We have news from part, but we want to really understand what the students in China think, what they’re interested in, what the teachers in Myanmar, what shopkeepers in Africa think. What the professionals in Eastern Europe. We’re thinking about the people who are coming to VOA, what they’re interested in, and we want to go to those audiences. I think the thing that I’ve been most heartened by since being here, and we do every year USAGM works with the constituent, stakeholders, including VOA, to do kind of audience research in different countries. And I think in general, it’s fair to say that VOA does very well in terms of trust. People do trust VOA. People feel that VOA, when they come to VOA, they’re getting trustworthy information that they can rely on. Obviously no news organization is perfect, but I thought that’s a really good base for us to build on going forward.

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