VoA, RFE Has Weekly Audience Of 10 Percent Of Adults Inside Russia, USAGM Chief Says

Washinton D.C./14.04.23/Turan: Just as the Biden administration stands firmly with the people of Ukraine as they defend their lives, homes, and country against Vladimir Putin's invasion, a key U.S. agency tasked with informing and connecting people in support of freedom and democracy, continues to provide the Russian audience with an alternative to the Kremlin's state propaganda.

"The idea that closed societies are also societies that don’t want news and information or aren’t seeking news information, we think, is really false," the U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Amanda Bennett told TURAN's Washington correspondent.

Bennett was speaking to reporters during a virtual briefing organized by the State Department's Brussels Media Hub to discuss media freedom, media in restrictive environments, and fact-based information access.

According to her, journalists from independent Russian outlets to those working for RFE/RL "believe that there is a significant percentage of Russians inside Russia who remain hungry for facts, for straight reporting, and for accurate information."

"And I can share that for our entities, VOA and RFE/RL who work in that area, our research shows that we have a measured weekly audience of 10 percent of adults inside Russia, which in a closed media environment which is dominated by state propaganda, that’s extraordinary," she said.

Asked by TURAN's correspondent about U.S. broadcasting agencies' operations in different time periods, including during the Cold War and that its lessons about countering Russian propaganda today, Bennett said, they find those experiences as "motivation and impetus to keep on going."

She went on to elaborate:  "One of the things that’s really striking to me when I travel around the world is the number of people who come up to me of various ages.... and say: we hid under the bed listening to VOA; we hid under the bed listening to RFE; I learned English from VOA.... And these are coming from countries where they were literally shut out, and yet we were still reaching them."

When asked by TURAN about Twitter’s recent designation of Voice of America as "government-funded media," the USAGM chief said it is "very misleading" for the media platform to do so.  "We completely reject the implications of the label ‘government-funded," she explained. "Of course we’re government-funded, but it’s potentially misleading."

She went on to elaborate:  "We’re not government-controlled; we are independent. We’ve been independent by practice, as I’m sure you’ve seen many examples of, and by statute.  And so to label us as government-funded we think is very, very misleading.  And we continue to emphasize this distinction in our discussions with Twitter, because we think the labeling causes really unjustified concerns about the objectivity of our coverage."

Bennett did not address specific conditions in individual countries, including in Azerbaijan, when asked about the USAGM's projects or plans on the ground.

Alex Raufoglu