Main Page | Month Archive | Email Updates | RSS Feed

The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

Posts by Alvin Snyder

U.S. ARAB-LANGUAGE BROADCASTERS FAIL AS BUREAUCRATS
SEP 11, 2006 - 7:55PM PDT
Posted by Alvin Snyder
All posts by this author

The public scolding took place right after the long Labor Day weekend, perhaps not to spoil anyone's vacation. Setting atop the office desks of those who manage the U.S. government's Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) when they returned to work was a terse report on their failings. It was not that their charges, America’s Arabic-language Radio Sawa and TV Alhurra, were putting out inferior broadcasts. Rather, the folks in charge of those broadcasts were not running things like good bureaucrats. What exactly does that mean? The report by the General Accountability Office, said the MBN was not churning out enough... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (1) | Add Your Own

WHAT IF THE PRESIDENT REQUESTED YOUR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ADVICE? RESPONSES FROM USIA PAST MASTERS
AUG 27, 2006 - 12:13PM PDT
Posted by Alvin Snyder
All posts by this author

Author Alvin Snyder provides an insightful look at the world of diplomacy by providing sound advice from some of the field’s most celebrated figures.

Numerous columns have been written as a "Memorandum to Karen Hughes," with advice to the undersecretary of state on how to improve America’s public diplomacy efforts. But what if the president himself telephoned, to ask advice on the same issue? What would one say? (Remember, it’s the president, so no showboating).

Who better to ask than those professionals who contributed to the U.S. Information Agency‘s storied past? I had the privilege to serve with many superior... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (8) | Add Your Own

‘REUTERSGATE’ BECOMES AN ISSUE IN REPORTING THE ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH WAR
AUG 9, 2006 - 6:01PM PDT
Posted by Alvin Snyder
All posts by this author

The media has chosen sides in the Israel-Hezbollah War, and much is ugly.

Some errant media players have emerged. One is a behemoth news service, whose products -- including newspaper and TV news reports -- have an audience of many millions worldwide. Another is a world-renowned news brand, whose reports are said to be biased. Then there is someone from a major daily newspaper promoting a book, and saying really stupid things. But there are those who boldly set the record straight in their reports.

Someone could say that any large organization cannot be expected to control all of its... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (11) | Add Your Own

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY’S 10,000 POUND GORILLA: IT’S EVERYWHERE
AUG 4, 2006 - 5:47PM PDT
Posted by Alvin Snyder
All posts by this author

Some Worldcasting readers are said to take issue with our most recent piece contending that the Fox News Channel is a key player in U.S. public diplomacy. A great misperception is that FNC is solely a domestic U.S. cable news service, with minimal foreign distribution. But Fox News Channel is not only international in scope, it is in fact broadcast in 88 countries worldwide.

Like the meaning of life, there is endless philosophizing about what public diplomacy is. The USC Center on Public Diplomacy, for which I write, defines public diplomacy as "focusing on ways in which a country (or... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (0) | Add Your Own

THE GROWING IMPACT OF THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL AS PURVEYOR OF U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
JUL 31, 2006 - 5:34PM PDT
Posted by Alvin Snyder
All posts by this author

The Fox News Channel, buoyed by its new huge audience ratings and profits, is expanding its influence as a credible source for news and articulator of U.S. public diplomacy, through huge viewership on its coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war.

A new study by the Pew Research Center finds that Fox News Channel is one of the few media "sources that has not suffered a credibility decline in recent years.... There has been a 13-percentage point drop in views of CNN's credibility among Democrats in the past two years, significantly shrinking the difference in opinion across party lines."
According to Kagan... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (2) | Add Your Own

Previous posts « First  <  4 5 6 7 8 >  Last »