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Date:         Thu, 21 Jan 1993 19:59:28 -0500
From:         Username was LODEESEN <LODEESENJ@ADMINB.RFERL.ORG>
Subject:      Re: your information, maybe also your support

As one of the rfe/rl to whom you copied your comments on the Daily Report,
allow me to respond.  To me there are a great many issues addressed in
what perhaps appears to the author to be a single complaint.  So be
patient with me as I go through SOME of the reasons for what is in
part a criticism which I will try to bring to bear with those doing the
work but is in part misdirected.  You refer throughout, I believe to the
"news" you read, including that which you receive from us.  In the normal
sense of news as used by the media, we circulate at Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty a very large volume of news including all of the news services in
the areas of broadcast which we are able to obtain.  This circulates primarily
in the language of the country and is used primarily by the service.  RFE/RL
has always had separate Czech and Slovak broadcasts, but since the separation
of the countries it has also had separate broadcast organization units
reflecting the changed status.  While each service is free to access all of
the wire services, obviously the Slovaks are particularly interested in
Slovak items, Czechs in Czech items, Poles in Polish items, Estonians in
Estonian items, and so on.  In addition to this access to all of the major
world news services including those of all the countries to which we broadcast,
we produce our own news budget in English as a central service for use by all
of the countries.  That central news budget has no relationship to what you
have been reading, is not procued by the same people, is not constructed in
the same way, and is vastly larger.  [read "produced" for "procued", and
disregard my other typos while you are at it, please].
  What you receive in the Daily Report was originally designed as a snapshot
taken by research analysts at a particular time of day in which they have
identified events or issues which they feel bear watching as possibly
contributing to emerging trends.  They add to the raw news data just enough
additional background to place the information into an educated context and
to identify the significance, in effect a degree of "pre-analysis".  This was
originally used by English-speaking members of management at RFE (RL used to
turn its similar management product out in English and Russian and occasionally
German to meet its staffs' needs) to help them judge the efficacy of broadcast
or research plans.  It was also used by staff to keep a casual eye on
developments in areas they did not follow closely on the wire service.  In
that sense it was a kind of digest.  It was also mailed or taken by messenger
to a limited number of locations in Washington after being sent here
electronically.  At that time, American officials were reading on Monday or
Tuesday about what analysts in Munich thought was important the previous
Thursday or Friday.  Eight years ago we began getting it to US Government
offices on the morning of the day it was produced.  It rapidly gained
popularity in the White House, the NSC, State, Defense, other departments,
and on the Hill.  We were, once we started delivering it in real time,
repeatedly told that it was the best thing available of its kind irrespective
of source and the first thing read by many important policy makers.  Editors
of America's major media asked to be added and were.  When it became practical
to distribute by e-mail it ceased being something only for a few hundred
"insiders" and became available to thousands upon thousands of members of the
particularly information hungry and specialist (primarily academic) public.
Our initial expectation was that it would reach around 300 new subscribers
by January 1 of this year whereas it has apparently gone to tens of times
more than that.  All of that is to let you know that it is not a news file.
  Why is the selection not always satisfactory?  There are space limitations
and there are staff limitations.  Since it was designed primarily for those
who would want to scan the entire thing, it had to be short enough to help
without slowing down either our own management or the busy policy makers who
came to depend on it.  It was in fact cut back not too long ago from 8 to
6 pages in order better to meet that need.  Most mornings there is a stiff
competition for inclusion of items and there are large numbers of items which
are "bumped".  You don't see those.  In addition, although we have the
largest staff and largest research facility in the West doing broadcasting and
primary in-language research, there are severe staff limitations.  In some
instances several countries are treated by a single analyst.  In other
cases in the absence of one analyst on leave or vacation or in the event of
retirement, there may not be a replacement who has all the qualifications of
the person for whom he is substituting.  Consider that we speak all of the
languages of all of the now independent countries from the border of China to
the border of Germany.  If in most organizations substitutions are easy, in
ours they are not.
  We think we responded with admirable speed in setting up the independent
Slovak Service to correspond with the timing of its independence.  Although the
Slovak broadcasters had always had full access to Slovak language materials
(plus English, French, German, Czech, Russian, etc., the only limitations
being the language knowledge of the individual broadcaster), we thought the
new arrangement more appropriate to the circumstances.  Personal cooperation
continues as it was before the separation.
  Because of the relative size or volatility of given areas, there are times
when republics with far larger populations than Slovakia's have no item at all
in the Daily Report, just as that can happen to the Sloavk section.  And, as
stated earlier, it can also be that in the absence of the person most
frequently charged with the responsibility, a story which could be identified is
not.  This does not happen in the broadcasting where the staff is much larger,
of course.
  Your concern about reference to wire services, although that is not the
essential business of the Daily Report, will be refered to the appropriate
editors and authors.  If there has been delinquency in fully reflecting the
new situation, that will be remedied.  The radios (RFE and RL) do not act on
any principle of favoring one country over another.  They expect that each
will take responsibility for its own sphere, but that sphere in the area of
news is reflected primarily in broadcasting.
  If you have additional requests or inquiries, please address them to me
personally, lodeesenj@rferl.org, and I will be happy to look into them.  Any
possible increase in our coverage in any area would, of course, be of interest
to those interested in that area and yet must, within this single context of
Daily Report content with the needs of those for whom the report was designed.
Distribution to the public is strictly a courtesy and something we can do only
because it does not cost us anything to do it.
  With appreciation for your interest and assurance to you that I will call it
to the attention of those in a position to do whatever can be done,
Jon Lodeesen
Senior Representative
Research Institute
Washington Office
RFE/RL
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