subcommittee will come to order i want to welcome our two witnesses dr jeff gedmin president of radio free europe radio liberty and dan austin director of voice of america we are extremely fortunate to have two of the most articulate and ardent supporters of international broadcasting and freedom of the press testifying on the continued importance of u s international broadcasting and its role in ensuring the free flow of information while there is certainly a place for a constructive and critical debate in congress the administration the broadcasting board of governors and among broadcasters regarding the role content scope and independence of international broadcasting i am convinced u international broadcasting is an indispensable smart power tool given the foreign policy challenges facing the united states the high level of anti americanism abroad and a disconcerting decline in freedom of the press globally this hearing comes at a critical time as the world's most repressive regimes and places such as iran crackdown suppress and stifle freedom of the media and expression radio free europe radio liberty and voice of america are critical smart power tools that are on the frontline of international broadcasting providing unfettered information globally in multiple languages and formats and acting as media surrogates where freedom of the press does not exist i strongly condemn as i know all of my colleagues do censorship in the intimidation of the press in iran russia and globally it is critically important that the united states support those individuals around the globe seeking access to news and other forms of information the twitter revolution in iran and the iranian regime's immediate and violent clampdown on media freedoms is a reminder that media transparency is one of the greatest threats to the rule of autocratic regimes president  obama has made international broadcasting a top priority for american foreign policy makers and it is imperative that congress provide additional funds and resources to give us international broadcasters the tools they need to ensure the free flow of information congress must also examine closely the export of american technology to other nations that use techno technology to monitor and suppress freedom of expression and press especially on the internet in two thousand and nine many americans take media freedom more or less for granted r f e r l provides a voice as well as an outlet to millions of people that would otherwise not have one additionally despite decades of technological advances there are still places globally where the infrastructure to keep citizens informed is simply not available v l a n r f e r l fill this void by bringing timely factual information to populations that otherwise would be kept in the dark when i recently visited r f e r l headquarters in prague i was greatly impressed that it's broadcasts have an overwhelming share of the radio market in afghanistan meeting with our of these afghan service learn more about our office direct interaction with its audience including letters by the bagful phone calls emails cell phone text messages and even scrolls that were meticulously crafted and delivered to our of the r l from afghanistan as both mr austin and doc to get monroe international broadcasting is not without risks that often involves broadcasting in conflict zones like iraq iran afghanistan where journalists are too often threatened attacked and killed additionally v o a r f e r l must address the concerted around the clock effort by some governments to block the delivery of programming regardless of the medium or technology voice of america read radio free europe radio liberty should be commended for promoting freedom of the press and democracy an increasingly difficult and dynamic global information environment i applaud both of you gentlemen for your efforts and leadership in the to hearing your assessments on whether v o a on r f e r l is successfully fulfilling your mission to quote promote freedom and democracy and to enhance understanding through multimedia communication of accurate objective balanced news information and other programming about america and the world to audiences overseas what i would like to do at this point is give my colleagues who have so graciously joined us this morning an opportunity to make opening remarks if they will i'll reserve m time should he be here with everyone's indulgence mr wilson was here bright and early saw last mr wilson if he would like to begin and thank you very much and chairman wesley thank you for your introductory comments and we may  hit a height of bipartisanship today and that is that i truly see members here from both parties who truly appreciate voice of america radio liberty  throughout the world and i really believe that your efforts and your predecessors helped make that possible and i know that that was backed up president abbas hovel of the czech republic has given such  accolades that indeed freedom and democracy were enhanced and kept the spirit was kept alive and i've seen it firsthand last year i was in bulgaria and romania everywhere i went there were references to how persons from my first visit to bulgaria in one thousand nine hundred references to the fact that they knew of a better life the world through what your efforts and it's exciting to me to see the new media opportunities that you have i can't wait for you to tell the american people i've had the privilege of being on china service where i was it was broadcast television with the call and it never occurred to me that i would be speaking to people from sea on or cuming it was and my dad served there during the world war two with the flying tigers i'm so hopeful that people around the world  can learn about our country but also learn about the benefits of freedom democracy free markets so i want to thank you commend you and i look forward to working with chairman west so this is an amazing achievement that we'll be working together and free europe radio liberty and voice of america they are branding organs for the united states of america abroad i often wondered what would happen especially during war war two there was no radio free europe they were there long before we got to c n n and fox news channel and all of the cable broadcast that we have now around the world it was radio free europe it was voice of america that really shined the light of what america stands for and we all know the importance of marketing and certainly we as politicians have had to brand ourselves through the media lest someone else do it for us and in marketing in the marketing world it becomes necessary from time the time for rebranding  gaging and any new issues to change the public's perception of who and what we are and what we're trying to sell and never before in recent history has there been a more necessary time for rebranding and letting the world know truly that america is that shining beacon on a hill in my opinion radio free europe and radio liberty and voice of america are at their core communications marketing tool regardless of what they are reporting on or the programs they run they are essence selling and branding our nation america every day radio free europe liberty radio liberty and voice of america are on the front lines of shaping what the world is thinking about us all right now the american brand is damaged we need to understand that i get around the  world maybe three four times a year as a member of our nato parliamentary assembly and on various cold l's and the challenges there we have and we must live up to our ideals and also understand that we've got to repair the damage to our reputation around the world critical to this is voice of america radio free europe and radio liberty we are indeed that shining beacon of democracy and freedom and we must make sure we are perceived does that it is time for america to rebranded to be what we know we ought to be and what we stand for radio free europe radio liberty and voice of america once again is vital to those efforts i have been on voice of america most recently two months ago or maybe a month ago when i was speaking to all of the people of china and i felt real good about that i worked all night to prepare myself for that because china is so vital to our future as a planet and as an economy so i know firsthand the quality of the work that they produce i've been on radio free europe as we have discussed our nato challenges and i know firsthand the work that they are doing in reaching audiences around the world who have limited exposure to the american experience and western media and as such i am strongly in support of their efforts and encourage my colleagues to support them as well we need to ensure that they have the resources both in terms of personnel and money in order to complete their mission and i assure you that i stand at the front of the line to help them to receive these vital resources that they need it is never been more vital to us to improve what the world thinks about us but we are indeed the leader of the world and we will need governmental partners in all of these nations in our endeavors around the world that will invariably main that these governments will need popular support from their pe so radio free europe radio liberty and voice of america will help us to build that support when i was in college there was an african american reporter by the name of mao good who worked for voice of america and after i talked with him i said one day i want to be on board and surely a month ago i was and it was a great experience thank you thank done quite a number on the u s reputation around the world and radical islamist broadcasts haven't helped either and no doubt some of our own missteps in foreign policy have hurt us as well but a lot of the blow up broadcast have made in foreign policy and over the years i think it's become very very clear that if we want to engage and certainly we did a lot of this during the cold war if we want to engage europe radio liberty models where we didn't and i carried legislation to broadcast into the former yugoslavia we were not able to get that up and running until the bombs were falling on serbia i spent years trying to get it implemented former yugoslavia during the civil war he said to me finally the radio was up and running but for all of those years unlike people weren't able to hear the other side of the story he said in czechoslovakia the the wars that are raging here in the former yugoslavia where we're working it out to the death and he said one of the great not getting those broadcasts up and running i also authored the legislation for radio free afghanistan b ut we didn't get those up and running until after my death and then till after begin crystal clear to the united states after five years of trying to get it implemented that it was important something  rail shari'a broadcast the real broadcast that the taliban were running that were funded frankly through al qaeda and other radical islamist organizations that kind of broadcasting by the way all over central technology to china to help them block the broadcasting that what we've done is on to an island directed the largest transmitter in the world we have new methodology but we've got to keep a head of these regimes because repressive governments understand something we take for granted and that is that the free flow of information a mortal threat to be attacked constantly and the stringers that we have on the ground and like chairman wexler i've talked to show but the threat under which they operate shows the amount of thought that we have to apply in terms of trying to protect them getting resources deployed and blocking this jamming as we amount of influence that the gulf are putting in terms of resources into the hands of radical islam in that area fortunately seventy percent of the afghans now listen to radio free met they could not they sang the praises of the work that you do and the important role that you played in all the changes that occur so i just want to thank you looking forward to what you have to say and i'm looking forward to supporting whatever help you need to make sure that this continues to be a viable voice of all those people that came out here with the west with the west that was doing thank you thank you i want to genuinely thank my colleagues for their unusually thoughtful remarks this morning which i think is a great indicator of the support that your efforts have in a bipartisan way  at this point like to read the biographies of our two witnesses and then go forward their testimony our first witness is dr jeffrey gedmin president and c e o of radio free europe radio liberty prior to assuming this role in two thousand and seven gedmin served as the director of the aspen institute in berlin and prior to that was a resident scholar at the american enterprise institute as well as executive director of the new atlantic initiative where he works with policy makers journalists and businesses to revitalize an expanded land of democracies dr gettleman has authored several widely published articles on u s foreign policy and public diplomacy that have appeared in leading u s and european publications and author of the book the hidden hand gorbachev in the collapse of east germany dr gavin was also executive editor and producer of the award winning one thousand nine hundred five p b s television program the germans portrait of a new nation and co executive producer of the two thousand seven documentary spain's nine eleven in the challenge of radical islam in europe doc together and holds a ph d in german area studies in the west six from georgetown university our second witness is mr dan austin director voice of america mr austin assume this post in two thousand and six after a thirty six year career with dow jones and company where he last served as chairman and c e o of the company community media subsidiary mr austin also served as vice president for circulation and director of corporate elations for dow jones previously worked for the wall street journal beginning his career there in one nine hundred seventy as a staff reporter in the dallas bureau then in one thousand nine hundred five advance to deputy news news editor in new york and became editor of wall street journal reports and one thousand nine hundred mr austin served as vice president and general manager of the journal and served on the board of its first magazine joint venture smart money mr austin served with the u s army in vietnam join today for a very powerful very eloquent statement mr chairman thanks to you for your initiative and leadership in convening this meeting this morning you mentioned your visit recently to radio free europe headquarters in prague and you  kindly praised our afghan service interaction with the audiences and the bag of letters we get each week and congressman royce you know a lot about lead on this from the beginning you didn't mention you failed to mention that you helped a little bit too and you were kind enough to do an interview for us that reached those people and took part in that interaction and you mr chairman and everybody on the committee thank you for holding this meeting to this hearing today for many reasons but one that you might overlook if i may say we do have and have as you alluded to a hundred and i think i'm certain i speak for dan also hundreds of people who work for most of whom come from these countries our countries whether it's russia whether it's caucuses with representatives of foreign governments who don't always like what we do and they suggested times that we were out to propagandize or be in this region many of the people who were in the vanguard of the democratic democracy and human rights movements in those countries they were several of the princip twenty years ago we never could have imagined where the czech republic countries like the czech republic would be today but in terms of ten years from now given the fairly significant challenges that these countries now face in what may be referred to as the next phase of their evolution what role does public diplomacy and international broadcasting play particularly in central and eastern europe and do we have the resources do you have the resources to successfully do what you think you need to do with european democracies for a variety of reasons we care about global perspective but you can't be soft at the center and then build on the periphery you've got to be solid in the center and we're partially solving this we said before that in the project of europe whole and free we've made enormous progress in two decades but the progress not complete i've learned myself i have to tell you i took this job two years and two months ago and when we're facing very difficult  and the internet and congressman sherman and i have introduced legislation that would prohibit those companies in europe that were involved in that process doing any business with the united states government  we do have a problem with business in the united states in the way it conducts itself with hostile regimes and undemocratic and the problem is not in my view that landscape out there i had an opportunity to go to afghanistan after the government fell and i asked the driver to take me to radio free afghanistan in kabul and he spoke so i ended up at a radio  that this is probably one of the least confrontational methodology in foreign policy but most effective and expanding this further i believe across the globe especially where radical islam is very important what i'm sharing with you is iran clearly is engaged in this might be able to tell us a little bit about venice away and russia in terms of university and we had video and eyewitness accounts that were quite violent they arrested several dozen people they damaged great deal of property and we had a quick editorial meeting we ask that defining your audience is you know clearly and particularly those that you feel are accurate i would like to have the opportunity to review the methodology to know what your target audience is  hearing in here and observe the bigger debate on significant issues we do have a certain capacity although at times it is suppressed for self criticism you know we're at a disadvantage on this panel because obviously we don't hear your programming odd does the of feeling our obligation to conduct oversight specifically at this point nothing to what dan said but both of us regularly on an ad hoc basis reach out to the best and brightest in the editorial and scholar  without borders various groups saying that there is a serious suppression of the media in honduras in the aftermath of the coup what do you i was last week was in central america speaking with a number of next door in el salvador and speaking with a number of journalist from san salvador who had gone into hundreds and what are they reporting and they were reporting a lot of crackdown suppression being salvadorians they were somewhat proud of themselves for being much better and a much freer society than their next door neighbors hadn't actually credited by day but by their by by their assessment there is significant suppression of the media by the so called de facto government they were they were very specific there was suppression of the media but a lot of self censorship in the media the media in honduras apparently is not anything close to developed it's either been in the pocket of one special interest or another either worked overtly for the government or was in the pocket of some opposition group but you would conclude it's a serious issue at  dissent here in the united states on issues that obviously impact the opinion of the rest of the world we got in the united states the war in iraq for example or what we do  afghanistan are our policy do you underscore the fact that i think it was stated earlier i don't know which one of you said it about america the american view well the reality is there are multiple american views and i think that's what we should and this is only a personal opinion i want to convey to the rest of the world that a viable democracy means that we can listened to you know a great deal on this and that and and again you know were somewhat critical of the efforts that we were making so i'd like to you know for you to comment on that a little bit i know you mentioned money and resources and things  prague i'm sorry but with a section like iran being headquartered there that they were maybe a little bit more subject to intimidation you know some of your broadcasters in the sense that you know  and we are moving some of our colleagues here to washington i'd be happy to engage you offline any time on the pros and cons of moving them all to washington there are about forty of them if we did of course they would disconnect from the larger has wonderful production values there's no doubt about it it remains to be seen how we're doing competitively we know from our previous research that we had about a thirty percent market share a commercial network w but the indication we got was that about half of the people that we were using television as a means of getting their information now we know that it was up there as well and they are a competitor and i absolutely agree with jeff the more the recently when the government of iran or in toronto decided that it would be illegal to have dog walked in parks because it wasn't consistent with the rules we did a report on that we were the only one and the government seem to have the capability to respond fairly quickly and i would inquire of both of your gentlemen in terms of how prevalent are attacks on your particular facilities and do you have the capability as you understand it to respond as well as you would like and if not what do we need to do to help you and second on a totally different note and othe rs have reported it in a very extensive fashion the problem of anti americanism or the phenomenon of anti americanism and its impact one way or the other on u s foreign policy its impact on american economic interests the ability of our military to pursue its goals most effectively and also the security of individual americans as they travel around the world and i was wondering if in the context of of international broadcasting if you could give us a sense in terms of what the obama administration is seeking to do in this regard do you see any impact in terms of the first six months of of the administration are we making any headway any thoughts that you may have in this regard encounter cyber attacks all the time it is a daily occurrence but this one was a whole order of magnitude different than anything that we have experienced it took us down for a good three or four hours on that sunday intellect and his emotional intelligence and his career as a messenger i believe that but i also believe that that will only carry us so far and that that will not be a solution and two and three years into his administration i think we'll still be grappling with a real and he american both in europe where we have allies but especially in developing countries as well so i point adjourned thank you very much