By Sanford J. Ungar Director, Voice of America Radio is perhaps the most powerful and important medium available to humankind - if only because it is so accessible. You don't have to be rich to own a set. You don't have to know how to read or write in order to make sense of the broadcasts.
Radio can cross borders, traveling vast distances.
Radio can also be an affordable and effective way for a community to talk, to share information on the local level, and for leaders to send out messages, for good or evil. When NATO bombs were falling on Serbia last year, during the Kosovo crisis, the Voice of America and other international broadcasters were practically the only sources of reliable and balanced information available to people on the ground. They craved information on what was happening in the Balkans and around the world. They also listened to special VOA programs that provided information on how family members separated by the crisis could find each other. Now that things have settled down a bit, VOA is hoping to help local independent broadcasters get back on the air.