Step on a bus or grab a taxi in almost any city or town in Eastern Europe, and the chances are that the radio will be on full blast. Despite the growth of the Internet, radio remains a cheap and highly popular way to obtain news.
So what could be better than for Europe to exploit this medium? If the EU really is as committed to soft power as it likes to say, it could serve its values by spreading independent news to its Eastern neighbors.
The region sorely needs an independent voice, as the Ukraine crisis has shown. In eastern Ukraine, the inhabitants are exposed mostly to Russian state television and radio. Most Ukrainian channels have been taken off the air. In Russia itself, outside the big cities, access to the Internet is patchy. That is why one should not underestimate the power of Russian television and radio.
Judy Dempsey
More from this author...In the Baltic states, which have sizable Russian communities, Russian state television is often a main source of news, and not often balanced. Yet Estonia’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has no intentions of cutting off Russian TV. Instead, he insists that it must be countered by giving an alternative view of events based on independent reporting. “It’s about having the confidence to defend our freedom and values,” he said recently.
That’s all very well. But there’s not enough of that sentiment. Even though “old” Eastern Europe—the Baltics and the states of Central Europe—has joined the EU, listeners in several of these countries don’t get an unbiased view of the world. There is still a big need for trusted and independent news reporting via the radio.
As for “new” Eastern Europe—Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova—this is where the EU could make the biggest difference in providing balanced news. And the one country that could do that is Britain.
Britain (still) has an invaluable media commodity. It’s the BBC World Service. Previously called the BBC Overseas Service, the broadcaster provided a crucial service in beaming in news to countries behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Yes, it was often difficult to avoid the jamming, but in the end, with careful fiddling around on the shortwave dial, you could hear the BBC’s signature tune, Lillibullero.
The Ukraine crisis has shown the weakness of the EU’s soft power in countering Russian propaganda.Tweet This
But over the past several years, the World Service has fallen into the hands of accountants and technocrats. Institutional memory hardly plays a role. The pressure to react quickly to complex events and stories is immense, and gifted newscasters and reporters have to vie with a creeping trend of dumbing down.
Just as worrying is that the number of language services is declining. In 2005, the World Service boasted 43 languages. Today, it offers just 28. Broadcasting to Europe is a shadow of its former self. The BBC no longer provides programs in the languages of the Balkans and southeastern Europe. Russian and Ukrainian are the only two Slavic languages now available.
Given the dangerous amount of unfinished business across the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus, the last thing these countries need is a media and information flow controlled by oligarchs, media barons, and politicians. Yet this is increasingly the reality. The latest report by the NGO Freedom House says that media freedom is at its lowest level in a decade.
It is a tragedy that in this situation, the World Service and indeed the British government are losing sight of why they should continue to invest in language services that offer listeners another voice, another worldview.
In April 2014, the funding of the World Service was transferred from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—the UK foreign ministry—to the BBC itself.
The World Service will be funded out of the general license fee that the British public pays for the BBC’s domestic radio and television. For the period 2014–2015, the World Service has been allocated a budget of £245 million ($420 million). But a recent report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee stated that “no budget has yet been announced for years beyond 2014-15.” That is hardly confidence inspiring to retain what remains of a gifted but demoralized staff.
Furthermore, the World Service will have no direct say over the BBC’s executive or management Boards. The service’s director will now be “just one of many competing voices on the News Group Board which will take decisions on how the World Service should meet its objectives and targets under the Operating Licence,” the parliamentary report added.
The BBC’s top brass maintains that the World Service is in safe hands. But anyone traveling through Europe knows otherwise. The values that Britain and its European allies espouse are not getting across to Eastern Europe. Not only that; Europe as a whole is failing to recognize that institutions such as the BBC World Service are influential soft power tools.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy, understands the value of information perfectly well. It’s a shame that neither the BBC bosses nor the British government recognizes the implications of that.
Comments(6)
Very well said. I hope this message is listened too.
Could not agree more. I was involved in journalism training in much of Eastern Europe as well as Ukraine and the importance and influence of the world service on journalism could not be exaggerated. Not alone was its output important, but its local staff played an important role in journalism in the regions also.
In the King James bible, the sins of bearing false witness is considered grave and fundamental. Most modern simplifications amend this sin to speaking falsehood, or "lying", but this destroys the true meaning of bearing false witness. To bear false witness is to put forward a case that is insincere and intended to pervert the public understanding of matters. It is rather more akin to perverting the course of justice, than it is a condemnation of speaking untruth. After all, there is nothing morally questionable about lying to a bully who is demanding answers. We owe no tyrant any truth, but we do owe the community honest witness to events. With this in mind, I am troubled by Judy's claims that Putin is an ex KGB "spy", and that we should all recognise the implications of this fact. Is this sincere? Is this a true witness of events? Does Judy seriously expect adults to entertain the argument that Putin is inherently evil because he served in the intelligence forces of his own nation? If so, what are we to make of the NSA? If so, what are we to make of the drones that spy on "citizens" of western nations? If so, what are to make of the bugging of Merkel's phone? Clearly, we cannot be expected to take Judy's condemnations seriously. She is venting her feelings, and doing so without any sincerity or strength of argument. Insofar as she continues to promote glaring absurdities in the condemnation of Putin and others she deems enemies, she bears false witness of events to the public. Further, she sows the seeds of hate and mistrust in the world, willingly and without respite or care for the consequences. It is well that she is not a serious christian, for the scriptures are abundantly clear on how the Christian lord judges such people, and what lies in store for them, when the day of judgement shall come. To be clear, I am not religious myself, but I do enjoy a debate concerning values, and the likely reputation of those who flaunt to core concepts of morality to entertain the seething crowd.
We do follow BBC News which proved to be a serious source of information about Ukraine. Not so many correspondents would have reported the Ukrainian shelling of civil population in Kramatorsk as Mr Alec Baldwin did on July 1st. He was on site and showed absolute evidence of the deliberate massacre of civil population and houses perpetrated by the so called "Ukrainian army" (search Youtube: “Kramatorsk hit by way of shelling – BBC news”). I agree with you, Ms Dempsey, we definitely need to foster brave and independent journalism like Mr Baldwin’s.
managers are too expensive, they destroying everything what was buildup, all the good working integrated in society will be lost by greet from managers, I think its time to let managers pay back inclusive the cost of building-up again, no-mercy for greedy managers anymore....
Why should the British be forced to pay a tax for other countries radio services?
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