Inspection of the Broadcasting Board of Governors' Operations in Hong Kong and New Delhi

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) operates three establishments in Hong Kong: Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) news bureaus and an International Broadcasting Bureau technical monitoring office (TMO).  These offices have separate functions and do not interact.

In reviewing the access of VOA and RFA journalists and their products to China there is a clear imbalance.  China has dozens of correspondents in the United States and its broadcasts are unhindered.  However, RFA and VOA broadcasts experience jamming, the access of their journalists is limited, and the number of their journalists is small.  

The VOA Hong Kong news bureau supervises VOA English correspondents in all of Asia, including Jakarta, Seoul, Beijing, Islamabad, and New Delhi.  The bureau carries out its responsibilities well, and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) found it is appropriate, productive, and effective for VOA to maintain two senior editors in the bureau.  

Meanwhile at the Hong Kong TMO, a locally employed staff member works with a locally employed staff member at the TMO in New Delhi on a negotiating task.  This task has the two employees assisting or leading in the coordination of radio frequency use at the annual High Frequency Coordination Conference, held under the auspices of the Asia Pacific Broadcast Union.  OIG believes the use of TMO Foreign Service nationals at this conference is an acceptable intergovernmental process that helps to avoid anarchy on high-frequency radio bands regulated by the International Telecommunications Union.

In New Delhi, there is a VOA news bureau and a TMO. OIG found that the bureau carries out its responsibilities well, but it lacks a full video editing setup.  This prevents the transmission of broadcast-quality video via the Internet to VOA Washington and restricts the correspondent’s video journalism. As for the TMO, it is a lean, cost-effective operation that plays an active role in ensuring that U.S. non-military radio broadcasting reaches southern Asia.  OIG found that it provides excellent monitoring services.

The two employees at the TMO do not have an American supervisor to authenticate the designation of responsibilities between each employee and to certify job reports after completion of the evaluations. Furthermore, IBB has not provided reference job descriptions to facilitate the evaluation process. As a result, Embassy New Delhi has not yet evaluated the two TMO positions in conjunction with the mission-wide evaluation of local employee position descriptions.  

September 13, 2005