Report Cites Continued Weaknesses in US Broadcasting to Cuba

Report Cites Continued Weaknesses in US Broadcasting to Cuba
By Dan Robinson
Washington
18 June 2009

U.S. lawmakers have heard testimony about continuing weaknesses in
U.S.-government funded television broadcasting to Cuba. The Government
Accountability Office (GAO) updated members of Congress on steps taken
by the Broadcasting Board of Governors and its Office of Cuba
Broadcasting on recommendations to deal with management, morale and
other problems.

Since its inception in 1990, TV Marti has been the subject of
controversy over cost, contracting, internal management and journalistic
issues, and the inability of the Miami-based station to reach enough of
the population in Cuba to justify the $500 million spent on the
operation so far.

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting which runs TV and Radio Marti manages a
staff of 153, producing 330 hours of Spanish language broadcasts each
week to Cuba, costing nearly $37 million annually.

While TV and Radio Marti have received praised for broadcasting news to
people in Cuba, where the government jams foreign signals, TV Marti
continues to face internal and external criticism.

Critics continue to question why TV Marti's audience by most accounts
has remained small. The station has been the subject of GAO and State
Department investigations into mismanagement and allegations of fraud
and abuse.

"I wanted to focus on what seems to me to be a most egregious waste of
money. TV Marti does not seem to have an audience. It's a station that
no one watches. So why spend all the money on it?," said Massachussetts
Democrat William Delahunt, who heads the House Subcommittee on
International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee.

TV Marti transmits over-the-air signals from an aircraft, the Aero
Marti, two satellites, and the Internet to get programming into Cuba.

Jess Ford of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said that
despite using multiple methods, the station's audience remains small
based on four telephone surveys conducted since 2003. "The four
telephone surveys have reported less than one percent of the respondents
had watched TV Marti over the past week. Most notably, the most recent
surveys in 2006 and 2008 showed no increase in reported TV Marti
viewership after the launch of the Aero Marti and Direct Broadcasting,"
he said.

GAO mentions one non-random survey showing that 21 percent of recent
Cuban émigrés listened to TV Marti within six months before leaving
Cuba, but GAO says these results likely do not represent the actual size
of TV Martí's audience.

A lack of access to Cuba, says GAO, has made it difficult to obtain
nationally representative data on audience size, and decision-makers
have had limited information to assess the relative success or return on
investment for each transmission method.

While critical of mismanagement and other problems uncovered at TV
Marti, California Republican Dana Rohrabacher says scrapping the station
would be a mistake. "I think instead of focusing on scrapping radio or
TV Marti, we should be focused on how to scrap the Communist
dictatorship that [has] oppressed the Cuban people for these past 50
years," he said.

John Nichols, a comparative media expert and Professor of Communications
and International Affairs at Penn State University reiterated his
longstanding criticisms of TV Marti, saying it has failed to build an
audience.

"TV Marti's response to a succession of failures over a two decade
period has been to resort to ever more expensive technological gimmicks,
all richly funded by Congress, and none of those gimmicks, such as the
airplane have worked or probably can work without the compliance of the
Cuban government. In short TV Marti is a highly wasteful and ineffective
operation," he said.

Philip Peters, Vice President of Lexington Institute, a private research
orgnization based in Virginia, disagrees with members of Congress who
assert that ending TV Marti broadcasts would strengthen the Castro
regime in Cuba: "I don't know how we have gotten ourselves in the
position where this particular instrument of public diplomacy is a test
of everyone's manhood with regard to Communism in Cuba. It's a tactic,
it's not an end in itself, and I think that the only thing TV Marti has
challenged is that Congress truly cares about the taxpayer money," he said.

In its overview, GAO said the Office of Cuba Broadcasting lacks a formal
strategic plan to guide decision-making on its funding and operations,
including a proposal to reduce TV Martí newscasts from two 30 minute
evening programs to five minute news updates every half hour.

It also identified weaknesses in program review processes that broadcast
managers use to assess compliance with journalistic standards, including
accuracy, balance, and objectivity, and a lack of training for OCB staff.

While not commenting on specifics from Wednesday's hearing, Broadcasting
Board of Governors Public Relations Chief Letitia King said the
Broadcasting Board of Governors was in general agreement with GAO
recommendations and has worked very closely with management of the
Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and has a series of actions underway to
address them.

VOA News - Report Cites Continued Weaknesses in US Broadcasting to Cuba
(18 June 2009)
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-18-voa3.cfm