Lugar takes on BBG and Coburn in new report

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s ranking Republican, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, released a hard-hitting report Thursday that criticizes the U.S. government’s international broadcasting efforts, which have long been dogged by accusations of ineffectiveness, cronyism, and post-Cold War irrelevance, as well as partisan bickering over editorial direction.

The report, entitled "U.S. International Broadcasting: Is Anybody Listening?" is unsparing in its criticism of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent federal agency established in 1994. Its nearly $700 million in annual funding supports Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and a host of other media efforts across some 60 languages.

Lugar’s report reserves the bulk of its criticism for unspecified members of Congress, in both parties, whom it accuses of holding the agency hostage to partisan agendas.

But the timing of report clearly suggests it’s a shot across the bow at Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, who has been holding up President Obama’s eight nominees for the BBG board for months.

Congress originally intended the board, which was established in the 1990s, as a way of shielding U.S. broadcasting efforts from political meddling. It hasn’t worked out that way.

As the report notes, there’s been no BBG chairman since 2008, and the four out of eight board members who are still around are on expired terms. The board has been at full strength for just six of the past 15 years, leading the authors to characterize the confirmation process as one of "chronic dysfunction."

"It has become clear that the BBG, rather than functioning as a political ‘firewall,’ has become a political ‘football’ as Board membership nominations have become enmeshed and blocked due to partisan politics," Lugar said in a letter accompanying the report. "It is time to end that and confirm the Board, or it is perhaps time to create a new mechanism that will have greater Congressional support."

Coburn Tom Coburn, who has been severely critical of the BBG, especially with regard to its programs in the Middle East and South Asia. "The BBG is the most worthless organization in the federal government," he told The Cable in an April interview. "It’s full of people who know nothing about media or foreign policy. All they are doing is spending money and somebody’s got to look into it."

Lugar’s report finds plenty to criticize, especially at Al-Hurra, the U.S. government-funded Arabic-language satellite news channel. The network has suffered since its inception from abysmal ratings, widely panned programming, and a deep credibility problem among Middle Eastern viewers skeptical of American designs in the region.

The one bright spot for Al-Hurra, the report notes, is Iraq, where it routinely ranks as one of the most popular news channels. Otherwise, however, the network’s viewership is "marginal."

The report also highlights a number of setbacks for BBG efforts in repressive media environments such as China, Iran, and Russia, and argues that a fully operational board could help chart a more effective way forward.

Coburn told The Cable this week that after meeting with all the nominees and making them answer a bunch of written questions, he’ll "probably let them go soon."

Coburn is still waiting to hear from Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, D-MA, however, about his request for a hearing on BBG oversight.

In the meantime, it looks like Lugar has missed his deadline. "[I]t is my hope that, by the time this report is printed, the new Chairman and the other seven members of the Board, nominated some 7 months ago in November 2009, will have been confirmed by the Senate," he wrote in his accompanying letter.