Two sides of the same coin: "purge" and reform

In June 2020, Michael Pack was appointed as the new CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. After his appointment he started with firing top officials and generally restructuring the agency – a course which was initially called a "massacre" and months later - a "purge" – by American media. In order to understand the true meaning of these events we have to look deeper into the system of American public diplomacy and international broadcasting in particular.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is an independent agency of the United States government, which operates various state-run media outlets. In other words, it is an organization responsible for the US' international broadcasting, one of the main instruments in the American public diplomacy toolkit. USAGM oversees two federal public service media (Voice of America and Office of Cuba Broadcasting), three public service media grantees (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks) as well as internet freedom grantee – Open Technology Fund.

International broadcasting first became the responsibility of an independent governmental agency in 1994, when the International Broadcasting Act established the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) (former name of USAGM). It was a part of restructuration of American public diplomacy that occurred in 1990es because of the end of Cold War. In the same framework the famed US Information Agency (USIA), which was the main American public diplomacy institution throughout the second half of the 20^th century, ceased to exist, transferring its functions to the State Department and to the BBG. For a while, this remained the last major reform concerning the sphere of public diplomacy in the US.

Aside from the mentioned lack of development, the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy [1] has multiple times (the last time being this year) expressed concerns regarding certain problematic points in the structure of American public diplomacy such as: ineffective distribution of funds; lack of employees with specific "public diplomacy – related" qualifications; as well as problems concerning inter-agency coordination and synchronization of efforts. Therefore, it was logical to conclude that American public diplomacy was experiencing some sort of stagnation. A public opinion study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2018 demonstrated the dramatic deterioration of the US' image abroad, with the 43% of international respondents expressing unfavorable views, which only proves that American public diplomacy is not at its best.

Major reforms in the field of public diplomacy seem the most obvious response to overcome the described challenge, especially nowadays with information becoming an ever-more powerful instrument in world politics (constant technological development, elimination of borders where the flow in information is concerned, phenomenon of "fake news", etc.). That is exactly what we see looking at the latest events in the sphere of American international broadcasting.

In 2015 the position of the CEO of BBG was established. One year later President Barack Obama signed into law the legislation that changed the structure of the agency. The Board of Governors was replaced by presidentially appointed advisory board. The decision-making functions thus were transferred to the CEO. Consequently, in 2018, the agency changed its name from Broadcasting Board of Governors to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which seems logical taking into account the disappearance of the board.

[1] The body in charge on assessing the effectiveness of the US governmental efforts in the field of public diplomacy.

This summer we witnessed the CEO of USAGM embracing his functions to the fullest. He did replace all the top-officials (with the director of Voice of American resigning and the rest being dismissed), except for the leadership of the Open Technology Fund (this decision was temporary blocked by the U.S Court of Appeals). In addition, Michael Pack has reportedly removed the agency's chief financial officer and former interim CEO, Grant Turner, and its general counsel David Kligerman. Other USAGM executives who were removed this August include chief strategy officer Shawn Powers, deputy director for operations Matt Walsh, executive director Oanh Tran and director of management services Marie Lennon. Moreover, Pack has ordered a "comprehensive investigation of USAGM operations" because of "systemic, severe and fundamental security failures, many of which have persisted for years". Among the named reasons for such initiative were some failures (recently identified) that have undermined the efficiency and effectiveness of agency's efforts and posed a threat to national security. In the same framework, CEO of USAGM has stopped approving visa renewals for the agency's foreign journalists and initiated the case-by-case visa review.

The first reaction to firings and investigations has been negative. Various media and experts saw them only as an attempt to replace the agency's leadership and staff with candidates loyal to president D. Trump. However, if we perceive it as a second phase of the major reform (the first phase being the restructuration initiated by B. Obama) the meaning will be different. The first phase, thus, was aimed at concentrating decision-making powers in the hand of single CEO appointed directly by president. The second phase in turn envisages this CEO preparing the ground for further changes by replacing an administration (whose leadership was not effective enough) and reexamining agency's activities and policies looking for the weak spots that need to be addressed in order to understand where to start with the reforms.

Another concern that was expressed as a reaction to USAGM transformation is connected to such notions as politics and ideology. For instance, Madeleine Allbright (Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton) and Marc Natanson (Chair of BBG from 1998 to 2002) believe that those developments threaten the credibility of American international broadcasting since it is going to be perceived by foreign audiences as less impartial and more politicized. On the one hand, the assumption that new American public diplomacy strategy in general and of international broadcasting in particular is going to be more connected to the political agenda of the US government is likely to be correct, since Michael Pack has already brought up such concepts as threats to national security and national interests, implying that public diplomacy is supposed, first of all, to serve those specific interests. On the other hand, that does not necessarily mean negative impact for the effectiveness of relevant political activities. Similar concerns have been raised at least twice in the 20^th century.

The first time was in 1953 when Senator J. W. Fulbright, the "founding father" of famous Fulbright Program, resisted the incorporation of exchange programs (educational and cultural mean of the US public diplomacy) into the US Information Agency (USIA) – the institution responsible for all public diplomacy's activities except for the mentioned one. His argument for many years was the fear that once incorporated into this agency exchange programs would become more politicized (serving political interests of the US and ideological mission of the Cold War) and thus less attractive for foreign audiences, what would have affected negatively their efficiency. However, when in 1978 under the presidency of J. Carter exchange programs joined other public diplomacy initiatives under the jurisdiction of USIA, those fears proved in the least exaggerated: American exchange programs did not become less attractive for foreigners; on the contrary, the number of participants has been gradually increasing until nowadays.

The second time experts and politicians were worried about the fate of American public diplomacy was when R. Reagan became President of the US. His contemporaries noted [2] Reagan's more politicized approach to public diplomacy, since he gave great attention to the ideological confrontation with Soviet Union and saw relative activities dedicated to broadcasting American message around the world as an integral part of national security. Despite prognosis about the US public diplomacy becoming less effective because of such an approach, American victory in the ideological confrontation with the end of Cold War and start of Perestroika in the USSR suggested otherwise. Those events undoubtedly indicated the triumph of American public diplomacy in terms of winning the minds and hearts of foreign audiences and achieving political goals through broadcasting American views and values abroad as well as cultivating positive international image of the US.

[2] Tuch H. N. Communicating with the World: U. S. Public Diplomacy Overseas. Palgrave Macmillan. 1990. 244 p.

Therefore, it seems logical to dig deep when it comes to Michael Pack' appointment and his first decisions in office. Big changes concerning USAGM administration and investigation opening the discussion about agency's organization and strategy clearly look like a continuation of major reformation started under the previous presidential administration with adopting serious structural modifications. Moreover, even if the related reservations about those developments bringing more politics and ideology into the public diplomacy turn out to be justified, it does not necessarily imply negative consequences neither for the efficiency of activities in question, nor for the image of the US abroad in particular, as historical evidence goes to show. It is unclear though, how many stages of reform lie ahead, whether they will cover only the sector of international broadcasting or public diplomacy as a whole, what their nature would be, etc. In any case, if conducted properly and consistently, those transformations have every chance to revive this sphere of American foreign policy, ending the period of stagnation and bringing another moment of glory to the US public diplomacy.