May 2014
Masayuki Saito
International broadcasting that transmits information across borders is changing at a rapid pace along with the changes in world affairs and media environment. The United States has been transmitting information overseas in double harness, or through public and private vehicles: international TV news channels operated by commercial broadcasters such as CNN and international broadcasting sponsored by the government. The U.S. government-sponsored international broadcasting has become one of the largest publicly-funded international broadcasting organizations in the world, with more than 700 million dollars annual budget and more than 200 million viewers around the globe.
The structure of the government-sponsored international broadcasting is rather complicating as it is operated by five broadcasters which are institutionally classified into two categories: national broadcasters and non-profitable private organizations. The U.S. international broadcasting that started during World War II was under the influence of the State Department and CIA in the post-war period, during which their news coverage approach had to follow the government’s foreign policy. However, since 1999 when the organization came under the supervision of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), it has been regarded as a journalistic organization that provides accurate and objective news reports. With its over-70-year-history, the U.S. international broadcasting has become larger and larger along with the time, both in the scale of broadcasting and in the size of organization, and it is now faced with budget cut and is pressed for streamlining of the business, influenced by the government’s austerity policy. Besides, several problems are pointed out such as service overlapping among different broadcasters and structural problem of the supervising body. Thus, there are many challenges to overcome. The U.S. international broadcasting has been swayed between foreign policy and journalism, affected by the international situation of the time, and now its nature and role, whether it is a journalistic or diplomatic organization, is becoming the subject of debate.