What return on investment do American taxpayers receive for the money we pay for international broadcasting in 61 languages from the Voice of America and five other USG-funded media organizations? And is that investment effective? The answer to each question is, we believe, not nearly enough.

Having recently spent several years on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed body responsible for oversight of international broadcasting, we have serious reservations about the effectiveness of the taxpayers’ current investment of $720 million. In our experience, U.S. international broadcasting is run by a dysfunctional organization in pursuit of an unfocused mission attached only tenuously to U.S. foreign policy objectives. This state of affairs is the result of the last round of “reforms” to international broadcasting in the 1990s. It hasn’t worked.