Voice of america - Essay Example

6 October Memo for Voice of America (VOA) In the last a Voice of America (VOA) representative was invited as the guest speaker into our class. Following his speech about VOA, the professor asked us to prepare a memo about VOA. This paper is the memo for VOA. VOA is US federal government’s external news channel. VOA broadcasts commenced in the year 1942 when people were in dire need of reliable news following the war. VOA’s mission is to spread democracy and freedom and to improve the overseas audience’s understanding of America and the whole world through balanced and unbiased information and multimedia communication.

VOA is amongst the five international broadcasters of the US that are civilian are function directly under the supervision of Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The programs by VOA are offered in some 44 languages on all sorts of mediums including Internet, TV and radio. Number of languages broadcast in TV out of these 44 languages is 26. There are distinct websites for the different language services of VOA and they make use of a whole range of social media websites including Youtube, Facebook and Orkut to approach the audience and share views with them.

Contents of the programs broadcast include but are not limited to culture, news, education, live calls and discussions. Every week, 1500 hours of news are produced by VOA that cater for the concerns of some 123 million people all over the world. Facilities of VOA include 33 studios for recording and production, 20 studios for the broadcast of radio, 32 suites for the editing of videos and 4 television studios. President Gerald Ford signed a law in 1976 according to which VOA should play the role of a consistently authoritative and reliable news channel.

The news-center of VOA is spread over an area of 30000 sq. ft. Every day, as many as 150 news reports are generated by the news-center about different programs and in different languages. In addition to about 90 part-time reporters, VOA has 13 overseas and 48 domestic reporters. VOA’s system of integrated digital audio is the greatest of all across the globe. There are about 1180 employees of VOA. Many of them are quite aged and are likely to expire within the next decade. Most of them will be replaced by federal employees or contractors.

The annual budget of VOA amounts to $207 million. Since the start of the 21st century, there has occurred a tenfold increase in the TV audience of VOA, of which 1/6th are English people. About 10 per cent of the total budget of VIA is spent upon the internet. Number of visits made in one week is as many as 2.5 millions. A vast majority of the audience of VOA are in South Asian, Africa and East Asia whereas VOA is also jammed in several countries including North Korea, Iran, Cuba and China. Least audience of VOA is found in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Western Europe.

Numerous youth programs have been started by VOA for the underdeveloped countries that include but are not limited to Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan and Mozambique.