Now is the time for all good men — and women — to come to the aid of public diplomacy. I have in mind citizen travel to countries that, until recently, were off-limits to Americans, like Iran, Libya or Syria. Or Cuba, the only country that Americans need a “license” from their own government to […]
The news out of Philadelphia is that there is no news — no newspapers, that is. The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News have joined the swelling ranks of American print media that have gone bankrupt. Last month, it was the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. Late last year, the Los Angeles Times and Chicago […]
It doesn’t count as public diplomacy — not yet. But the way in which the Iranian authorities have permitted foreign media visits, especially coverage by major American media (e.g., NPR and the NYT) , not to mention official Iranian comments on bilateral relations, suggests a whiff of change toward caring what the Western world thinks. […]
Students of public diplomacy and propaganda are quick to point out the difference between the two, but sometimes it's not so easy. One man's strategic government effort to communicate with foreign publics can be another man's tendentious information blitz to smear the reputation of another country. Nowadays, the clumsy and blunt-edged attacks that characterized the […]
You might think Barack Hussein Obama would choose a safer audience than the Arab world for his first TV interview as President. But he chose Dubai-based Al Arabiya, and he chose well. With all the innumerable problems facing the United States, the most daunting long-term problem is America's relationship to the world; within that context, […]
I think my son was disappointed at what he got this year. After opening his gifts, he started throwing shoes at me.” -David Letterman, December 29th By now it should be obvious: President Bush's final visit to Iraq, planned in secrecy for dramatic impact, will be remembered for the startling gesture of disrespect invented by […]
The latest report on how to improve America's public diplomacy has its merits, but overall it inspires deja vu. We’ve been in this place before, trying to figure out how the world's most influential culture and most powerful government might finally achieve a public diplomacy organization that operates at the same level. The Brookings […]
Today, as Barack Obama formally announces his national security team, there is plenty of buzz over what his choices mean in the field of public diplomacy. Hillary Clinton, under whose State Department aegis public diplomacy falls, was not particularly vocal or articulate on this topic as a candidate. Robert Gates, whose Defense Department has no […]
Here's a small collection of what I came across today. First, every day the Newseum, a museum dedicated to Journalism in Washington, DC, publishes the front pages of every major newspaper from every state in the nation, along with some foreign papers. Today, this display drew crowds. You can view it online here: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/default.asp (Their […]
I’ll let this article, published by Indian news wire Sify, speak for itself: “Kathmandu: They made predictions – some with success and some without – about the end of the country's royal dynasty and the end of the Maoist insurgency. Now Nepal's cosmopolitan astrologers are predicting a victory for Barack Obama. According to Nepal's leading […]
In the run-up to the election, there are so many relevant commentaries, polls and musings that it is best to just list a few of them below. Sunday's reporting by Colum Lynch, the Washington Post's UN correspondent, is titled “At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win:” “There are no “Obama 2008” buttons, banners […]
With just a few days remaining until the U.S. elections, I wonder not so much how they will be interpreted as who will be doing the interpreting. There are plenty of observers and commentators, of course, most of them connected in some way to national and international mass media. But there appear to be few […]
It's old news now that Former Secretary of State and General Colin Powell broke with his Republican party and endorsed Barack Obama while on “Meet The Press” this past weekend (video here). But I took particular notice to his advice on what should be the President's number one priority once inaugurated:
In the Washington Post today Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung report, “On Al-Qaeda Web Sites, Joy Over U.S. Crisis, Support for McCain:” “Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market's downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America's economy through endless, […]