Good Bye to Radio Free Europe?

[MTAtech]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003Dec7.html
THEY PROVIDE what one Lithuanian politician calls "neutral, solid, Western programming" reflecting Western values. They give an American point of view but are not generally regarded as propaganda. They have millions of listeners across the new democracies of Eastern Europe as well as a long tradition. They cost, by U.S. budgetary standards, very little: The overall funding, for 11 countries, is $11 million a year. Yet if congressional appropriators have their way, one of the cheapest, most effective and most popular tools of U.S. public diplomacy -- the foreign language services of Radio Free Europe -- will soon cease to exist. Seven languages are to be cut altogether, including the services to Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia and the Baltic states.

[Theophylact]

It's a shame, I suppose; but isn't Europe now free?

[Pexster]

International shortwave broadcasting is on it's way out, I fear. The BBC Overseas Service cut back drastically on it's English language schedule last year or the year before. Their broadcasts are/were an even more significant international conduit for news.

[MTAtech]

The point is, for $11M it is a cheap way to get an American perspective into Europe.