{"product_id":"voice-of-america-a-history","title":"Voice of America - A History","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Voice of America is the nations largest publicly funded broadcasting network  reaching more than 90 million people worldwide in over forty languages. Since it first went on the air as a regional wartime enterprise in February 1942  VOA has undergone a spectacular transformation  and it now employs scores of reporters worldwide and broadcasts around the clock every day of every year  reaching listeners in the four-fifths of the world still denied a completely free press. Alan L. Heil  Jr.  former deputy director of VOA  chronicles this remarkable transformation from a fledgling short wave propaganda organ during World War II to a global multimedia giant encompassing radio  the Internet  and 1 500 affiliated radio and television stations across the globe.  Using transcripts of radio broadcasts and numerous personal anecdotes  Heil gives the reader a front-row seat to the greatest events of the past sixty years  from the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict to the Watergate and Lewinsky scandals  from Neil Armstrongs first steps on the moon in 1969 to ethnic strife in the Balkans and Rwanda in the mid-1990s  and from the outbreak of HIV\/AIDS in the 1980s to the terrorist attacks on September 11  2001. Yet Heil also relates the story of a perennially underfunded organization struggling against the political pressures  congressional investigations  massive reorganizations  and leadership purges that have attempted to shape-and  in some instances  control-VOA programming. Reporting first hand  high-quality news is a monumental task for any network  but the Voice faces obstacles unique to an organization that stands  as former director John Chancellor once observed  at \"the crossroads of journalism and diplomacy.\" It is for this reason that many people still perceive VOA as an instrument of American propaganda. However  as a thirty-six-year veteran of VOA and its numerous policy wars  Heil believes that the Voice has always sought to deliver accurate  objective  and comprehensive news of the highest journalistic standard  news that reflects Americas diversity and dynamism  and that presents not only U.S. policies but also critical debate about those policies.  This in-depth history of VOA from its founding until its sixtieth anniversary is a vivid portrait of the people who made it great  depicting a news network that has overcome enormous challenges to steadfastly and faithfully report the most important news stories of our time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44966459342901,"sku":"ByrdShop_0231126751","price":61.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780231126755.jpg?v=1770563048","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/voice-of-america-a-history","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}