No, We Do Not Need to Revive the U.S. Information Agency – endnote edition
You know you’ve heard it. Whether it was at the office, at school, or a social setting (how erudite of you!), you heard someone bemoan the loss of the United States Information Agency. Perhaps that someone was you. In my experience, these laments are really a coded acknowledgment that the U.S. lacks a strategy, an organizing principle, and empowered individuals to operate in an information-driven world. Continue reading “No, We Do Not Need to Revive the U.S. Information Agency – endnote edition”
Senator Edward Zorinsky and Banning Domestic Access to USIA in 1985
If you’ve looked into public diplomacy or the Smith-Mundt Act, you have likely come across this quote by Senator Edward Zorinsky (D-NE), or some paraphrased reference to it:
The American taxpayer certainly does not need or want his tax dollars used to support U.S. Government propaganda directed at him or her.
Most likely, the text was standing alone and without context of when and why the Senator said it. In my experience, I have seen the quote in perhaps a dozen books, and some scholarly articles, and yet most of the time Zorinsky’s name is not given and never, not once, was a source given. The reader was left hanging.
The logical — and only — implication to be drawn from the quote was that the Government should not propagandize its people, then or today. We like that, but, like many things, the context here, in fact the whole statement, may cause you to rethink this line. Continue reading “Senator Edward Zorinsky and Banning Domestic Access to USIA in 1985”