WASHINGTON (Sputnik), Leandra Bernstein — New legislation to enhance US international broadcasting is not aimed at countering Russian media, US House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Eliot Engel told Sputnik.
“It is not directed at anybody,” Engel said on Thursday when asked whether the recent legislation he cosponsored is directed at Russia.
The US International Communications Reform Act seeks to improve US counter-propaganda communications through the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved Engel’s legislation on Thursday.
Engel added his “concern is that a lot of Russian-speaking people in Eastern Europe do not have” an open press and access to different points of view.
Asked whether he considered the outlets to be US propaganda channels, Engel stated that “propaganda has a pejorative tone.”
The US broadcasting channels will be used in a way that is “consistent with and supportive of” US foreign policy objectives, according to the legislation.
The views promoted through US broadcasting will include support for democracy and political pluralism, Engel stated. “If people think that is American propaganda, then so be it."
Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in February 2015 that the BBG had to become more effective “with respect to the propaganda that is coming out of Russia.”
The US Broadcasting Board of Governors was created during the Cold War and oversees all US civilian international broadcasting including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
In February 2015, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned of an escalation in information warfare by means of global mass media, the Internet and social networking.
