Voice of America (VOA) is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio and TV and the Internet outside of the U.S. in 43 languages. VOA produces about 1,500 hours of news and feature programming each week for an estimated global audience of 123 million people, "to promote freedom and democracy and to enhance understanding through multimedia communication of accurate, objective, and balanced news, information and other programming about America and the world to audiences overseas." Its day-to-day operations are supported by the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB).
A 1976 law signed by President Gerald Ford requires VOA to "serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news." The VOA Charter states: "VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive." VOA radio and television broadcasts are distributed by satellite, cable and on FM, AM, and shortwave radio frequencies. They are streamed on individual language service websites, social media sites and mobile platforms. VOA has more than 1,200 affiliate and contract agreements with radio and television stations and cable networks worldwide.
Read more about Voice Of America: Transmission Facilities, Languages, Overview, Broadcasting Board of Governors Services, Programming
Famous quotes containing the words voice of, voice and/or america:
“In the middle of the night, as indeed each time that we lay on the shore of a lake, we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances of the traveler, and very unlike the voice of a bird. I could lie awake for hours listening to it, it is so thrilling.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Prose—it might be speculated—is discourse; poetry ellipsis. Prose is spoken aloud; poetry overheard. The one is presumably articulate and social, a shared language, the voice of “communication”; the other is private, allusive, teasing, sly, idiosyncratic as the spider’s delicate web, a kind of witchcraft unfathomable to ordinary minds.”
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)
“The pure products of America go crazy—mountain folk from Kentucky or the ribbed north end of Jersey with its isolate lakes and valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)