the american broadcaster . for other uses see voice of america disambiguation . voa redirects here . for other uses see voa disambiguation . for information about vandalism only accounts on wikipedia see wp voa . voice of america type international public broadcaster country united states founded february 17 1942 ; 74 years ago 1942 02 17 headquarters washington d.c. u.s. owner broadcasting board of governors official website www.voanews.com voice of america headquarters in washington d.c. yankee doodle the interval signal of voice of america voice of america voa is a united states government funded multimedia news source and the official external broadcasting institution of the united states . 1 voa provides programming for broadcast on radio television and the internet outside of the u.s. in english and some foreign languages . the voa charter signed into law in 1976 by president gerald ford requires voa to serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news and be accurate objective and comprehensive . 2 the voice of america headquarters is located at 330 independence avenue sw washington d.c. 20237 . the voa is fully funded by the u.s. government ; the congress appropriates funds for it annually under the same budget for embassies and consulates . 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 affiliate and contract agreements with radio and television stations and cable networks worldwide . some scholars and commentators consider voice of america to be a form of propaganda although this label is disputed by others . 3 4 contents 1 current languages 2 history 2.1 american private shortwave broadcasting before world war ii 2.2 world war ii 2.3 cold war 2.4 post cold war 2.5 cuts in services 3 agencies 4 laws 4.1 smith mundt act 4.2 internal policies 4.2.1 voa charter 4.2.2 two source rule 5 newsroom 6 shortwave frequencies 7 voa radiogram 8 transmission facilities 9 comparing voa rfe rl rm to other broadcasters 10 controversy 10.1 mullah omar interview 10.2 abdul malik rigi interview 10.3 tibetan protester interview 11 see also 12 references 12.1 bibliography 13 external links current languages edit the voice of america website has five english language broadcasts as of 2014 worldwide special english cambodia zimbabwe and tibet . additionally the voa website has versions in 42 foreign languages radio programs are marked with an asterisk ; tv programs with a plus symbol afan oromo albanian amharic armenian azerbaijani bengali bosnian burmese cantonese chinese dari persian french georgian haitian creole hausa indonesian khmer kinyarwanda kirundi korean kurdish lao macedonian ndebele pashto persian pilipino portuguese russian serbian shona somali spanish swahili thai tibetan tigrinya turkish ukrainian urdu uzbek vietnamese the number of languages varies according to the priorities of the united states government and the world situation . 5 history edit american private shortwave broadcasting before world war ii edit before world war ii all american shortwave stations were in private hands . 6 known privately controlled shortwave networks included the national broadcasting company s international or white network which broadcast in six languages 7 the columbia broadcasting system s latin american international network which consisted of 64 stations located in 18 different countries 8 and the crosley company in cincinnati ohio all of which had shortwave transmitters . experimental programming began in the 1930s but there were then fewer than 12 transmitters in operation . 9 in 1939 the federal communications commission set the following policy a licensee of an international broadcast station shall render only an international broadcast service which will reflect the culture of this country and which will promote international goodwill understanding and cooperation . any program solely intended for and directed to an audience in the continental united states does not meet the requirements for this service . 10 washington observers felt this policy was to enforce the state department s good neighbor policy but many broadcasters felt that this was an attempt to direct censorship . 11 in 1940 the office of the coordinator of interamerican affairs a semi independent agency of the u.s. state department headed by nelson rockefeller began operations . shortwave signals to latin america were regarded as vital to counter nazi propaganda . 9 initially the office of coordination of information sent releases to each station but this was seen as an inefficient means of transmitting news . 6 world war ii edit even before the japanese attack on pearl harbor the u.s. government s office of the coordinator of information had already begun providing war news and commentary to the commercial american shortwave radio stations for use on a voluntary basis . 12 direct programming began approximately seven weeks after the united states s entry into world war ii with the first live broadcast to germany which was called stimmen aus amerika voices from america and was transmitted on february 1 1942 . it was introduced by the battle hymn of the republic and included the pledge today and every day from now on we will be with you from america to talk about the war ... the news may be good or bad for us we will always tell you the truth . 13 franklin delano roosevelt 32nd president of the united states approved this broadcast which then colonel william j. donovan and playwright robert sherwood the playwright who served as roosevelt s speech writer and information advisor had recommended to him . it was sherwood who actually coined the term the voice of america to describe the shortwave network that began its transmissions on february 1 from 270 madison avenue in new york city . the office of war information when organized in the middle of 1942 officially took over voa s operations . voa reached an agreement with the british broadcasting corporation to share medium wave transmitters in britain and expanded into tunis in north africa and palermo and bari italy as the allies captured these territories . the owi also set up the american broadcasting station in europe . 14 asian transmissions started with one transmitter in california in 1941 ; services were expanded by adding transmitters in hawaii and after recapture the philippines . 15 by the end of the war voa had 39 transmitters and provided service in 40 languages . 15 programming was broadcast from production centers in new york and san francisco with more than 1 000 programs originating from new york . programming consisted of music news commentary and relays of u.s. domestic programming in addition to specialized voa programming . 16 about half of voa s services including the arabic service were discontinued in 1945 . 17 in late 1945 voa was transferred to the department of state . cold war edit in 1947 voa started broadcasting to the soviet citizens in russia under the pretext of countering more harmful instances of soviet propaganda directed against american leaders and policies on the part of the internal soviet russian language media according to john b. whitton s treatise cold war propaganda . 18 the soviet union responded by initiating electronic jamming of voa broadcasts on april 24 1949 . 18 charles w. thayer headed voa in 1948 49 . over the next few years the u.s. government debated the best role of voice of america . the decision was made to use voa broadcasts as a part of its foreign policy to fight the propaganda of the soviet union and other countries . the arabic service resumed on january 1 1950 with a half hour program . this program grew to 14.5 hours daily during the suez crisis of 1956 and was six hours a day by 1958 . 17 in 1952 voice of america installed a studio and relay facility aboard a converted u.s. coast guard cutter renamed courier whose target audience was soviet union and other members of warsaw pact . the courier was originally intended to become the first in a fleet of mobile radio broadcasting ships see offshore radio that built upon u.s. navy experience during wwii in using warships as floating broadcasting stations . however the courier eventually dropped anchor off the island of rhodes greece with permission of the greek government to avoid being branded as a pirate radio broadcasting ship . this voa offshore station stayed on the air until the 1960s when facilities were eventually provided on land . the courier supplied training to engineers who later worked on several of the european commercial offshore broadcasting stations of the 1950s and 1960s . control of voa passed from the state department to the u.s. information agency when the latter was established in 1953 . 17 to transmit worldwide including to the countries behind the iron curtain and to the people s republic of china prc . during the 1950s and 1960s voa broadcast american jazz which was highly popular worldwide . for example a program aimed at south africa in 1956 broadcast two hours nightly along with special programs such as the newport jazz festival . this was done in association with tours by u.s. musicians such as dizzy gillespie louis armstrong and duke ellington sponsored by the state department . 19 throughout the cold war many of the targeted countries s governments sponsored jamming of voa broadcasts which sometimes led critics to question the broadcasts actual impact . for example in 1956 polish people s republic stopped jamming voa transmissions citation needed but people s republic of bulgaria continued to jam the signal through the 1970s . chinese language voa broadcasts were jammed beginning in 1956 and extending through 1976 . 20 however after the collapse of the warsaw pact and the soviet union interviews with participants in anti soviet movements verified the effectiveness of voa broadcasts in transmitting information to socialist societies . 21 the people s republic of china diligently jams voa broadcasts . 22 cuba has also been reported to interfere with voa satellite transmissions to iran from its russian built transmission site at bejucal . 23 david jackson former director of voice of america noted the north korean government doesn t jam us but they try to keep people from listening through intimidation or worse . but people figure out ways to listen despite the odds . they re very resourceful . 24 throughout the 1960s and 1970s voa covered some of the era s most important news including martin luther king jr. s i have a dream speech and neil armstrong s first walk on the moon . during the cuban missile crisis voa broadcast around the clock in spanish . in the early 1980s voa began a 1.3 billion rebuilding program to improve broadcast with better technical capabilities . also in the 1980s voa also added a television service as well as special regional programs to cuba radio mart and tv mart . cuba has consistently attempted to jam such broadcasts and has vociferously protested u.s. broadcasts directed at cuba . in september 1980 voa started broadcasting to afghanistan in dari and in pashto in 1982 . at the same time voa started to broadcast u.s. government editorials clearly separated from the programming by audio cues . in 1985 voa europe was created as a special service in english that was relayed via satellite to am fm and cable affiliates throughout europe . with a contemporary format including live disc jockeys the network presented top musical hits as well as voa news and features of local interest such as eurofax 24 hours a day . voa europe was closed down without advance public notice in january 1997 as a cost cutting measure . it was followed by voa express which from july 4 1999 revamped into voa music mix . since november 1 2014 stations are offered voa1 which is a rebranding of voa music mix . in 1989 voice of america expanded its mandarin and cantonese