by Craig Hayden

I have been somewhat sanguine about Matt Armstrong’s position on the Smith-Mundt Act and its domestic dissemination ban on U.S.-produced international broadcasting. While I acknowledge that the Smith-Mundt ban is structurally ineffective in an age when much of U.S. communication material can be accessed by Americans online… I have not heard much about how American access to U.S. programming could improve U.S. public diplomacy efforts (other than perhaps a check on quality).

But Armstrong’s recent article in Foreign Policy, which describes how a Minneapolis radio station wanted to use VOA’s informative programming on Somalia to reach local immigrant audiences and was denied under the provisions of Smith-Mundt, provides a stark reminder of Smith-Mundt’s antiquated relevance. This hindrance becomes more galling when we consider that nothing in the Smith-Mundt legislation prevents terrorist organizations from targeting audiences in the United States, let alone the more high profile international broadcasting of China and Russia. Simply put – the quality programming provided by the VOA might have been a crucial intervention into a local audience that has produced fighters for Al-Qaida in Somalia. VOA provides comparatively accurate and balanced news programming, and allowing such programs to reach critical audiences within the United States costs nothing. To add insult to injury… Kim Andrew Elliott reminds us that U.S. programming is available to domestic broadcasters… you just can’t ask for it directly. Basically – to use the government’s valuable programming, you have to navigate a “don’t ask, don’t tell” farce.

And yet here we are… the U.S. continues to let Smith-Mundt serve as a firewall between U.S. international broadcasting and the domestic population. Why? Perhaps the phantom fears of a looming propaganda state.

As I have said before – we already live in a propaganda state, where mainstream media reporting caters to narrow-cast markets with news and opinions framed to be marketable. So the dangers that Smith-Mundt supposedly protects U.S. citizens from is non-unique. At the same time, the U.S. clings to a phantom hope that its journalistic institutions adhere to a kind of impartial “objectivity” to serve the interests of public debate. Objectivity has been watered down to artificially bisect all issues as politically debatable, with few evaluative standards other than those posed by stakeholders with conveniently contrasting views on the “news.” Put simply – current U.S. media institutions produce propaganda – for better or worse.

So why hasn’t Smith-Mundt been addressed by the legislation, or by executive workarounds? The issue has been ignored because domestic controversies like “healthcare” have an incredible event horizon that occludes all other news. There are few incentives to focus government energy on revising the Smith-Mundt Act, especially at a time of zero-sum politics. As I have said before – it’s not hard to imagine political opponents lining up to oppose any change with charges of “Obama administration wants to legalize domestic propaganda program.” In any age where “death panels” get serious airtime, it’s not surprising that Smith Mundt has been left alone.

So what are the consequences to this ignorance of Smith-Mundt and the domestic dissemination ban? I think Armstrong’s anecdote is a compelling reminder of a larger issue. The U.S. cannot willfully exclude itself from the chaotic global contest of opinion and news framing between international actors. More importantly, the U.S. cannot ignore that globalization involves increasingly porous borders and the flow people. The Minneapolis case highlights the importance of diasporic publics within the United States, and how these media audiences retain connections to their homeland and those parties willing to provide information about their homeland.

The U.S. population is not just a constellation of voting blocks, but a diverse set of communities with interests and relations that overlap and extend beyond the United States. As such, the U.S. is “exposed” to global communicators with an agenda; with pointed framing practices designed to elicit specific opinions and understanding. Here I will say that Norman Pattiz was right in 2002: “There is a media war going on out there.”

The U.S. just isn’t willing to admit that the “war” is being fought within its borders as well as somewhere else. With domestic media institutions having few resources (or incentives) to provide meaningful programming to intervene in pivotal diasporic markets, that leaves the solid reporting of the VOA and other U.S. information programs to fill in the gap. Except, of course, that Smith Mundt protects the U.S. from these government entities. Enough of the ignorance, please!