Washington, D.C., August 12, 2008 – The Voice of America (VOA), broadcasting in languages including Persian, Mandarin, Pashto and Urdu, will provide its international audience of an estimated 134 million with news, analysis and interviews from the Democratic and Republican Presidential Nominating Conventions.
VOA (www.VOANews.com), the largest U.S. international broadcaster, is fielding a team of nearly 90 reporters, technicians, producers, directors, and coordinators to create a radio, television, and Internet broadcast center at both conventions. Broadcasters from 26 of VOA's 45 language services are providing virtually round-the-clock coverage.
"VOA is uniquely skilled in covering and explaining the U.S. electoral process to a global audience, in their own languages," said Executive Editor Steve Redisch. "This election - historic in many ways - is attracting intense interest around the world. We'll be working hard to explain to people how the process works and who the personalities are."
In East and Central Africa, for instance, VOA will broadcast shows for millions of Swahili-speaking people who are following closely the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama because of his Kenyan heritage.
At both the Democratic National Convention, August 25-28, in Denver, Colorado, and the Republican National Convention, September 1-4 in St. Paul, Minnesota, VOA broadcasting will originate from multiple locations.
VOA's Internet coverage will also be expanded, and will include two hours of prime-time, live-streamed English-language coverage each night along with other multimedia coverage. VOANews.com is currently ranked as one of the top five sources of news and information found through Google News.
VOA, funded by the U.S. Government, has provided accurate news and information to audiences around the world since it was founded in 1942. Today, some of VOA's largest audiences are in Nigeria, Iran, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Tanzania and Bangladesh. Based in Washington, D.C., VOA has more than 1,100 staff members, including bureaus around the world.
For more information about VOA’s convention coverage, or to set up interviews with VOA anchors, reporters, or experts, please contact Michelle D. Harris at (202) 380-7643.
The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA (www.VOANews.com) broadcasts more than 1,250 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 134 million people. Programs are produced in 45 languages.
For more information, call VOA Public Relations at (202) 203-4959, or e-mail askvoa@voanews.com.
