Washington, D.C., June 3, 2009 – Voice of America (VOA) is fielding a team of journalists in Cairo to cover President Barack Obama's speech to Muslims, soliciting international reaction online, and providing in-depth analysis in more than two dozen languages.
Eight VOA journalists are reporting on events surrounding the president's speech, which the White House says will emphasize his personal commitment to improving U.S. relations with Muslims around the globe.
VOA will broadcast Obama's address live in English with simultaneous interpretation into Persian, Pashto, and Urdu. VOA, with a worldwide audience of over 134 million, will also offer special programs from Washington, Cairo, London, Kabul and Jerusalem.
VOA Turkish and Indonesian will expand regular coverage for affiliates by filing live reports from Cairo on major local radio and television outlets.
VOA's audience has been interacting via e-mail, Twitter, YouTube and myVOA.com in anticipation of the speech which, will be streamed live tomorrow on www.VOANews.com.
"Our worldwide audience has shown great interest in President Obama's relationship with the international community," said VOA Executive Editor Steve Redisch. "This is another opportunity to provide more in-depth discussion of his vision of U.S. engagement with the world and the Muslim community in particular."
President Obama began his five-day trip on Tuesday, June 2, with a visit to Saudi Arabia. From Egypt, he will travel to Germany to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and visit the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, and to France to meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy and attend ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of World War II's D-Day Normandy invasion.
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 broadcasts approximately 1,500 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.
