Chipping away at a nation's influence
The late Walter Lippmann, the greatest of all American newspaper columnists, mocked America's efforts to broadcast overseas. The broadcasts, he wrote, 'were no more than singing songs, cracking jokes, entertaining the kiddies'.
No influential voice, to my knowledge, has made such a criticism of the BBC's World Service. It has evolved over the years as an institution that, while not promoting an official ideology, has been able to project to the outside world the best of British journalistic talents - informed analysis, variety of comment, and sharpness and accuracy of reporting. It entertains too, with discernment.
We have seen it at its best, covering the events in Egypt and Tunisia, reporting with a detached but well-informed eye.
Despite the World Service's many achievements, the British government of Prime Minister David Cameron is wielding the axe. It is introducing budget cuts across the board. While protecting the anachronistic nuclear deterrent that costs billions, it is salami-slicing bits here and there of the World Service. The notion that 'soft power' is more powerful than 'hard power' does not enter the minds of the Conservative government.
The BBC's hard-won journalistic strength is based in part on its political detachment, and in part on having the resources to be truly a world broadcasting organisation, attracting the best talent and able to reach an audience that spans the globe. It cannot afford to be fickle, switching on and off its budget and foreign-language services depending on political movements.
Imagine if the BBC had cut its Russian service before the events when the president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, was deposed by a coup. Stranded in his holiday home on the Black Sea with his family, his phone was cut, his car impounded and exits closed. His son-in-law found tucked away an old radio set. He rigged up an antenna with a piece of wire and tuned into the BBC Russian service and they followed events in Moscow. The coup was thwarted by the military and the future president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin.
When Gorbachev gave his first post-coup press conference, the person he selected for the first question was the BBC's correspondent.
Not only its Russian-language radio service is to go. So is its Mandarin service. The Albanian, Macedonian and Serbian language services likewise. They could not have chosen a more important list of language services if they tried.
Unlike the rest of the BBC, the World Service is funded by a Foreign Office grant and thus in theory is subject to government policies. By and large it resists the political pressures and, because of its place in the BBC family, it has the muscle to stand up to the Foreign Office. But it can do little about budget cuts - it has been ordered to cut 16 per cent, a significant amount.
Meanwhile, China is increasing its overseas transmissions, and a host of other countries have started up theirs in recent years.
Sadly, Cameron, like Margaret Thatcher before him, believes in cuts rather than soft power.
Jonathan Power is a London-based journalist
