President Obama Wednesday announced his intent to nominate former Time magazine editor and CNN chairman-CEO Walter Isaacson to chair the Broadcast Board of Governors that oversees the Voice of America, Radio Sawa, Alhurra TV and other U.S. overseas broadcasting services.
The president also named Michael Lynton, chairman-CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and former Bush administration White House press secretary Dana Perino as among members of the broadcast board.
Isaacson is now president of the Aspen Institute and serves as chair of the board of Teach for America. Lynton is the former chairman of AOL Europe and is a member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. Perino is a the chief issues counselor for the United States at public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.
The president also made several other nominations today to the Broadcasting Board of Governors even as he visited Korea as part of an Asian trip.
The others were Susan McCue, president of Message Global, a strategic advocacy firm; Michael P. Meehan, president of Blue Line Strategic Communications, Inc. and senior vice president at Virilion, a digital media company; Victor H. Ashe, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland and former Knoxville, Tenn. mayor; Dennis Mulhaupt, founder and managing director of Commonwealth Partners, Inc. which providing advisory services to philanthropic institutions and families; and S. Enders Wimbush, senior vice president for international programs and policy at the Hudson Institute.
McCue was the founding President and CEO of The ONE Campaign to combat global poverty.
The posts need Senate confirmation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is an ex-officio member of the board.
Under the Bush administration, the Broadcast Board of Governors recast some of the U.S. services to aim them towards younger audience. It also added Alhurra, a satellite TV channel.
