Ted Lipien
Tadeusz (Ted) A. Lipien, co-founder and Executive Director of the Committee for U.S. Media Strategy (CUSMC – cusms.com), is an international media executive, journalist, writer, blogger, and press freedom advocate. He worked in or wrote about U.S. international broadcasting for over 50 years, beginning as a radio announcer for the Voice of America (VOA) in 1973 and serving as President of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) from December 18, 2020, to January 23, 2021, in a non-political and non-partisan role. Lipien reported in Polish and English on developments in Poland and Eastern Europe, becoming Chief of VOA’s Polish Service in 1982 during the Solidarity trade union’s struggle for democracy. He interviewed Vice President George H. W. Bush (future U.S. President), Cardinal Karol Wojtyła (future Pope John Paul II), Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa (future President of Poland), and many other Polish democratic opposition leaders who later held top positions in various post-Cold War governments in Poland. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, he took a hiatus from journalism to build a network of VOA and RFE/RL affiliate stations in Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and, eventually, Iraq and Afghanistan. Lipien then became the Director of the Eurasia Division at VOA, where he expanded television and digital multimedia programming to Ukraine, Russia, and other countries and launched a multimedia and multilingual VOA opinion magazine, New Europe Review, recruiting for its International Advisory Board former Czech President Vaclav Havel and former U.S. National Security Advisor Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski. In 2005, he was named Acting Associate Director of VOA. While working for VOA and as an employee of the United States Information Agency (USIA) and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), he received multiple awards, including the Employee of the Year Award, and commendations from VOA Directors, Democrats and Republicans. He retired from VOA in 2006, going on to found Free Media Online, an NGO covering international broadcasting and media freedom. He co-founded the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting, a non-profit supporting media outreach to countries suffering from censorship and human rights violations. His articles on U.S. international broadcasting have been published in The Hill, American Diplomacy Journal, National Review, The Washington Times, Digital Journal, and The Washington Examiner. CNN, NBC, FOX, NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post have quoted his views on media. He is the author of a book published in English and Polish about feminism and Pope John Paul II. Lipien earned a B.A. in International Relations with distinction from George Washington University. He is a Phi Beta Kappa member.
“The organizers of the Congress [the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia] rightly included in its program such themes as: ‘The Hunger for Liberty,’ ‘The Hunger for Truth,’ ‘The Hunger for Understanding,’ ‘The Hunger for Love.’” – Card. Karol Wojtyła, future Pope John Paul II, in an interview for the Polish Service of the Voice of America in 1976.
More than anybody else, Pope John Paul II contributed to the end of communism in East-Central Europe and the collapse of the Soviet empire. During my work for the Voice of America, I talked to him three times and interviewed him once in August 1976 in Washington, two years before he became Pope. In this photograph, taken at the Vatican in 1983, I am with the then-VOA Director Kenneth Y. Tomlinson and his wife, Rebecca Tomlinson. The Pope thanked us for VOA broadcasts to Poland.