Washington – Amanda Bennett, Director of the Voice of America (VoA), will tour five Balkan countries in order to talk about the role of the VoA, its influence and the effectiveness of its programs for the region.
Director Bennett will meet the VoA media partners’ representatives, domestic journalists and government officials in Serbia (18-19 September), Bosnia and Herzegovina (20-23 September), Montenegro (24-26 September), Albania (26-28 September) and Kosovo (28-30 September). During her tour, director Bennett will be accompanied by Dr. Elez Biberaj, Director of the Eurasian Division, Alen Mlatisuma, Managing Editor of the Internet at the Eurasian Division, Dzeilana Pecanin, Chief of the Bosnian Service at the VoA and Arben Xhixho, Chief of the Albanian Service at the VoA.
Dr. Biberaj said director Bennett’s visit in the Balkan region is a first among directors of the VoA. During her visit in the five Balkan countries, director Bennett will explain how the VoA is responding to the current challenges the media is facing, as well as to panoramic media changes. According to Dr. Biberaj, director Bennett will highlight that the VoA’s mission hasn’t changed since the day of its first broadcast, 75 years ago – tell the truth, be precise and balanced and introduce its audiences with the United States of America.
Dr. Biberaj says that “at a time when media trust is falling, the Voice of America keeps playing a vital role, as one of the most trusted news sources. The Voice of America offers the alternative of factual information, as opposed to propaganda, serves as a mean to find the alternatives offered by the opposition, as well as public debate, thus urging the development of free and just societies.”
The Balkan Services of the VoA offer quality programs, in various platforms, which have many followers and a big influence in the region, by providing credible and neutral news and information that the polarized domestic press is not always able to provide.
The VoA has an audience of 12% in Serbia, 13,4% in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 26,5% in Montenegro, 60,5% in Albania and 64% in Kosovo.
Amanda Bennett, Director of the Voice of America
Amanda Bennett is a book author as well as winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and has worked in investigative journalism. She was named Director of the Voice of America in 2016. During 2013, she was Editor in Chief at Bloomberg News, where she created and directed a global team of investigative journalists and editors. She co-founded the network’s project Bloomberg’s News for Women. From June 2003 to November 2006, she worked as Editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and before that as Editor of Herald-Leader, in Lexington, Kentucky. For three years, she was also Editor in Chief of projects of The Oregonian, in Portland. After graduating Harvard University, Bennett worked as a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal for more than 20 years. Her positions there varied, from: reporter of the Detroit automobile industry at the late 70’s and beginning of the 80’s, reporter of the Pentagon and State Department, correspondent and Editor in Chief of the Beijing office, national economic correspondent and, lastly, director of the newspaper’s office in Atlanta until 1998, the year she started working at the Oregonian.
Bennett, together with her Wall Street Journal colleagues, won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize on domestic topics’ reports. In 2001, she was head of The Oregonian team which won the Pulitzer Prize for public service. The investigative journalism projects of the teams she was part of in Bloomberg News have won several awards, such as: the Loeb Award, Polk, Barlett & Steele Award, Headliners Award, Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award and the Overseas Press Club Award.
Bennett was a Board Member of the Pulitzer Price from 2003 to 2011and has served as co-Chair of the Pulitzer Board in 2010. She has also served the Boards of the Loeb Award, the American Society of News Editors, the Investigative Journalism Fund, Temple University’s Board of press councilors, the Directors’ Board of the non-profit, news network Axis Philly and the Rosenbach Museum, a museum of rare books located in Philadelphia.
She is the author of six books, such as In Memoriam (1998), co-authored with Terence B. Foley; The Man who Stayed Behind (1993), co-authored with Sidney Rittenberg; Death of the Organization Man (1991) and The Quiet Room (1996), co-authored with Lori Schiller. The Cost of Hope, a memoir of the battle she and her late husband, Foley, undertook against kidney cancer, was published in June 2012, by Random House.
She and her husband, Donald Graham, are founders of the TheDream.US Foundation, which offers university scholarships to the children of undocumented US immigrants.
