InterMedia counts on the vision, leadership and experience of its Board of Directors to steer it successfully into its second decade. Board members bring to the table decades of broadcasting and international expertise. Led by Ambassador Richard Carlson, members reflect a variety of disciplines and experiences working in government, media, industry and academia.
Ambassador Richard Carlson – Chair
Amb. Richard Carlson-former director of Voice of America (VOA) and president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and current vice-chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies-has a resume that encompasses a wide spectrum of experience in media and public policy. For the last six years of the Cold War, he was director of VOA-in fact, he is the second-longest serving director in the organization’s 50-year history. He oversaw a network which broadcasts 24-hours-a-day in 50 languages to an audience of more than 130 million. He was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve as ambassador to the Seychelles; has led official U.S. delegations to China, the former Soviet Union, Georgia and Moldova; addressed the Israeli Knesset and the British House of Commons; produced, written and directed documentaries for ABC and NBC for which he was awarded three Emmys and the George Foster Peabody Award (The Pulitzer Prize of broadcasting); served as the head of ABC’s investigative unit in Los Angeles; been involved with negotiations on behalf of the United States with at least a dozen foreign governments including China, Korea, Israel and Liberia; was a columnist for UPI; observed the first democratic elections in South Africa and parliamentary elections in Albania; and testified dozens of times before the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees and many others. He also led U.S. government overseas television broadcasting, including the USIA Film and TV Service and World Net. He has been, for eight years, the host of Danger Zone, a radio show about terrorism and national security broadcast weekly on Sirius/XM satellite radio in the U.S. and Canada and on British Sky Radio in the UK and Europe and World Radio Network in Africa and Asia. Carlson is also host of the weekly TV show, Danger Zone, which is carried on Verizon’s FIOS, Comcast and Time Warner Cable systems.
Dr. Barry Fulton – Vice Chair
Dr. Barry Fulton is a senior management consultant at the U.S. Department of State. He is a board member of the Salzburg Global Seminar and a member of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs. He is the author of State Gets SMART (2009), Leveraging Technology in the Service of Diplomacy (2002), and project director and author of
the CSIS study, Reinventing Diplomacy in the Information Age (1998).
He was named by President Clinton as Associate Director of the United States Information Agency in 1994. During a 30-year career as aForeign Service Officer with the United States Information Agency, he served in Brussels, Rome, Tokyo, Karachi, and Islamabad. He retired in 1998 at the grade of Minister-Counselor. He established and directed
the American Forces Radio and Television Service in Turkey as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.
He has taught at George Washington University, the Foreign Service Institute, American University, the University of Illinois, the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Maryland, San Antonio College, and the Pakistani Information Academy.
Fulton holds a Ph.D. in Communications from the University of Illinois, an MA in Broadcasting and BS in Electrical engineering from Penn State.
Robert Gillette
International journalist, broadcaster and media development expert Robert Gillette joined the InterMedia Board in 2010. He is a former Moscow and East European bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, and winner of the Clarence Darrow Award for investigative journalism. He served as a senior manager at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich and Prague from 1989-98, the last four years as Director of Broadcasting. Gillette transitioned into important leadership roles in media development: he worked with the international community in Bosnia to establish the country’s broadcast regulatory agency and directed a $14-million USAID program to develop independent, professional media, including Mreza Plus, a private, country-wide, multi-ethnic television network. From 2003-2006, Gillette was the United Nations’ Temporary Media Commissioner in Kosovo, where he directed the creation of that country’s broadcast regulatory agency and the drafting of media legislation for the Kosovo parliament. As a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley in geology, Gillette began his career as a science writer, including a four-year stint as writer with Science Magazine. He has also been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
John Fox
Mr. Fox is president of I-Media, an international media development firm providing strategic, advocacy and sustainability assistance, project management and evaluation, distribution and technical services to broadcasters, public and private donors, and non-governmental organizations. He has directed the Independent Broadcasting Project
for the Public International Law and Policy Group, supporting Southeast European broadcasters with development, regulatory and technical assistance needs. He was special advisor to the Network Media Program
of the Open Society Institute, where he developed advocacy, co-funding
and partnerships for indigenous media in transition and post-conflict countries. Mr. Fox served as director of the Open Society Institute/Soros Foundation Washington office; as senior policy officer in the Europe and Central Asia Division of the World Bank; and as regional officer for Eastern Europe in the Office of Policy and Planning at the U.S. Department of State.
He has worked for several U.S. print and broadcast media, and has played
an active role in a broad range of non-governmental groups in behalf of human rights and free media around the world.
Dr. Douglas A. Boyd
Dr. Boyd, is Professor, Department of Communication, School of Journalism and Telecommunications, and Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky. He has a long and distinguished academic career. Since 1987, he has served in various capacities at the University of Kentucky, including Associate Provost for International Affairs and Dean of the College of Communications and Information Studies. Prior to that, he held posts at the University of Maryland in College Park and the University of Delaware, and was a Fulbright Professor at Cairo University and the American University in Cairo. Dr. Boyd’s experience also includes work at Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Office of International Broadcasting and Audience Research in London. He is the author of Broadcasting in the Arab World and co-author of Video Cassette Recorders in the Third World, and 60 refereed academic publications. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Communication and the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.
