World Radio Day 2014 - interview with Stephane Dujarric

In honour of World Radio Day 2014, Elena Vapnitchnaia, Chief of the Russian UN Radio sits with Stephane Dujarric, Director of the News and Media Division in the UN Department of Public Information, to discuss the past and future of UN Radio.

EV: Okay, let’s start with your personal radio experience- did you listen to radio while you were growing up, do you listen to it now?

SD: Radio has always played a very important part in my life. Growing up in France, in the late 60s and early 70s, I remember distinctively, my first transistor radio I was given that was on medium wave- that was sort of the main way to get radio stations in France- and, you know, listening to it all the time, being glued to the radio, whether it was sports, entertainment or talk, having my parents tell me I had to shut off the radio, but keeping it under my sheets and try to listen a little bit longer, and that has continued throughout my life. I really use radio as a primary source of information. To this day, at home, much to my family’s consternation, I often have two or three radios going on at the same time. I hate silence, and I like to listen to radio and I can do different things while I’m listening to radio, and you’re always learning. There’s always something on that’s interesting, so I find that I’m a great fan- almost an addict of radio.

EV: Okay, so World Radio Day is celebrated on the 13th of February- and I checked it was not a Friday- but the number of the Resolution of the General Assembly, was Number 13, too. But, it was adopted literally during the first months of the existence of the UN, it was not even in this building, and the first radio studios were not here, but were in a place like Success, which is a rather auspicious name, I think. 67 years later, there’s television and social media and iPads and iPhones. Do you think that the role of radio and UN Radio in particular has diminished?

SD: No, I think, Radio- United Nations Radio- remains as important today as it was when the 1st Resolution was passed, and I think if you look back and as to why radio was so important in those first days of the UN, radio played a huge part in World War 2, in terms of passing messages along, in keeping hope alive in totalitarian countries, in countries that were under occupation, in propaganda, from other places. So radio was really the medium of communication, of instant communication, and I think the founders understood that if the United Nations was going to push its messages through- its universal messages through- it had to have a multilingual radio station. And what was true in 1945 remains true today in 2014. What has changed is the mode of delivery. The United Nations Radio no longer broadcasts directly through its own transmitter, we work through partner radio stations, but the radio news- the audio news of the United Nations- is now delivered on social media, on the internet, through partner radio stations, even by phone. People can call in and listen to the United Nations Radio. So, we’ve adapted with the times in terms of the delivery mechanism. But the need to for radio to pass messages through, to inform and to keep people connected, remains valid today as it was almost 70 years ago.

EV: In the past a lot of celebrities took part in the UN Radio programmes- Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier and so on- who is behind UN Radio voices today?

SD: The voices of UN Radio are all of us. They represent all of us, we broadcast every day in 8 languages- the 6 official languages of the United Nations: English, French, Russian, Arabic and Spanish and Chinese, plus Kiswahili and Portuguese. And there’re people from all around the world- radio professionals who had worked either in their home countries or who had worked for larger international broadcasters, UN staff that have picked up radio skills along the way. It’s truly representative of the world we live in. For example, our Swahili radio has people from Kenya, from Tanzania, even from France. The Russian Radio has people from Central Asia, from Eastern Europe, from Russia, from Ukraine- it’s a wonderful mix of people that bring to their job very varied experiences.

EV: How has the coverage changed? And since the theme of this year for World Radio Day is women, how much coverage do women's issues get?

SD: They get quite a tremendous amount of coverage. First of all, it's also interesting to know that, I would say more than half our radio producers are women. It's one of the more gender balanced parts of the UN. United Nations Radio has done some wonderful series on women's issues on women's issues, staring from the 60s and 50s- there were some wonderful radio plays by famous actors at the time- to a series more recently on girls aged 15 and their experiences from France to Afghanistan to Guatemala, and what shared experiences they have. Women's issues are a big part of the work of the United Nations, and that's reflected in the broadcasts of the United Nations Radio every day.

EV: We've talked about the past, let's talk about the future. 10 years from now, what will UN Radio look like?

SD: I think, in a sense, we hope to have more languages. We've built now about the 6 to 8 languages. We would like to see more than 8 languages represented every day. I think what will change is the way radio is delivered- through mechanisms that we may still not know about. But right now as I mentioned, we do it through partner stations, we do it on the internet, through social media, by telephone. I think what we need to do is give people choice on how they consume audio news, and the tools that they have to consume that news. But I'm fully confident that ten years from now, you'll see United Nations Radio that's even bigger, more multilingual, and more diverse.

EV: Do you listen to UN Radio?

SD: I do listen to UN Radio- I listen to the two languages that I understand- that's French and English- and I listen to the languages I don't understand because I just love hearing those languages, even if I don't understand what's being said. But it's a wonderful way, UN Radio is a wonderful way to get a wind of what's happening in the four corners of the world and at the UN headquarters as well.