The Voice of America is getting into webchatting.
It says it will debut its first regularly scheduled webchat, “T2A (Talk to America),” on July 11.
“T2A” is a live weekly text-based, moderated webchat, conducted Wednesdays at 2 p.m. EDT on VOA’s Web site.
“T2A” replaces the weekday radio program “Talk to America.” VOA says “T2A,” as the radio show did, will bring international newsmakers and personalities to a global audience.
“A webchat brings news and information in an interactive form,” said VOA Director Dan Austin.
Author and journalist Alan Weisman is scheduled for the first chat. He will be discussing his book, “The World Without Us,” which presents a hypothetical look at what would happen to Earth if humans suddenly disappeared and how quickly nature could reclaim civilization.
Participants reach the webchat through VOA’s main portal at www.voanews.com. Questions can be typed to the moderator once on the chat page, or submitted via e-mail.
In other VOA news, George Bistis, chief of the Greek Service of Voice of America, will receive the 2007 Gusi Peace Prize Award for Broadcast Journalism in November. The Gusi Peace Prize Foundation, a non-profit organization in Manila, Philippines, cited him for his “untiring efforts, working for people’s amelioration, to find peaceful solutions to political and social issues through broadcast journalism, through Voice of America.”
