President Obama has nominated Walter Isaacson, who headed CNN from 2001-2003, to be the next chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors - an independent agency that oversees non-military international broadcasts by the federal government, including the Voice of America. Isaacson is currently president and chief executive officer of the Aspen Institute, a non-partisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C. Among those nominated to other slots on the board are Michael Lynton, chairman and chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

By law, the Broadcasting Board of Governors must be bipartisan, and members are subject to Senate confirmation. Other nominees announced by the White House include Dana Perino, former President George W. Bush's fourth and final press secretary, who was named to the slot formerly held by now-Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del.; Victor Ashe, a former ambassador to Poland and former Republican mayor of Knoxville, Tenn.; Susan McCue, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and a founding president of poverty-fighting The ONE Campaign; Michael Meehan, a Democratic strategist who has been a senior adviser to a number of U.S. senators, including Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee; Dennis Mulhaupt, founder and managing director of Commonwealth Partners, Inc., which provides philanthropic advice; and S. Enders Wimbush, senior vice president for international programs and policy at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank.