Is
VOA pro Islamic Republic?
Sam Ghandchi
http://www.ghandchi.com/744-voa-iran-eng.htm
On January 6, 2013, Wall Street Journal published an article entitled "At Voice of America, Complaints About Its Iranian Coverage," with a subtitle of "A Persian-language service is accused of tailoring its programs to avoid offending the regime. The VOA denies it" (1). And VOA management has responded to the article (2). In the past, similar accusations were made against VOA by Mr. Kenneth Timmerman (3). Ever since Mr. Kaveh Basmenji has become the executive editor at VOA, Mr. Timmerman's accusations against VOA as a whole have stopped, but particular programs of VOA-Persian are still being targeted as pro Islamic Republic by other authors.
On January 6, 2013, Wall Street Journal published an article entitled "At Voice of America, Complaints About Its Iranian Coverage," with a subtitle of "A Persian-language service is accused of tailoring its programs to avoid offending the regime. The VOA denies it" (1). And VOA management has responded to the article (2). In the past, similar accusations were made against VOA by Mr. Kenneth Timmerman (3). Ever since Mr. Kaveh Basmenji has become the executive editor at VOA, Mr. Timmerman's accusations against VOA as a whole have stopped, but particular programs of VOA-Persian are still being targeted as pro Islamic Republic by other authors.
Is there any truth to these accusations against VOA?
The truth of the matter is that some senior managers at VOA, to
present themselves as unbiased, try to position VOA reporters, anchors and editors as if they have no political
partisanship. In a society like the U.S., where the
overwhelming majority of ordinary citizens choose the Democratic or Republican Party
affiliations, how can one
expect a politically informed individual like a reporter and even editors and managers of a
news agency to have no political preferences? This is different from being
unbiased in one's reporting. In fact, to be unbiased in reporting is
best achieved when the audience is aware of the political inclinations of the
reporter. The false notion of being unbiased is the
reason for all the misunderstandings and subsequent allegations against VOA in the press.
If editors show themselves
as having no political affiliation but subtly remove news articles when
they think the implications of the news may offend some pressure groups, that is
not honest reporting. Such misunderstanding of unbiased reporting has the worst
impact on the news coverage of areas like Iran where contentious political and
ideological groups exist.
The incorrect notion of unbiased reporting has led to
the hiring of Kaveh Basmenji and his deputies at VOA. A good example of selective reporting is Kaveh Basmenji's
own report of
first decade of the 21st Century created for BBC; i.e. when he gets to year 2009, he "forgets" to
mention Iran's Green Movement. Please watch his report and judge for yourself
(4).
I have written about my own experiences at VOA (5). Frankly when dealing with countries like Iran, the informed
reporters definitely have political preferences and it is best that editors and
managers of VOA publish
their own political views in many fine Iranian political web sites
that are available today. This way their the audience can see the depth of their
knowledge or lack thereof and judge them accordingly. Not only will such transparency make VOA production more unbiased,
but this is the only way to be truthful to the VOA audience.
In other words, those who obviously lean towards specific political lines,
whether in VOA management or editorial roles, would no longer
subtly push their preferences as if they have no political affiliations.
Sam Ghandchi, Editor/Publisher
IRANSCOPE
January 26, 2013
Footnotes:
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