There's been a lot of pearl-clutching, i.e. from Foreign Policy's John Hudson, with whom I've argued on Twitter, about VOA "losing its editorial independence" and now being required to broadcast consistent with the mission of US foreign policy under draft reform plans in Congress -- which yes, aren't passed yet but I hope they will be.
This editorial in the WSJ gets it right -- the overhaul is necessary and the "editorial independence" issue is a red herring when the independence they supposedly had only led to pro-Iranian tracts being cut and pasted. The only difference here I'd add is that this is not mission drift; it's very aggressive mission take-over by certain ideological groupings.
The pearl-clutching is entirely misplaced because the same lefties whining now about how conservatives may rob the radios of their unbiased nature were completely MIA when it came to complaining about the awful Obama bias of "progressives" in this period. THAT is the problem.
Not surprisingly, John Hudson leapt on the idea that "editorial independence" would be sacrificed implying that it was the first casualty in war-mongering Washington due to neo-cons. No, he did not contain those search-strings in his article, but he implied them -- as he always does when flogging a progressive/Realist line -- if not actually manufacturing news by going to Pravda and gleefully asking them to help him set up McCain for a fall.
Yes, I do get it about editorial independence -- I worked at RFE/RL for several years as a freelancer. I never was censored -- once I was asked to hold something back because reports of mass demonstrations (in Kiev) can help turn out even larger ones so the editors -- with 1956 Hungarian invasion syndrome -- take a close look at what they themselves are doing as they are part of the story inevitably. And then another newsletter I filed with a comparison of the crackdown of the RNC demonstrators and demonstrators in Belarus (not a moral equivalence) didn't run -- but I think that was for other reasons. And no, the reason for not having censorship wasn't because I was a myrmidon perfectly tuned to my overlord's political demands. Believe me, I had more censorship at the Soros-funded EurasiaNet than I've had in any news job in my life. And that's because censorship comes from those heavily ideologically engaged -- warriors -- not from those merely trying to get the news out that isn't getting covered in the target regions.
We have editorial independence in a ton of other things in America -- hey, Intercept, anyone? It's not required in tax-supported entities about which there could be wild political disagreement (which is why they are dysfunctional). What we need is mission -- and that means the broad foreign policy goals of the US which are bi-partisan generally in nature.
And indeed, when you obsess about "editorial independence" as if you were in Russia, and your state media that got away with a little (like RIA Novosti) is now being reined in by the state, you have only a narrow take. You overlook the facts of what happens when you supposedly have "editorial independence" *in America, in non-commercial state-funded broadcasting*.
You actually get even more editorial bias based on not only the party in power -- all the radios leaned left and "progressive" under Obama and softened their coverage of Russia under the "reset." You also get free-lancing ideologues in English and foreign-language services who use the vacuum of "editorial independence," i.e. insufficient oversight and lack of insistence on mission broadcasting -- to broadcast even wild stuff like pro-Nazarbayev hate speech or anti-opposition screeds in Russian or these Persian examples -- they are numerous.
Ask yourself: why is it that these radios "seemingly under mismanagement" develop this seemingly random set of problems?
o silence from the Turkmen service -- only wire stories
o strange pro-Nazarbayev tracts
o Real Politik blogs and op-eds about how the Russian opposition is useless, depressing, or scarily nationalist and Putin is a good for the country
o Cut-and-pastes from Iran state news
o Breathless coverage of Anonymous and featuring of anarchist hackers who support harming the US
These are all things I and others have criticized in various venues. But what on earth do they have in common?
Answer: a certain type of "progressive" American International Relations School of Realism that has the following necessities:
o negotiating a pipeline with Turkemenistan (it failed)
o negotiating a transportation line in and out of Afghanistan with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan for the sake of getting supplies to troops
o favoring of open source software, Wikis, Google, and less role for government intelligence and fascinating with hackers who represent both "Internet freedom" and collectivist theories about removal of copyright, sharing, etc. online
o acceptance of Russia's sphere of interest and admiration for a strong leader
o hatred of Israel and blame for its failure to make peace; myopia about Palestinian violence
o desire to make friends with Iran and hysterical belief that Israel might bomb Iran and we must do anything to make peace
I've met and debated exact, real people like this in the State Department, National Security Council, foreign broadcasting, Embassies and multi-laterals. They exist; they are a force; they are everywhere. They think they are the smart ones, surrounded by idiots. They think they are fighting a brave fight against hide-bound hawks and neo-conservatives who thwart them -- although those forces in fact are very weak and never prevail.
The same person who loathes Israel and makes antisemitic jokes and has bright ideas about friending up Iran will be the same person who says he admires Snowden. This is all of a piece, and people have to understand that this strain of American foreign policy establishment is very entrenched and never gets a real debate, let along exposure of it existence and actions. People think "progressives" are outside at the Center for American Progressive or Snowden-lovers are in the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Not so. They are the people with badges not only golf-clapping and meeting those NGOs, but revolving into power in State from the offices of Google.
The reason these problems exist at the radios is because they exist, writ large, in an entire generation of foreign policy experts and foreign service officers. Little in their training leads them to do anything else but hang on to and expand on their views of Iran, Israel, Snowden, etc. because they never get a challenge.
The world was criticizing Putin's overblown and oppressive Sochi Olympics. What did VOA English do? They interviewed fellow-traveller types from the US who graced this Olympics for ideological support (others stayed home) and praised Putin -- even as Circassian demonstrators were being beaten and jailed and Pussy Riot was being whipped by Cossacks. Those tales of abuse got told in Russian, but in English, they didn't exist because they didn't fit the politics of the "progressive" editors who featured on Happy People Eating Noodle Salads.
How could that happen? Not only because of Obama and the re-set -- after all, Obama didn't go to the Olympics. But becuase of deep-set "progressive" socialist-style old politics that finds something forward-looking about Moscow, and finds "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" even when conducting American foreign policy with the enemy -- because the real enemy to people like this isn't Russia or Iran, but the perceived "neo-cons" in the next cubicle.
In my view, what's happened at these radios (where I used to work) is not drift or mismanagement; it's seizure by a very aggressive RealPolitik "progressive" line common to a very definitive camp in the State Department, NSC and even intelligence communities that is part about the Obama Administration but existed even under Bush -- it's the camp that leaks, it's the camp that brought us failures in negotiations with Israel and Iran, not to mention Snowden. That position hates Israel; snuggles up to Iran; is 'pragmatic" about Russia; etc. etc. It's a line that you can trace through many stories and I'm for pruning it back hard. Why? Because it has had too much unexamined control of too many things with too many disastrous results.
Once you see what happens to the Ukraine story -- the Kiev government is knocked as weak and unable to control the country when the real problem is Russian pressure with masses of troops at the border and sabotage within by the GRU -- you see why "editorial independence" is only a lever to feed this certain camp and its goals, not real independence.
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