OPINION:
At the beginning of last December, I returned to the Voice of America as its director for the second time. On day one, a five-page whistleblower complaint was filed against me, the first of many. My original crime was being appointed by Michael Pack, the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, who just six months earlier had been appointed by then-President Donald Trump. Prior to that — and for the previous three and a half years, VOA had still been run by holdovers installed by former President Barack Obama.
Mr. Pack had brought me into the organization as part of a reform effort. Therefore, my second crime was showing up for my first day of work.
My previous stint as director was in 2001-2002, a time when the agency was alive with a sense of purpose after the attacks of 9/11. VOA was born of war in 1942. Like then, we all knew how to support our country in a time of peril. It was an exciting place to work. Our mission was to give voice to America, explain our purposes in the world and the justifications for our actions.
This time, I discovered a profound disorientation — the result of many years during which the leadership encouraged the agency to see itself almost exclusively as a news organization. For example, Walter Isaacson, chairman of the Board of Governors (2010-12), which oversaw VOA until recently, said: “We just want to get good news, reliable news, and credible information out.” Yes, of course, but news is a means, not an end.
In a Washington Post piece attacking me on Dec. 11, my predecessor, Amanda Bennett, declared that “a news organization is exactly what VOA is, representing America’s free press by embodying it.” For the first time in VOA’s history, she appended a motto to its logo: “A Free Press Matters.” Of course, it does, but VOA is supposed to promote all the freedoms necessary for democratic constitutional rule, not only one of them. For this reason, I recently ordered the motto be removed — something that now will not happen since I was escorted out of the building on Jan. 21.
Ms. Bennett lambasted me as a “dangerous man” for, among other things, having written that “VOA’s job should be to advance the justice of the American cause while simultaneously undermining our opponents’.” I stand by that statement. VOA has the obligation to disclose the character of the American people and their institutions in such a way that the underlying Founding principles guiding American life are revealed. We are in a new war of ideas with anti-democratic regimes like China, Russia and Iran. With what should we fight it? News? Good luck. If we are not willing to stand up for ourselves at the level of moral principle, who will?
As for VOA news, my opening message to employees stated: “VOA should not be an echo chamber for American domestic media, which is already largely available overseas on the internet. We have a different job. We need to offer our audiences what is otherwise not available to them … Otherwise, why should they watch or listen?” The VOA Charter requires that the news be “accurate, objective, and comprehensive,” and much is rightly made of VOA’s independence from political influence.
However, the agency is rife with it. For instance, in a segment on the minimum wage on a Dec. 9 news program, Ben Zipperer from the Economic Policy Institute asserted that “we have a racist and sexist labor market in the U.S.” No opposing point of view was offered. How is that for balance? When I checked the newsroom’s Polygraph site, I found that, on Dec. 3, it ran a fact check attacking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for saying that the Golan Heights are part of Israel. The “Verdict” was “Misleading.” An in-house analysis of Polygraph’s audience showed that more than 70% came from the United States. By law, VOA is not supposed to target American audiences.
A long-time employee told me, “VOA news’ coverage has generally been like a dumbed-down, less balanced version of CNN.” Another person with years of experience in the newsroom said that most of its members don’t even know that there is another side to the story. All too often, the result is advocacy, rather than journalism. The newsroom’s treatment of me offers an illustration. Here’s how it worked.
The newsroom would leak information to The Washington Post and NPR, which would then run stories, always full of inaccuracies, about my actions. Then the VOA’s Press Freedom desk would write a story about the NPR and Post stories for our worldwide audiences, as if people in North Korea, Tibet or Venezuela could care about this inside Washington merry-go-round. VOA reporting on itself — something I don’t see NPR or The Washington Post doing — exhibits all the symptoms of advanced omphalokepsis — navel gazing.
Another sign of disorientation was the reaction to Mr. Pompeo’s visit to VOA on Jan. 11. A whistleblower complaint alleged that the planned speech “endangers public health and safety, violates law, rule and regulation and grossly wastes government resources.” A letter from some two dozen employees, tellingly delivered to me by The Washington Post, demanded my resignation over the speech, calling it “propaganda.” However, the VOA Charter says, “VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively…” Mr. Pompeo’s talk was in fulfillment of that part of the Charter.
During my last tenure as VOA director, President George W. Bush came to speak at VOA from the same platform on which Mr. Pompeo spoke. The event was also carried live by VOA. There were no protestations. Nor did a VOA reporter take it upon himself or herself to stage an “ambush” interview of the president while he was in the building.
This unfortunately happened during Mr. Pompeo’s visit. After his talk, I alone was permitted to ask questions. The rules were respected by all, but for a woman who stood up as the event was wrapping up and began shouting at the secretary. I thought a protester had gotten in the auditorium. After that, she blew past a security guard and went through a curtained-off area to continue yelling questions.
This led to the secretary’s abrupt departure, with security blocking her from following him out the door. This person then turned on me and shouted with her phone in my face. She has written of herself as a heroic VOA reporter, “running around trying not to get tackled by diplomatic security” and of “my confrontation with our director.” A VOA veteran who witnessed the event said he had never seen an employee behave so insubordinately to a director. I transferred her out of the newsroom. The day after I left, she was transferred back.
Now that the two supervisors responsible for abetting this kind of behavior have been promoted — the newsroom director to acting VOA director and her immediate supervisor to acting CEO — do not expect sanity to return to the asylum anytime soon. That’s too bad because it gives a bad name to the courageous work that many of VOA’s 47 language services continue to do.
• Robert R. Reilly served as the 25th and 30th director of the Voice of America.
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