His Master's Voice?

Ungar's factual account of the severe cuts in the VOA's news and information programs in English and other languages should not be ignored by those concerned about America's image abroad. Nor should the VOA's reputation for credibility, earned over six decades of broadcasting to overseas audiences, be dismissed by those engaged in public diplomacy, as it has been by the Broadcasting Board of Governors and by the VOA's management in its attempt to skew the news.

Sadly, the demeaning of the VOA is continuing. The latest move is a plan to close the central newsroom during the overnight shift (midnight to 7 a.m.) and outsource the shift's news-writing jobs to freelancers among British, Australian, and American expatriates in Hong Kong, who then would electronically transmit the material back to an editor in Washington.

PHILOMENA JUREY was the Voice of America's White House correspondent during the Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations.

UNGAR REPLIES

I have never questioned David Jackson's credentials as a journalist, only his judgment and the politicized manner in which he is directing the VOA. Many of his colleagues there have the impression that he fears he will lose his job if he is not sufficiently responsive to pressures to make its coverage consistently favorable to the Bush administration and its policies. After reading his letter, I have to believe he is either disingenuous or surprisingly unaware of the impact his repeated interventions have had on this fine journalistic institution and its beleaguered staff.

At his request and that of Kenneth Tomlinson, I will cite a few of the many available examples that are widely known and resented:

On November 14, 2002, just two months after becoming director, Jackson sharply criticized the VOA news division for a story quoting then Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle (S.Dak.), who charged that the Bush administration's war on terrorism had failed.

In August 2003, he chastised the news division for not reporting on a document, apparently passed to him by the National Security Council but carrying no attribution, detailing administration successes in Iraq 100 days after the invasion.

On November 17, 2003, Jackson objected to a report that $9 million had been spent on the security and 5,000 policemen deployed for President Bush's visit to London, saying VOA listeners had no interest in such details.

During an escalation of pressure in January 2004, he ordered the news division to stop reporting from Baghdad on car bombings and terror attacks, urging that it instead do "positive stories" emphasizing U.S. successes in Iraq. (Eventually, after being resisted by editors, this order was rescinded.) In a series of internal e-mails during January and February of that year, Jackson systematically passed along memos from the White House and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad reporting, for example, that the Iraqi postal service had resumed operation and would issue stamps without Saddam Hussein's picture, that cell-phone service was being introduced in Iraq, and that thousands of Iraqi teachers were being trained to return to the classroom. "This story offers so many angles," he wrote glowingly in the e-mail about cell-phone service. Jackson insisted that these press releases from the CPA did not require independent verification by VOA reporters on the ground in Iraq.

In April 2004, he ordered the news division to produce a story critical of Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who was traveling with ousted Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide between Africa and Jamaica. The same month Jackson suggested minimizing the well-documented relationship between the Bush administration and the Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi after U.S. forces raided his headquarters and confiscated documents; Jackson specifically protested a story that described Chalabi as "a favorite of the Pentagon."

In May 2004, he objected to a story on the VOA's central news file that quoted a New York Times editorial critical of the Bush administration.

After the Indian Ocean tsunami at the end of 2004, Jackson passed along a State Department press release about U.S. aid efforts, with the note, "Please make sure we include this in all our coverage." Beginning on the day of President Bush's second inauguration, the sharply reduced VOA English-language service was ordered to conduct daily interviews with officials of the U.S. Agency for International Development, featuring the agency's work around the world, especially in Iraq.

And so it goes. On April 22 of this year, in a meeting with the VOA division directors, Jackson ordered that the U.S. government's position be included "in all stories" in all languages on any issue, warning that if this did not happen, the number of broadcast editorials reflecting U.S. policy would have to be increased. Five days later, his deputy, Ted Iliff, sent out an e-mail complaining that "we continue to see stories that fail to report the U.S. position in correspondent reports. ... Be sure that for any story you produce, it includes a reference to U.S. policy or reaction as necessary for the story."