The Board of Trustees of the Press Freedom Foundation expresses its concern over the summary dismissal, by the new CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, nominated by the President of the United States, of all leaders and board members of the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and Television Martí) and of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra and Radio Sawa).
No media can operate freely and objectively if a single individual, on the first day on the job, is able to dismiss long-serving professionals and has complete power over a large network of international media outlets with over seven decades of service. It creates an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship among journalists.
We have witnessed such summary dismissals first-hand, executed by the apparatchiks of Serbian communist strongman Slobodan Milošević and by the henchmen of Hungarian illiberal autocrat Viktor Orbán. In both cases, the media scenes thus purged have not been able to recover (for decades in Serbia and for ten years now in Hungary) since they represent a state-controlled propaganda machine for indoctrination.
We urge all media to honor the original warnings, now painted over by the new CEO, on the wall of the Agency’s headquarters:
“A set of unimpeachable facts, and the existence of a baseline of truth is the foundation that undergirds our democracy, its institutions, and the health, safety and security of all [American] citizens. Since our country’s founding, journalists and journalism have stood watch over private and public officials in power to hold them accountable to what is factual and what is true.”
