When the rockets began to fall, our team had already been thinned out. More than half of Radio Farda’s newsroom had been furloughed – not due to a lack of work, but because of political calculation. And yet we reported. While Iranian state media spread fake news about an Israeli pilot being shot down and captured, we were the ones who verified, clarified, pushed back. Without networks like ours, many people in Iran would be left only with what the regime feeds them – silence, propaganda, fear. I work for a broadcaster that Donald Trump would rather see shut down entirely. Through the U.S. Agency for Global Media, his administration has tried to systematically dismantle Radio Farda and the Persian services of Voice of America. They accuse us of being liberal – but what we do is simply real journalism, in a country where people have no free access to information. Golnaz Esfandiani, our editor-in-chief at Radio Farda, put it clearly: We provide people in Iran with minute-by-minute information about the war. And she’s right. We explain the nuclear program, we show what it means when reactors are bombed or cities shelled. We report what cannot be reported inside Iran. And we listen – to the many voices who contact us because they trust us more than their own government.
Meanwhile, Voice of America was shut down with the flip of a switch. In March, the entire Persian team was forced into administrative leave – without warning, without a plan. And then, last Friday, the unthinkable happened: Crystal Thomas, the USAGM human resources director, sent out a mass email. Suddenly, everyone was ordered to return to work – immediately. No explanation, no structure, just a command. A colleague, who must remain anonymous, was back in the office within three hours. He said: I worked until midnight to put together a one-hour broadcast. Around 50 staff members are back – hastily reactivated, with no security as to whether our work is even wanted tomorrow. Kari Lake, the new head of the US media agency and a close Trump ally, proudly told Fox News: We are ramping up – as we’ve always planned – to meet this historic moment. As if the chaos had been orchestrated just to prove they needed us after all. And yet we lack even the basics. One colleague reported that the administration had canceled our subscriptions to AP, Reuters, and AFP – we now report under emergency conditions, while the world is on fire. And no one tells us whether we can keep going. One colleague said: I don’t even want to think about the fear of being back on the street in a few weeks.
Patsy Widakuswara, Voice of America’s White House correspondent and a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Trump’s restructuring efforts, said it best: I’m grateful they brought our service back. But why destroy a working system only to piece it back together during a crisis? A question no one in Washington wants to answer honestly. Tom Kent, former president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, warned: International journalism can’t be switched on and off like a light bulb. When our broadcasts suddenly go silent, people grow accustomed to the silence. To other voices. To lies. And they lose faith in what we stand for. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep broadcasting. I only know this: Those who listen to us need us now. Today. Not because we’re perfect. But because we are still here – when everything else goes quiet.
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