When the rockets began to fall, our team had already been thinned out. More than half of Radio Farda\u2019s newsroom had been furloughed \u2013 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 \u2013 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 \u2013 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\u2019s 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 \u2013 to the many voices who contact us because they trust us more than their own government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Voice of America was shut down with the flip of a switch. In March, the entire Persian team was forced into administrative leave \u2013 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 \u2013 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 \u2013 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 \u2013 as we\u2019ve always planned \u2013 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 \u2013 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\u2019t even want to think about the fear of being back on the street in a few weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patsy Widakuswara, Voice of America\u2019s White House correspondent and a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Trump\u2019s restructuring efforts, said it best: I\u2019m 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\u2019t 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\u2019t know how long we\u2019ll be able to keep broadcasting. I only know this: Those who listen to us need us now. Today. Not because we\u2019re perfect. But because we are still here \u2013 when everything else goes quiet.<\/p>\n
Als die Raketen einschlugen, war unser Team l\u00e4ngst ausged\u00fcnnt. \u00dcber die H\u00e4lfte der Redaktion von Radio Farda war beurlaubt worden \u2013 nicht aus Mangel an Arbeit, sondern aus politischem Kalk\u00fcl. Und doch berichteten wir. W\u00e4hrend iranische Staatsmedien Fake News \u00fcber einen abgeschossenen israelischen Piloten verbreiteten, waren wir es, die \u00fcberpr\u00fcften, die aufkl\u00e4rten, die gegenhielten. Ohne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39,7,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daylight","category-topstory","category-trump-s-world"],"yoast_head":"\n