Armenian Journalist Hopes Obama Administration Will Protect Foreign
Workers Rights at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Armenia, Broadcasting Board of Governors, FreeMediaOnline.org, Georgia,
International Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russia,
Surrogate Broadcasting, Ukraine, Voice of America –
by tedlipien –
January 22, 2009 – 09:32 America/New_York – 1
009/01/22/armenian-journalist-hopes-obama-administ ration-will-protect-foreign-workers-rights-at-radi o-free-europeradio-liberty/
Anna Karapetian, journalist from Armenia fired by RFE/RL
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, January 22, 2009, San
Francisco ‘ Anna Karapetian, a journalist from Armenia who in radio
broadcasts funded by the U.S. government reported on human rights
abuses in her country, is one of many people around the world who see
Barack Obama’s inauguration as a hopeful beginning of a new era of
change in Washington. Ms. Karapetian hopes that with Mr. Obama’s
strong commitment to protecting workers’ rights, the new administration
will end the policy of a U.S. government agency which can arbitrarily
fire its foreign journalists working abroad and denies them many of the
basic labor law protections available to Americans citizens and
residents of other democratic countries.
The policy in question was instituted by the Broadcasting Board of
Governors (BBG), the Federal government agency which manages privatized
U.S.-funded international broadcasting stations, such as Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Alhurra Television. Ms. Karapetian
became one of the victims of the policy when she was fired from her
broadcasting job at RFE/RL in the Czech Republic after almost 12 years
of employment, which she describes as `impeccable,’ with `very good’
and `excellent’ performance reviews.
Legal cases against RFE/RL’s employment practices have been filed by
the dismissed employees with the Czech Supreme Court, the Czech
Constitutional Court, and the European Court of Human Rights in
Strasbourg. Reports critical of their treatment have appeared in Czech
media and included statements of support from Czech politicians. In yet
another major embarrassment for the BBG, one of the most respected
world statesmen, former Czech president and human rights activist
Vaclav Havel, promised to personally monitor the cases of the fired
employees.
The PR problem created by these cases and the damage to America’s image
abroad can be traced back to the actions of a relatively small group of
unelected U.S. government officials. Less than ten men and women,
selected by the leadership of their political parties, appointed by the
President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, serve at any one time on
the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors. Most of them are
political loyalists and private businessmen without much foreign policy
and human rights advocacy experience.
During the eight years of the Bush Administration, the BBG, which is
responsible for RFE/RL’s personnel policies, greatly intensified its
efforts to subcontract U.S. international broadcasting operations to
privatized institutions. One of the major attractions of subcontracting
was the realization by BBG members that unlike U.S. government
employees, foreign workers hired abroad can be easily dismissed at any
time and for any reason, or no reason at all, under the so-called
`employment-at-will’ doctrine. At the same time, the BBG was
eliminating programs and terminating employment of American journalists
working at the Washington-based Voice of America, which it also
manages, while transferring Federal funding to these privatized
stations.
After her employment was terminated by RFE/RL, Anna Karapetian, mother
of three minor children, found out that unlike VOA journalists employed
in Washington, D.C., and unlike her American colleagues working at the
RFE/RL headquarters in the Czech Republic, she did not have the
protection of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),
the Federal Civil Rights Act, and many other U.S. anti-discrimination
laws. The Czech government made sure that locally-hired Czech employees
would have the full protection of the Czech labor law, but at the
insistence of the BBG it allowed RFE/RL to exempt foreign journalists
working for RFE/RL in Prague. They were placed under the Communist-era
law, still on the books, which was used to facilitate the Soviet
domination of Czechoslovakia after 1968.
The influential Czech, quite pro-American newspaper, `Lidove noviny’
wrote in an editorial:
`Prague headquarters of RFE/RL, which pretends to be a messenger of
freedom, democracy and the rule of law, behaves as an employer in such
a way as if the principles it heralds are relevant `just’ for the whole
planet but not for what is going on inside that estimable organization
itself.’ Read Anna Karapetian’s Open Letter.
This legal limbo was specifically sought by the BBG and RFE/RL to
prevent court challenges by foreign-based journalists against adverse
personnel actions. Shocked and angered by how she was treated by her
U.S. taxpayer-supported American employer, Anna Karapetian wrote in an
open letter to freedom of the press and human rights organizations that
non-American and non-Czech RFE/RL employees working in the Czech
Republic, who often come from semi-dictatorial countries of the former
Soviet Union, have `about as much legal protection as the inhabitants
of Guantanamo: not in the country of their origin, not in the place of
their presence, nor in the United States.’
While the BBG’s actions now appear to many as wrong and hypocritical,
during the Bush Administration, both Republicans and Democrats serving
on the BBG, became convinced that it would be easier for them and
better for the White House’s war on terror to manage U.S. international
broadcasting as a series of private businesses exempt from many U.S.
government laws and regulations. These political appointees
consistently eliminated programs at the Voice of America, where
journalists enjoy significant independence and strong legal protections
against arbitrary actions by management and were viewed as being
opposed to the BBG’s and Bush Administration’s plans to transform U.S.
international broadcasting. While BBG members claimed that their
strategy would result in greater effectiveness and savings of
taxpayers’ money, they have created multiple broadcasting units with
multiple executive and administrative positions, which independent
studies and media reports described as wasteful and lacking proper
programming and fiscal accountability. ProPublica.org: Report Calls
Alhurra a Failure
The fact that the neoconservative privatization agenda was led and
implemented by a number of prominent Democrats on the BBG, including at
least two former members with close links to Vice President Biden, may
not bode well for Ms. Karapetian’s hopes for significant reforms at the
BBG and at RFE/RL during the Obama Administration. As a U.S. Senator,
Vice President Biden was a major patron of a former BBG member, Norman
Pattiz, founder of the now failing U.S. radio syndicate Westwood One,
who pushed hard for the elimination of VOA broadcasting services,
including its Arabic Service, and was the primary force behind the
establishment of privatized stations, such as Radio Sawa and Alhurra
Television for the Middle East. Many RFE/RL and VOA journalists still
hope, however, that President Obama and his close advisors will pay
attention to media reports of mismanagement at the BBG. According to
the latest Federal Human Capital Survey (FHCS), the employees of the
Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) have recently given the BBG Board
members and the officials of the International Broadcasting Bureau
(IBB) the worst ever rating for good management and placed the BBG at
the very bottom of Federal agencies. Broadcasting Board of Governors
Rated Worst Than Ever By Its Employees and As One of The Worst Federal
Agencies
During the last months of the Bush Administration, Edward E. Kaufman,
another former Democratic BBG member who is now a U.S. Senator from
Delaware and was previously Joe Biden’s chief of staff, worked closely
with BBG’s former Republican chairman, neoconservative Bush appointee,
James K. Glassman, who later became the U.S. Under Secretary of State
for Public Diplomacy. They agreed to terminate VOA radio broadcasts to
Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, and India. Thanks to highly effective
coordination behind the scenes by the BBG executive director, Jeffrey
Trimble, who was formerly acting president of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, the Board succeeded in taking VOA radio programs to Russia off
the air just 12 days before the Russian military forces attacked
Georgia last summer and then refused to resume them.
On December 31, 2008, the BBG also ended VOA radio program to Ukraine
just hours before Russia cut off the flow of natural gas supplies to
Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Only one BBG member, Blanquita Walsh
Cullum, the only working journalist serving on the Board, was reported
to have voted against these program cuts and reportedly also opposed
many of the management practices supported by other BBG members. The
other current BBG members are: Joaquin F. Blaya, D. Jeffrey Hirschberg,
and Steven J. Simmons. The BBG web site still lists Condoleezza Rice as
an ex-officio member, even though she is no longer the Secretary of
State and therefore no longer sits on the Board.
Ted Lipien, president of San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit
FreeMediaOnline.org, said that while privatized U.S.-funded
broadcasting to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union was highly
effective at times during the Cold War, `this so-called ‘surrogate’
broadcasting model turned out to be totally outdated and inappropriate
for providing news to the Middle East and the former Soviet republics
under drastically different conditions.’ Lipien pointed out that for
most of the Cold War, RFE/RL journalists, who were based in West
Germany, enjoyed20far greater legal protections, as well as being
protected from intimidation by communist security services, than the
current RFE/RL journalists based in Prague and elsewhere behind the
former Iron Curtain.
In addition to eliminating U.S. jobs and severely limiting the rights
of overseas-based foreign journalists, the privatization of U.S.
international broadcasting during the Bush Administration also produced
major fiscal and editorial scandals at the newly established private
stations and at RFE/RL. Both Republican and Democratic BBG members
hoped that these private entities would be far more effective than the
Voice of America in delivering programs against Islamist extremism. But
the loosening of programming and fiscal controls and employment
protections for journalists combined with the BBG’s marketing policy
designed to maximize audience size regardless of local media conditions
led to numerous editorial failures at the privatized entities. At the
same time, as a result of BBG’s actions, some of them taken within the
last few weeks, the Obama Administration found itself without radio
broadcasts by the Voice of America from the United States to many
countries around the world.
Unlike VOA journalists, many broadcasters at the privatized stations
do not have extensive experience in reporting news about the United
States and American politics. Some broadcasters, especially at Alhurra
Television and Radio Sawa, have been accused of lacking basic
journalistic training. U.S. and international media outlets reported
that Alhurra aired unchallenged statements by Holocaust deniers and
RFE/RL was criticized by a Russian human rights organization for giving
extensive airtime to a Russian politician known for his racist comments
about ethnic minorities, Jews, and Blacks. FreeMediaOnline.org reported
that the BBG also failed to protect RFE/RL journalists and other
employees who are Russian citizens and work in Russia. There is strong
evidence that these employees are subject to blackmail and other forms
of intimidation by the Kremlin’s secret police. `U.S. Taxpayers Pay for
Spreading Racist Views on Radio Liberty in Russia: What Would Barack
Obama Say If He Knew¦’ Use this link to the ProPublica.org web site
to view the Alhurra Holocaust report (with English subtitles) as an
example of what the BBG’s marketing strategy has produced at these
privatized U.S.-funded stations:
Ms. Karapetian points out in her open letter that foreign journalists
employed by RFE/RL face serious risks from security services of local
dictators when they work in their own countries and lack legal
protections if they work at RFE/RL headquarters in the Czech Republic.
But despite her accusations of mistreatment, she defends RFE/RL as a
journalistic organization with a distinguished history that is still
much needed by audiences in countries without free media. She also
expressed concern that the personnel policies applied to foreign
journalists at RFE/RL are damaging U.S. reputation abroad and give
encouragement to authoritarian leaders in the former Soviet republics.
According to Ted Lipien, the lack of basic job security and legal
protections makes foreign journalists employed by RFE/RL far more
vulnerable to threats from the security services of the countries to
which they broadcast. Their family members who live in those countries
are also subject to intimidation.
Ms. Karapetian ended her letter with an appeal to press freedom and
human rights advocates to contact the current RFE/RL president, Jeffrey
Gedmin, and urge him to put into action a statement from his recent
speech that `We have as RFE/RL our intellectual and moral compass¦ We
also need to lead by example¦’. Anna Karapetian is hoping that being
true to President Obama’s promise of change, his administration will
show greater respect for the rights of foreign journalists employed by
U.S.-funded international broadcasters. (Some media reports use
`Karapetyan’ as the spelling of her last name.)
Despite the reported failures on the part of the BBG, RFE/RL continues
to play a vital role in many countries and, according to Ted Lipien of
FreeMediaOnline.org, can be more effective in other countries if some
of the failed policies of the Board of Broadcasting20Governors are
reversed. The ability to tell America’s story to the world in Voice of
America broadcasts, however, has been largely destroyed by the
privatization policies of the BBG during the past eight years.
Journalists at VOA and RFE/RL hope that the Obama Administration will
institute quick reforms in the use of `soft power’ in communicating
with the world. America’s image abroad would be improved by restoring
Voice of America broadcasts and by putting an end to the shameful
practice of restricting rights of foreign journalists who work on
behalf of the United States, Lipien said.
The Obama Transition Team official responsible for international
broadcasting is Ernest J. Wilson III, Dean of the USC Annenberg School
for Communication. His email address is: ernest.wilson@usc.edu.
If you wish to protest or comment on the treatment of foreign
journalists working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the
Broadcasting Board of Governors, you may also send emails to:
Jeffrey Gedmin, RFE/RL President, addressed to Mr. Martins Zvaners,
Associate Director of Communications: zvanersm@rferl.org
Jeffrey N. Trimble, BBG Executive Director, addressed to the BBG
Office of Public Affairs, publicaffairs@bbg.gov