According to the
Voice of America (VOA) website, VOA Amharic Service attracts about one-fifth of
the adult population. This is one of the largest audiences proportionally of
any service at VOA.
It appears to
me that VOA Amharic Service draws the most audiences comparatively of all the
services VOA provides due largely to a lack of independent media in Ethiopia and
its staff strict adherence to itscharter and Journalistic Code which requires
striving for accuracy, objectivity, excellence, and so forth.
Since VOA is
one of my most trusted sources of news and information, I am its ardent advocate. However, the emerging alleged news
that VOA Horn of Africa Division has started censoring its programs alarmed me.
And it disappointed me. The VOA
Horn of Africa suspected censoring scheme concerned and dissatisfied me because
it would negatively affect the
reliability of the news and information it provides; besides, it is against its charter and Journalistic Code.
”To
seek improved market access for VOA programming and advocate for greater
freedom of the press”, a well informed team of seven — three
members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and four members of VOA
staff — visitedEthiopia, South Sudan, and Nigeria from June 22
to June 27, 2011. In Ethiopia, the visiting team met with the Ethiopian
Ministry of Government Communications Affairs, Ethiopian Broadcast Authority,
Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency, VOA Affiliate station Sheger FM, and VOA
reporters.
Pandora’s
Box was opened during an interview which one of the vesting team members
— the VOA Horn of Africa Service Chief — David Arnold gave to VOA
Amharic Service on June 23, 2011. Immediately after his interview was aired, it
became absolutely clear that the purposes of a 42-pages
document that was given to the visiting team was
not supposed to be unveiled in public because it comprises names of the despotic Ethiopian government critics
whom the government wants to silence and their valuable views against their
tyrannical government which VOA Amharic Service broadcasted from January 2011
to May 2011.
For disclosing
what occurred in the meeting with the Ethiopian
Ministry of Government Communications Affairswhich
was intended kept secret, Arnold found himself between a rock and a hard place.
He got suspended from his position. Though at different department, a few days
later he was allowed to resume working.
According to Arnold’s brief
biography, He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia during the
1960’s. In the early 1990’s, he established a public relations and
marketing department for the National Museums of Kenya, worked in Addis Ababa
on a proposal for a Horn of Africa journalism training center, and conducted
newspaper publishing and reporting workshops in Kampala, Lilongwe, Asmara and
Addis Ababa.
Following
Arnold suspension from his job, in an unprecedented manner, without giving any
explanation for their decision to their audience, his bosses removed an hour worth of
programs from VOA Amharic Service website which was broadcasted on June 23,
2011 that included Arnold’s interview.
The Ethiopian
Diaspora has been widely alleging since Arnold’s suspension and the
removal of the June 23 programs from VOA Amharic Service website that VOA’s Africa Division Director,
Gwen Dillard, has started daring to decide which news, voices, relevant
discussions, and listeners’ comment be broadcasted to her Ethiopian
audience. For example, per her instructions the June 23and July 18,
2011 programs those contained pertinent discussions with Arnold and a listener
comment about VOA’s censorship maneuver which VOA Amharic Service aired are
removed from the VOA website because they contain information which Dillard does
not want her audience to hear. The Diaspora also claims that in some of the
meetings Dillard held with her staff: She prohibited them from taking notes. She
instructed them not to broadcast listeners’ views concerning VOA’s
censorship plan. She worried them by letting them know that leaking information
to the public would endanger their job.
Furthermore,
although the VOA journalistic code states that VOA audience has a right to
expect truthfulness from its journalists, I noted that VOA’s Executive
Editor & Acting Director, Steve
Redisch, provided mendacious statements in his written communication with
the Addis
Voice editor: “There have been inaccurate reports about the tone and
substance of an official meeting on June 22 between members of the U.S.
Broadcasting Board of Governors and Ethiopian Communication Affairs Minister,
Bereket Simon.” He stated that “Contrary to the VOA report, at no
time did Ethiopian government officials ask the Board members to prohibit any
individuals from appearing on VOA programs. Consistent with VOA’s
standards of accuracy and not for reasons of self-censorship, the report was
taken off the website,”
The above Redisch’s
contradictory statements to hide the truth from the Addis Voice editor is
baffling me because I think it would have been much better issuing corrections
for the inaccurate reports which were aired on June 23 and July 18, 2011 than entirely
removing them from the VOA Amharic Service website. By the way, the removed
programs of July 18, 2011 contain an interview which I have been looking
forward to listening.
In my opinion, Dillard’s and Redisch’s action that starting
censoring their programs and concealing the truth from their audience would negatively affect VOA’s
goodwill and market share.
Seeking to
learn the whole truth about the allegations which VOA Horn of Africa division is
engulfed and taking the VOA charter and journalistic code at their face value I
called the BBG Public Relations office in Washington, D.C. more than a couple
of times in the week of July 16, 2011. And I left recorded messages. To date the
Public Relations office has not returned my calls.
For not getting
respond to the messages I left, I am frustrated by the Public Relations office.Moreover, I am disappointed by the
silence of the BBG and VOA authorities for causing their audience to dwell,
mire, and speculate about what occurred in the meeting which the VOA’s visiting
team held with various Ethiopian government agencies. Consequently, I wrote
this article to hold the BBG and VOA authorities accountable to their charter
and journalistic code and to politely request them to address the concerns of
their audience truthfully and immediately.
Some questions
those beg for answers are:
1) What
are the Ethiopian government expectations when it submitted its 42-pages complaints
to the VOA visiting team?
2) Why
VOA’s visiting team wants to keep this document secret?
3) Will
the BBG and VOA let its audience know their responds to the Ethiopian
government complaints?
4) Would
the BBG and VOA allow their VOA Amharic Service repost on its website its July
18, 2011 aired program because it contains a last part of an interview which I
have been eagerly waiting to listen?
Note: I
have great confidence in the BBG and VOA. To illustrate, it never crossed my
mind that one day the BBG and VOA might give in to a demand of a super power
and change their editorial policies, let alone they would give way to an order
of one of the world’s most autocratic governments that is mainly known for
famine, poverty, corruption, rigging elections, et cetera.
