Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Thursday, Dec. 19, 2002

WASHINGTON – Voice of America is now distancing itself from its own broadcast operations in the Middle East and their teeny-bopper formats on Radio SAWA and Radio FARDA. The latter is a new service aimed specifically at Iran, and was scheduled to begin operations Wednesday.

In a memo dated Dec. 18, a copy of which was obtained by NewsMax.com, the edict reads:

“Subject: No VOA sign-on before SAWA or FARDA programs. Stations please note that the VOA sign-on announcement should not — repeat should not - be played prior to programs of Radio SAWA or Radio FARDA.”

One can only speculate as to why the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) has taken this step. It comes at a time of great controversy over VOA’s increasing emphasis on hit music of the likes of Britney Spears, Eminem, Whitney Houston and the Backstreet Boys. This Farda format has replaced the broadcasts of serious policy discussions that were encouraging dissidents living under the hated, iron-fisted Iranian dictatorship.

In an op-ed piece Monday in the Wall Street Journal, retiring Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chastised the BBG for shutting down Radio Azadi (Persian for freedom), which he said had delivered 11 hours (10 hours, according to BBG) of news and serious discussion in a country where freedom is suppressed at every turn.

The BBG, in a response to a similar article by Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post that same day, argues that the new Radio Farda (Persian for tomorrow) will increase news and substantive content “from 180 minutes on Radio Azadi to 315 minutes daily on [the new] Radio Farda.”

“They’re not counting all the discussions, the round-tables and the call-in shows and all these policy discussions that they [Radio Azadi] did,” Helms spokesman Lester Munson told NewsMax.com.

“They’d get people from Iran to call in and say, ‘I’m outraged at this,’ or whatever. They’re not counting that as news. Radio Azadi was all talk. It was providing a forum for discussions ... It had much more of a basis in the policy issues of the day. Radio Farda is a completely different format. That’s the essential reality.”

Translation: From serious discussion in a country living under the jackboot, VOA transmits pop music interspersed during most of the time with nothing more than headline news. BBG’s response to Diehl is that the new service increases broadcast time from 10 to 21 hours a day.

Three hundred fifteen minutes for news and substantive matters each day means five hours and 25 minutes out of 21 hours would be devoted to “news and substantive content.” All the other 15 hours and 35 minutes are for pop music.

It appears that during many hours of the broadcast day, Radio Farda is mimicking the familiar “Top 40” format. Many veteran broadcasters do not regard this as serious public affairs programming, even with a few minutes of news each hour.

In commercial radio in the U.S., that shortchanging of news led to the creation of all-news radio and later to cable television news, 24/7. It is “niche broadcasting” based partly on the premise that “variety” programming no longer attracts the loyal audience that it previously did.

In an e-mail to NewsMax, BBG Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson explains that news on Radio Farda “will be five to ten minutes on top of the hour — with thirty minutes news shows prime time in morning and evening.” Pending the hiring of additional staff, he says, “we will be doing two thirty minute affairs shows each week.”

There is more. In a future installment, NewsMax.com will discuss the case of a dissident, condemned to death, who rots in jail. His fate prompted Helms to weigh in on this issue during these last days before his retirement Jan. 3.

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