America on the Radio


November 24, 2001


BOB GARFIELD: Not long ago, an employee of an American news organization got a huge scoop -- an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. But is that a legitimate news story or is it giving aid and comfort, or at least a propaganda forum, to the enemy? Complicating the question, the news organization in question was Voice of America -- a U.S. government agency. The situation created an uproar as documented by Washington Post writer Frank Ahrens.

FRANK AHRENS: What happened was this: a woman named Sposmai Mawandi [sp?] who is the head of the Pashtu Service -- there are two language services VOA specifically targets in Afghanistan -- Pashto and Dari. Shortly after the bombing began she called up one of the ministers of the Taliban and essentially they said he's not here; would you like to speak to the Mullah Omar instead which was a great -- it's like calling up the White House and Ari Fleischer is saying I can't take your call; do you want to talk to George Bush. And in the service, in the Pashtu service what you heard was Sposmai reading the story that said here's the story that's coming, here's what's going on -- here is a quote from George Bush. And they had Bush speaking and then of course the interpreter changing it into Pashto. And he said and here's a quote from the Mullah Omar -- and here - there was the direct quote from the Mullah Omar in the interview. VOA did not broadcast an un-edited interview with the leader of the enemy that we're bombing. They didn't steady the soap box of, of our enemy.

BOB GARFIELD:So this woman had the scoop of a lifetime, but the way it appeared on Voice of America opened her up to criticism and opened up Voice of America to criticism of at least a de facto support of the enemy. What, what have been the reverberations of this incident in the service?

FRANK AHRENS: Well I think the reverberations were probably best described when I went over there a couple of weeks ago and sat in on one of their daily 9:30 morning news meetings and a question came up about an interview with somebody and the news director questioned that person very carefully and there was a, a significant rise in the tension -- and somebody leaned over to me and said we're all operating under the shadow of Omar now.

BOB GARFIELD:Ultimately if - when the question becomes should they be a fairly evenhanded broker of the news or should they be more of a propaganda arm of the government, what do you suppose going forward the answer will be?

FRANK AHRENS: I think VOA is pretty well entrenched into what it does. I think in order for it to have a radical change there has to be a change in its charter which I think has to go through Congress and it's hard to imagine that happening. I think what'll happen is Congress probably will approve money for a radio-free Afghanistan which has gone through the Congress and I think is in the Senate now. Radio-Free Afghanistan would say here is our take on the news that's happening in your country, and interestingly enough, some of the people at VOA looked at the proposal of a Radio-Free Afghanistan service as saying well it looks like Congress is ready to take the gloves off completely and just start pouring on the propaganda, because sometimes that's how the Radio-Free services are viewed.

BOB GARFIELD: Frank Ahrens, thanks for joining us.

FRANK AHRENS: Thanks a lot, Bob.

BOB GARFIELD: Frank Ahrens is a reporter in the style section of the Washington Post.