Sam Ghandchiسام قندچيMicropolitics of an Executive at VOA Persian
Sam Ghandchi
http://www.ghandchi.com/909-micropolitics-voa-english.htm
میکروپولیتیک مدیری ارشد در بخش فارسی صدای آمریکا
http://www.ghandchi.com/909-micropolitics-voa.htm

 

Two weeks ago in an open letter to President Obama, I tried to explain political discrimination of VOA management at the Persian Service (1).  During the last two years, despite what they did to me and my family, I avoided naming any of the VOA executives, hoping to correct the situation without discussing individuals.  Unfortunately we are facing circumstances similar to dictatorial countries when an individual has such a grip on power with total disregard for VOA Charter that nothing can change without calling for his removal from office.

 

The responsible man micromanages VOA Persian Service from behind the scene, both when he was the acting director of VOA Persian and now that he is not, but is still a senior executive for all VOA news services. He uses one Iranian political tendency against another to keep himself in power. At one time, despite having no knowledge of Persian language, hired an Iranian girlfriend of his buddy from Atlanta as a supervising editor for VOA Persian when the new hire had only second grade Persian language education and was forced to leave her position, in less than two months, because simply was unable to perform the minimum duties associated with the job.

 

If any Iran related lobby group complains more about VOA in the mainstream US media such as WSJ or NYT, this executive will change the staff of VOA Persian Service accordingly and makes false accusations to justify his decision. Journalists are afraid of frame-ups to speak out which is a reminder of conditions of journalists in Iran. This gentleman neither knows Persian nor does he have any knowledge of Iran's politics and history to make judgments about real journalistic issues related to Iran. Lately he has hired new managers such as founder of a web news site that had received substantial financial assistance from a particular lobby group, to manage the web services of VOA Persian, all to please the well-known Iranian lawyer of that pressure group (2).

 

I hope the White House and US Congress to review the situation at VOA and hire an executive who follows the VOA Charter. VOA Charter is different from the mandate of State Department or Defense Department and requires a different set of skills and knowledge and only experience of management at news agencies like CNN is not enough, because they do not even have a Persian service and also VOA Persian's main work is related to complicated Iran's politics. Personally my work in English and Persian is available on my web site which covers a span of over 25 years and any impartial reviewer can determine if I know what I am talking about or not. This VOA executive is simply not qualified for the job that he has clinged onto for so long by resorting to such unbecoming micropolitics.


Hoping for a democratic and secular futurist republic in Iran,

Sam Ghandchi, Editor/Publisher
IRANSCOPE
http://www.ghandchi.com 
http://www.iranscope.com
May 4, 2015


Footnotes:

 

1. Mr. Obama, Please Stop Political Discrimination at VOA

http://www.ghandchi.com/901-obama-voa-english.htm

 

2. Transparency: Iran News and Lobby Groups in Washington, DC
http://www.ghandchi.com/863-iran-news-lobby-groups-english.htm

 


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