USAGM Watch Commentary

Alireza Nader (@AlirezaNader), a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (@FDD), a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute focusing on foreign policy and national security, has written an op-ed for Washington Examiner in which he argues that the Voice of America (VOA) Persian news network, which he describes as “once a powerful tool in Washington’s efforts to shape public opinion in Iran,” became “arguably the least-watched of the Persian-language channels available to Iranians seeking an alternative to regime propaganda.”

Alireza Nader, who is a respected Iran scholar and author of many analyses of Iranian politics, puts the blame for what he calls “self-destruction” of Voice of America’s programming to Iran on the management of the VOA Persian Service. One of his arguments is that the service repeats propaganda of the Iranian regime without an effective challenge. Many Chinese-Americans, including journalists and scholars, have voiced similar criticism of VOA English and Mandarin programs about China. Chinese-American critics blamed VOA Director Amanda Bennett.

READ MORE: Major US influence on Iranians sidelined by anti-Trump bias. By Alireza Nader. Washington Examiner, May 6, 2020

ALSO SEE: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL (AFPC) U.S. PERSIAN MEDIA STUDY, 2017