There have been a lot of stories out there about
VOA's Persian News Network. Here's the REAL story: The State Department’s Office of Inspector General has issued a report that, overall, praises the Voice of America’s (VOA) Persian News Network (PNN). “VOA successfully built PNN into its first full-fledged network in an extraordinarily short period of time,” said the report, which is posted on the State Department’s website, http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/121748.pdf. “Given the U.S. strategic interest in communicating with Iranians, PNN represents a major achievement in setting up a network that reaches approximately 29 percent of Iranians in Iran," the report said. Started in July 2007, PNN now reaches more than 13 million people weekly in a country with no press freedom. That's huge. Of course, there have been some hiccups in creating a network -- and the State Department report points those out. But, VOA has embraced the recommendations in the report and moved to make changes already.
And, if you want to see for yourself, just come visit VOA and take a Studio Tour where we watch Farsi broadcasting. You can also check it out at www.voanews.com/Persian.
Hello VOA,
ReplyDeleteI have some negative, albeit hopefully constructive, remarks about VOA Persian programs:
- In general VOA has slightly improved in recent months, probably due to competition from BBC.
- none of your front people: newscasters, interviewers, showpersons, etc... are first rate professionals - no exceptions. You have got to be able to do a lot better than this, what with hundreds of thousands of educated Iranians in the states and your considerable budget...
- The documentaries on various aspects of American life are quite well-made - I just watched a very good one on Dr. Kellogg - but the quality of Persian translation and the Persian narrator were so abysmal that ruined the whole thing... geez where do you get these illiterates?
- Again on the subject of weak personnel: you need more capable interviewers, ones who have better grasp and understanding of the subject matters, ones who can speak and perform adequately in front of the camera, ones with a general understanding of timing and delivery (they invariably cut into their guest(s)' conversation right where the poor so and so is finally saying something interesting.
...... anyway ....... I realize that this is harsh criticism... you're probably not that bad ... but I am really miffed at this general incompetence.