VOA's Persian News Network

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.