TRANSCRIPT:
One of the things that Voice of America has been able to present as an American value is the value of press freedom, which includes the value of being able to disagree with its own government, with its own sponsors. In fact, enshrined in its own principles are a freedom of press.
And you know there may be some, from the U.S. government perspective, some short-term losses there. Someone speaking on Voice of America may disagree with U.S. policy, but the fact that they’re allowed to speak, the fact that they’re allowed to be given this platform and often forced to defend themselves when someone from the platform disagrees. Yeah, that is, the demonstration value of that type of debate is just huge.
Like so many of the controversies that Voice of America has been mired in over the years come from people or actors or countries or parties that are used to not being challenged and are used to having a monopoly over the information space. Losing Voice of America, losing that principle of debate and freedom of press means ceding monopolies [the] information space all around the world.
Voice of America did not win the Cold War alone, but it was representative of that effort to project what America stands for to the rest of the world — an ideal — a set of ideals that, you know, I think it’s fair to say by the late 1980s effectively triumphed.
Now, the ideological battles of the 21st century are different from those of the 20th century. But we risk losing those battles if we don’t, you know, have at our disposal the instruments to fight them.
Published
Simon directs Yale’s Genocide Studies Program. His research focuses on mass atrocity prevention and post-atrocity recovery, particularly in Africa.