TRANSCRIPT:
A factual, balanced and comprehensive approach to news is truly valued in many countries around the world, and it’s lacking in a lot of countries around the world. And I think that’s the huge value that VOA brought, first to Europe and then to Asia after World War II. But, I mean, the long legacy of VOA, that is what is contributed.
A free society should be confident enough to let the facts speak for themselves. The credibility that you get by being honest, that gives you an authenticity, that makes people want to believe you and makes people want to listen to you.
Free speech isn’t just about protecting speech that’s convenient or supportive. It’s about protecting criticism. It’s protecting disagreements, scrutiny, encouraging open debate. That gives you credibility and that gives you that authenticity that makes people believe you because you’re willing to say the things a propaganda channel wouldn’t say.
It’s that authenticity that comes from being willing to accept criticism and being willing to present different sides of an argument that gives it value. And I think that that’s where independent journalism has so much to contribute, and that’s why people are drawn to it.
And that’s why people would sneak radios illegally, in order to listen to it, and valued it so much at times when they, their own state propaganda networks, were clearly not giving them the news that they knew was truthful.
Published
Zahner is a senior fellow with the National Security and International Policy Department at the Center for American Progress. He served for more than 20 years as a U.S. Foreign Service officer with assignments across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.