Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald

Reprinted with permission

November 5, 2001, Monday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A
HEADLINE: U.S.-paid broadcasts called pro-Tailban
By Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Voice of America broadcasts to Afghanistan in the Pashto language have
consistently presented an "appalling" pro-Taliban slant, says a former
ambassador now teaching at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
"What the Afghans called it was the voice of the Taliban," said Peter
Tomsen, who was special envoy to the Afghan resistance during the first Bush
administration.
Tomsen's allegation, spelled out in an e-mail and a letter in July, prompted
an investigation by the International Broadcasting Bureau's Office of Program
Review. In a report dated Sept. 10, the agency said it "found no statistical or
qualitative evidence of pro-Taliban bias, or support for Osama bin Laden, on the
part of VOA Pashto."
The agency said Taliban views were presented as part of the balanced
coverage required by the VOA Charter.
Tish King, speaking for Voice of America, said the service regularly hears
from Afghans and foreign correspondents that VOA and BBC "are the only trusted
sources of news in Afghanistan."
Tomsen, a career diplomat, responded to the broadcasting bureau's report
with a Sept. 21 letter saying that VOA Pashto "reminds me of Soviet propaganda
when I was in Moscow."
He said about one-third of the Pashto Service coverage of Afghan topics was
interviews with Taliban officials or Taliban sympathizers, without balancing the
programs by interviewing Taliban opponents.
"Under the current circumstances, it just does not make sense - for so much
of the VOA Pashto Service time - to give the microphone to the Taliban enemy as
we employ our military forces against him," wrote Tomsen, also a former U.S.
ambassador to Armenia.
U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., cited Tomsen's letter in calling the
broadcasting bureau report a "whitewash of the Voice of America's treatment of
the Taliban government for the last five years."

"You can take a look at the number of stories and interviews with Taliban
leaders - it's a disgrace," Rohrabacher said in an Oct. 10 meeting of the House
International Relations Committee.
The committee unanimously approved a bill Thursday to form a new
broadcasting service, Radio Free Afghanistan, under the existing Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty service. Like VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
broadcasts straight news, but it is viewed as more of a propaganda service. One
of its purposes is to "promote democratic values and institutions."
VOA added 30 minutes daily to its Afghan broadcasts after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks on the United States, for a total of an hour and 45 minutes.
The Radio Free Afghanistan legislation would pay for 12 hours of broadcasting a
day.
Tomsen's initial criticism came before the Sept. 11 attack. Later in
September, VOA came under fire from the State Department for broadcasting part
of an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
The State Department wanted the interview withheld, but VOA delayed the
broadcast several days before broadcasting excerpts as part of a broader report.
That move was criticized by staff members who said the delay compromised their
journalistic integrity and their credibility in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher criticized the
decision to air Omar's remarks at all: "We don't think that the head of the
Taliban belongs on this radio station."
Tomsen said he wasn't seeking to censor the news service but was asking it
to meet its journalistic standards of balance. "I'm a very strong supporter of
the media and the First Amendment."
The 1976 VOA Charter says the taxpayer-funded news service "will be
accurate, objective and comprehensive." Its journalistic code calls for balanced
reporting of controversial issues.
Tomsen said he and colleagues at UNO's Center for Afghanistan Studies
studied the broadcasts after hearing complaints. "Afghans would go through the
roof," he said. "They'd hear the broadcasts, and they'd call and complain."
The UNO program's staff recorded the broadcasts, and Tomsen asked an outside
source to analyze them. He compiled a log of more than 100 interviews, talk
shows and news stories featuring the views of Taliban leaders or sympathizers.
"Interviews with members of the anti-Taliban opposition inside Afghanistan are
as rare as hen's teeth," he wrote.

Tomsen did not fault the VOA broadcasts in Dari, the other major Afghan
language. Pashto is spoken primarily in southern Afghanistan by the nation's
largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. The Taliban leaders are Pashtun.
The broadcasting bureau asked two Pashto-speaking professors to analyze
tapes of selected broadcasts for possible bias. The evaluators criticized the
balance and journalistic quality of some reports but said they generally were
balanced.
The professors' names are removed from the report, but another document
identifies them as Anwar ul-Haq Ahady of Providence College and Alam Payind of
Ohio State University.
Tomsen faulted their selection, particularly Ahady, who heads an Afghan
party whose members Tomsen said "almost always support the Taliban."
Ahady declined to comment.
Voice of America
Broadcasts in Pashto and Dari
1 hour and 45 minutes each per day into Afghanistan and Pakistan and on the
internet (www.voa.gov).
80 percent of Afghan men listen weekly, according to 1999 survey.
60 percent of Afghan men listen daily.
72 percent of Afghan men agreed that "VOA gives you the facts and lets you
form your own opinions."
Tied with BBC as leading news source in Afghanistan.
Source: Voice of America, International Broadcasting Bureau Office of
Research