Months before the US bombardment of Iran began, Kari Lake - the Trump-appointed head of US foreign broadcasting whose legal authority to hold the position remains unclear - gutted Voice of America. She fired hundreds of staff, canceled contracts, and put employees on administrative leave, wasting what Applebaum estimated at tens of millions, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars.
As "Hvylya" reports, Anne Applebaum detailed the damage on the To The Contrary With Charlie Sykes podcast, calling the current state of US broadcasting to Iran "almost a kind of an emergency."
Lake also targeted Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and its Persian-language service Radio Farda. Staff across these organizations spent the past year fighting Lake's directives, worrying about lawsuits, and trying to stay operational. Then, as bombs began falling, Lake launched a "panicked effort" to rehire people for Persian-language VOA.
The person Lake installed to run the rebuilt operation is, in Applebaum's words, "a very partisan figure, who is clearly not doing objective journalism." The new appointee has a specific political stance on Iran's internal debates - including opposition to Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah, who commands a significant following inside and outside the country. Applebaum said the appointee has barred the Crown Prince's name from being mentioned on air.
The result: a broadcasting apparatus with almost no credibility. Applebaum said Saudi-backed broadcasters are now more popular and more trusted inside Iran than their American counterparts - "which is pretty extraordinary when you think about American journalism and Saudi journalism." The one tool that might have helped build a common conversation among Iranians during the crisis was dismantled before the crisis arrived.
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