One wonders whether VOA Persian’s management and the group that oversees its operations have a PR department. Last week, Kambiz Hosseini and Saman Arbabai, co-creators of VOA Persian Service’s successful television weekly, Parazit, appeared on AlJazeera’s “The Stream,” and managed to do a lot of damage to their own image, as well as to VOA’s. The program’s topic, as explained by Imran Garda, the show’s host, was the controversy surrounding Parazit’s mission, as it is funded by the US government’s Voice of America, dedicated to broadcasting US policies (propaganda) into other countries. In Garda’s words, “he who pays the piper decides the tune.”
Farsi-speaking followers of the show may have heard Kambiz and Saman’s previous assertions about their independence and the show’s freedom to choose its subjects without censorship. New York-based political commentator and blogger, Nima Shirazi, appearing as another program guest, challenged the Parazit team, reminding them that as a government-funded television program, they couldn’t possibly have the independence they are boasting.
The language and mannerism of Kambiz Hosseini started the interview on a rocky foundation for the Parazit team. It is not clear whether Hosseini’s lack of command of English language created the problem, or whether he was deliberately trying to avoid questions and to create a diversion each time the challenger, Shirazi, tried to make a statement. Hosseini was in a rush to answer all the questions himself and even finished Arbabi’s sentences for him several times. He appeared angry, arrogant, and ill-prepared to discuss the thorny subject. During the interview, in their haste to prove their “independence” from US foreign policy, Hosseini and Arbabi managed to make their employers, Voice of America’s Persian Service, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), appear as incompetent fools on whose watch a whole program was created and launched without their knowledge! “Voice of America did not choose to do this, we did! They didn’t create the show! …At some point, Voice of America found out that, look, there is a show that has half a million viewers watching it! They didn’t have anything [control] over this. There was no smart planning!” boasted Hosseini.
The two offered “human rights for Iranians” as the sole raison d’etre for their program. Arbabi tried to offer a pragmatic approach to the issue. “As long as they fund us and let us do what we do, and do not interfere, which they haven’t, I don’t care if, the government of, like, Kenya, gives us the money. We have a platform, we are using it, and luckily, the charter that we have at VOA protects us…We get this question a lot, and to be honest with you, Parazit is something that is completely unique even for Voice of America. VOA’s this dry, hard news organization with this kind of attitude thing, funded by the government, started during the Cold War. And then came Parazit! And we kind of just used the opportunity we had to do what we do. We are very objective about everybody, including the American government…Luckily, we have been able to do what we want to do. And as long as we are able to do what we do, and there is no censorship involved and no one is going to interfere with our content, then the government money is looking good!” he said.
Saman Arbabi’s flagrant duplicity in making these statements is mind boggling. According to FoxNews, in 2007, Voice of America Persian Service fired Arbabi’s then wife, Melody Navab-Safavi, a musician with the band Abjeez, for making a music video for the band’s song DemoKracy, which had lyrics and images critical of the US war in Iraq. Saman Arbabi himself was asked to resign for helping produce the video, but he refused, according to the lawsuit. Melody Safavi and Voice of America have apparently reached a settlement since, as she is back working for VOA Persian after four years.
Parazit is a popular US-funded show that successfully cashes in on the pain and anger of Iranians after the 2009 disputed elections. As such, like all other programs produced by VOA, Parazit presents state propaganda directed at a specific country. There is nothing wrong with this so long as everyone is honest about the elephant in the room. Of course all of this is somewhat rhetorical so long as there is no military action on Iran, or the Parazit guys will find out with their viewers that “he who pays the piper does decide the tune.”
