Voice of America's interim director Elez Biberaj has stepped down to return to his past role as Eurasia director, sources told The Washington Post.
The move has not been made official, but the move is reported to have been requested by President Donald Trump-appointed Michael Pack, who runs U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Post sources said Biberaj, 68, obliged.
Pack has worked to move VOA to a more administration-friendly media outlet, but Biberaj has sought to balance the independence of the channel over his 40 years with it, according to the Post report.
Pack, who appointed Biberaj in an interim basis in June, has made sweeping reforms at VOA, leading to a federal court ordering him out of news reporting or personnel decisions under the regulatory "firewall" that limits political appointees from being involved in editorial control of VOA, Radio Free Asia, or the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the Post reported.
Pack, who is alleged to be on the outs in a potential Joe Biden administration, might quickly move to appoint a new director of VOA, Robert Reilly. Reilly is a Ronald Reagan administration conservative who has argued VOA is a government diplomatic operation, not a news organization.
"VOA's job should be to advance the justice of the American cause, while simultaneously undermining our opponents," Reilly wrote in an opinion peice for The Wall Street Journal.
After a two-year delay to even get Pack's appointment approved in the Senate, the Pack-led USAGM has been slow to aid the Biden transition team, concerning some journalists, per the Post.
"What if [Biberaj's replacement] demands to sit in on editorial meetings?" one asked the Post in a hypothetical. "What if he starts vetting stories?"
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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