DMGS-Kennan Institute Fellow Edward Lemon was quoted in an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “U.S. Broadcaster Under Scrutiny for Disseminating Autocratic Propaganda.” The article examines how Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tajikistan service, originally established to promote democratic values abroad, has been reporting in favor of the country’s authoritarian regime which has held power since 1992. In February, Dr. Lemon assembled a group of twenty five scholars who work on the country. The group wrote a letter to Radio Free Europe’s acting president Daisy Sindelar and the United States Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that funds the service, highlighting how the service had been distributing state propaganda and pointing to conflicts of interest deriving from relationships between senior editors and members of the Tajik president’s family. As a result of the letter, and an investigation published by news website Eurasianet, Radio Free Europe has conducted an external review of the services’ coverage and made key personnel changes.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tajikistan
