Acting VOA director informs staff of reassignment

Elez Biberaj, the acting director of Voice of America (VOA), informed staff on Tuesday that he was being reassigned. 

In an email to staff shared with The Hill, Biberaj said that Michael Pack, the controversial chief executive of VOA’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, was bringing in a new VOA director.  

The message was sent amid multiple reports that Biberaj was being reassigned ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. 

Biberaj said he was “profoundly grateful for the opportunity to serve.” 

Pack on Wednesday announced that Robert R. Reilly would return as director of VOA, a position he held from 2001 to 2002 during the George W. Bush administration.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media has experienced turmoil since Pack was appointed to lead it in June.

Multiple executives have been fired amid criticism that the agency’s firewall between journalists and political intervention was being breached. 

Last month, U.S. Judge Beryl Howell ordered Pack to stop interfering in VOA’s news coverage and editorial personnel, saying his actions likely violated the First Amendment. NPR reported last week that the U.S. Office of Special Counsel found a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” following an investigation of the claims that led to Howell’s ruling.

Biberaj said the past six months have been “the most challenging period in VOA’s recent history,” characterized by an “adversarial relationship” between VOA and its parent agency.

“Some agency officials failed to respect rules, protocols and processes that I considered inviolable, and displayed an indifference to the disruptive impact their actions and decisions had on VOA’s operations and mission,” Biberaj wrote. “Attempts to trample VOA’s journalistic independence threatened to undermine our hard-won credibility at a time of global democratic backsliding and increased international threats to America’s values and moral leadership.”

Biberaj will return to his position as director of the Eurasia Division.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to be at VOA’s helm during this tumultuous but historic period,” he wrote. “My heartfelt thanks to everyone for your support, professionalism and dedication to our noble mission.”

Updated at 12:34 a.m.