Voice of America Chief Quits Over Mideast Plans

The director of the Voice of America, Robert Reilly, resigned Thursday after less than a year in the job, the Broadcasting Board of Governors said.

VOA sources said the agency had been in turmoil under Reilly’s leadership, particularly over plans to set up new language services targeted to Middle East audiences but without the “impartiality” provisions in the VOA charter.

The best known is Radio Sawa in the Middle East, which broadcasts Arabic and Western popular music interspersed with news bulletins promoting U.S. views.

U.S. officials have said the station is a great success, but Arab commentators say they doubt the politically slanted news broadcasts will have much effect on public opinion.

Reilly took the post in October 2001, immediately after a controversy over whether VOA should air an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in Afghanistan. VOA eventually broadcast excerpts, defying the State Department and the Board of Governors.

Reilly had backed the Bush administration’s view that VOA should not air the views of a man with whom the U.S. was about to go to war, VOA sources said.

Reilly, a former Reagan administration official, was appointed in October to lead the international broadcasting service in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The new VOA director is David Jackson, who worked for Time magazine from 1978 until last year.