The MBN Fight

Dear Colleagues,

Thanks for your steadiness, decency, and forbearance. I’ve never seen a company weather such intense storms: wars in our region, painful restructure, and now the choking off of MBN’s Congressionally approved funding.

Thanks to you MBN is still standing. Thanks to you we were able to avoid full closure of the company on Friday. Your efforts keep our legal fight on course.

Last week, we filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. Our funding has not yet been restored, but we know that the termination of our grant agreement was unlawful. I’m grateful to our general counsel Anne Noble and superb pro bono outside counsel. Here’s an excerpt from our team’s argument from last week:

Congress directed that approximately $60 million “shall be allocated” to Radio Free Asia (RFA) and approximately $100 million “shall be allocated” to the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN, and collectively “the Networks”). Defendants have flagrantly violated those statutory commands by freezing the Networks’ funds. The Networks have moved for emergency relief to halt this unlawful impoundment and ensure compliance with Congress’s demands. … USAGM seeks to destroy the very broadcasting networks that Congress saw fit to fund and to charge USAGM with facilitating.

This Court must act now because the Networks are experiencing dire irreparable harm. The Networks have been forced into mass furloughs and layoffs … all to stretch their last remaining dollars to stay on life support while fighting in court as long as they can. Their credibility and reputation have long allowed them to work with journalists and sources in some of the most dangerous media environments on the planet, but the illegal chokehold USAGM has placed on their funding has forced them to terminate important contracts and has undermined their status as a trusted and reliable partner. 

Without funding, the Networks [are] no longer be able to protect their journalists and staff who face deportation, persecution, and physical danger. None of this can be compensated at the end of litigation; all of it warrants emergency relief, especially given that the Government will suffer no harm from following Congress’s direction while the litigation unfolds.

Defendants’ playbook is clear: they will stop at nothing—not even binding judicial orders—to evade Congress’s command to fund the Networks. 

We continue to fight on all fronts. Our board chair Ambassador Ryan Crocker decries the Trump administration’s defunding of America’s voice in the Middle East. “We’ve basically pre-emptively surrendered the information space,” says Ryan, “and our adversaries have already moved to take advantage of it.”

I joined “Open Debate” on soft power and MBN’s unique role in the Middle East. It’s indeed strategically disastrous. We keep handing Iran, China, and other American adversaries victory after victory.

With a small digital team, MBN’s work continues. We’re reporting on U.S. talks with Iran on the regime’s nuclear program, the status of Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, and the efforts of the Lebanese government to curtail and absorb Hezbollah before the terror group has the opportunity to regroup and restore operations. We have gripping video storytelling on Sudan and a brutal civil war, two years on.

We keep telling the MBN story in Washington. We’re planning a Capitol Hill event cohosted by a Republican and Democratic Senator. RFA and RFE/RL — two sister networks fighting to receive their Congressionally approved funding — will participate in the symposium. Date TBD.

This Tuesday, the Press Freedom Center at the National Press Club has invited us to share updates on MBN’s case with media and Washington stakeholders. The Press Club’s Bill McCarren will host the event.

Otherwise —

I’m fully aware how challenging this journey has been. I’ll continue to draw inspiration from your character and grace. We keep fighting this fight. It’s the right thing to do. Those who starve MBN of resources are in the wrong.

With respect, Jeff