MOSCOW, August 5. Robert Bruce Ware, noted expert on the North Caucasus, responds to RIA’s interview with the Director of Communications at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Donald Jensen, regarding Andrei Babitsky’s interview with Shamil Basayev.
Dear Mr. Jensen,
Thank you for your interesting exchange concerning the status of Andrei Babitsky's interview with Shamil Basayev, and his transfer of that interview to ABC. You make a number of good points, and there are several issues that are usefully clarified. Yet it seems that there are still a few points that are not completely transparent.
Let me try to put it in my own simple terms. I work for a public university in the United States. On my own time, I'm free to do as I please, but only up to a point. If on my free time I do anything that compromises my employer, or compromises my capacity to perform my job, then I will be dismissed from my job. In the case of a university professor, this applies most famously to someone who has a romantic affair with a student -- cause for dismissal at many American universities. But there are a wide range of other things that a professor cannot do, or at least get caught doing, on his free time if he wishes to retain his job.
In my area, a couple of years ago, a university professor was dismissed after he was discovered having an affair with a student. Unfortunately for that poor ex-professor, the university officials did not say: "It is okay that he slept with a student because he did not sleep with her while class was in session. He only slept with her on his own time." Unfortunately, for the ex-professor, the officials did not attempt to draw that sort of distinction. They simply fired him, and he departed in disgrace.
Now I'd say that Babitsky did something that has clearly compromised himself and his employer. I don't mean simply that Babitsky's accreditation is being challenged by Russian officials. I mean that Mr. Jensen surely cannot expect anyone in Russia to accept his fine distinction between Babitsky's interviewing Shamil Basayev on his own time and Babitsky's interviewing someone else on RFE time. Perhaps that distinction makes sense to Mr. Jensen. (In fact, I expect that it does make sense to him because I am convinced that he is an honorable and decent man.) But surely he does not expect anyone in Russia to accept that distinction. In fact, many people in Russia obviously do not accept that distinction and have been alienated by RFE's attempt to make it.
Now wait, isn't the function of RFE to engage and communicate with people in places like Russia? So if an employee of RFE does something on his free time that alienates many people in Russia, then hasn't such an employee compromised RFE? In fact, I don't see how anyone could possibly argue that Babitsky has not compromised RFE.
Actually, I'm not even sure that I can understand Mr. Jensen's distinction. Am I the only one who finds it a bit odd that Babitsky spends his "free time" interviewing a Chechen terrorist? When they get some free time, most people like to take a break from their professional duties and relax or do something different.
Even if Babitsky somehow needs to interview someone on his own free time, why isn't he interviewing, say, celebrity golfers, or people who run wineries, or distinguished historians? Why Chechen terrorists? And then why, of all things, is Babitsky using his "free time" to sell an interview with a Chechen terrorist to an American news organization?
Sorry, Mr. Jensen. I'm sure that you are a good and decent man who believes everything that you say, but from a reasonable outside perspective, all of this looks...well, just a bit fishy. I don't know why you good people at RFE tolerate something like this. Because speaking as an American citizen, I am deeply embarrassed by this whole mess. I don't think that you should be explaining and apologizing for Babitsky. I think that you should be firing him.
I've frequently published with RFE, and you can go to the New Europe Review website right now and find my article criticizing Russia's policy in the Caucasus. But I am just plain embarrassed by Babitsky; I'm embarrassed by ABC; I'm embarrassed that RFE tolerates this kind of nonsense; I'm embarrassed that Russia tolerates RFE; I'm embarrassed that America tolerates RFE; and I'm embarrassed by the flimsiness and the hairsplitting in Mr. Jensen's explanation.
I see that Mr. Jensen has been misrepresented in a newspaper article, and I truly sympathize with him for that. But I fail to see how any reasonable observer could avoid being confused by RFE's role in this sordid mess, and by Mr. Jensen's explanation thereof.
Most professions maintain and enforce professional standards upon their practitioners: the medical profession enforces its standards; the academic profession enforces its standards; the banking profession enforces its standards; even the legal profession enforces its standards. What are the standards of your profession, Mr. Jensen, and how do you enforce them?
Robert Bruce Ware
Associate Professor
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
