When the U.S. officials in charge of persuading foreign audiences must themselves be persuaded by the Dalai Lama not to end Voice of America radio programs to Tibet, it is apparent there is something rotten in the management of U.S. international broadcasting.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal agency in charge of VOA, has been taken over by career bureaucrats with a self-centered agenda. Like the spineless State Department officials who coaxed Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng out of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, BBG staffers seem to think they know best what serves America’s interests — and as it happens, it coincides with what’s best for them.