Thomas Kent, RFE/RL President

From the President

It is an honor to lead Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which serves some of the world’s toughest information geographies. RFE/RL provides honest, factual reporting to nations where state-run media, financial interests and extremists try to dictate the news.

Despite our historic “radio” name, RFE/RL is also fluent in satellite television, web video, podcasts, text stories, infographics, and social networking. Audiences in 23 countries viewed our videos more than a billion times on social networks in 26 languages in FY2016.

In Iran, we defy censorship with informed discussion and debate. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, we engage communities in combatting extremism. RFE/RL is also headquarters for the new Current Time Russian-language TV and digital network, which brings truthful information to a market otherwise filled with misinformation.

In 2016 our journalists stepped up investigative reporting, overcoming intimidation to expose corruption and injustice, and trained new journalists in trustworthy, independent reporting—the best guarantee for credible news in the future.

Thomas Kent is a specialist in international reporting, Russian affairs and journalistic ethics. He joined Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on June 27, 2016, after a career of more than 40 years at The Associated Press. Most recently, he was AP’s standards editor, responsible for the fairness and accuracy of the news agency’s content in text, photos, video, audio, interactives and on social networks. He also served with AP as international editor, World Services editor, Moscow bureau chief, Brussels-based correspondent for European institutions and NATO, chief of operations in Tehran during the Iranian revolution, correspondent in Sydney, Australia, and Hartford, Connecticut, and foreign desk editor in New York. He founded the “Create Your Own Ethics Code” project for the Online News Association. He has written and spoken worldwide on journalistic ethics, including ethical issues for such new journalistic platforms as virtual reality and automated newswriting. An advisor to the Ethical Journalism Network, Kent has been a board member of the Organization of News Ombudsmen, a Pulitzer Prize juror in international reporting and an advisor to the Society of Professional Journalists on revisions to its ethics code. He was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, holds a degree in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University and speaks Russian, French and Spanish. He has taught and advised at Columbia University since 1996.