“Damn, what do we do now?”: A conversation with Afghan TV chief Saad Mohseni

Inside the Hive

Vanity Fair

News

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, cohost Joe Hagan talks to Saad Mohseni, chief executive of the MOBY Group, which has been broadcasting television news and entertainment programming in Afghanistan since 2004. As the Taliban take over the country following the US’s chaotic exit last week, the fate of Mohseni’s media outlet in Kabul, staffed with 450 Afghans, hangs in the balance. Will the Taliban shut down or take over the TV network? Even as Mohseni looks for signs of hope in a young population weened on TV and Internet access (including the Taliban themselves), he remains wary of the Taliban's extremism, misogyny and censorship and expresses anger at the Biden administration’s handling of the pullout, which has left his beloved country to a grim fate after decades of cynical US foreign policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, it's Molly Jongfast, Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair.
0:05.0	We're currently conducting a survey of our audience and want to hear from you as a listener
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0:26.7	after you complete the survey.
0:28.5	You can find a link to the survey in our episode notes.
0:38.4	Welcome to Inside the Hive.
0:39.9	This is Joe Hagen, your co-host, Emily Jane Fox, still out on an attorney leave, a
0:47.4	hello to her.
0:50.0	As we record today, it's like a harrowing moment in the history of the US and in the Middle
0:56.9	East and everything that's going on in Afghanistan.
0:59.8	The videos we're seeing, the news reports we're getting is terrifying.
1:04.2	There's a lot of chaos and everybody is wondering what's going to happen, where I'm just
1:10.3	this morning looking at videos of people trying to get to the airport and it's heartbreaking.
1:16.4	It's just incredibly heartbreaking.
1:19.6	As somebody who's been in the journalism business for over 20 years, this war has been
1:25.4	in the backdrop of my career and all of our lives throughout.
1:33.4	Here we finally arrived at this moment, it's terrible.
1:38.3	When I was thinking about who to bring on to talk about this, the first person that came
1:42.2	to my mind is somebody that I have some acquaintance with and who agreed to come on and I'm so happy
	...

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