Coates’ firing brings the long-troubled network to its third president in just over three years. Former diplomat Alberto Fernandez took over from long-time head Brian Conniff in 2017 until June 2020, and was replaced with Kelley Sullivan until Coates’ arrival in December. The revolving doors of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), Voice of America and MBN’s top offices goes to show just how politically influenced the self-proclaimed objective and independent media enterprise, and MBN’s channels Alhurra, Alhurra-Iraq and Radio Sawa, really are. What started off as the go-to network for aspiring journalists wanting to escape the political influence that dominated most newsrooms in the Arab world, slowly turned into just another such place.