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Scoop
3 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Propaganda Siren: Silencing The Voice Of America
In March this year, the Trump administration effectively shuttered the Voice of America, a broadcasting vehicle for the selective promotion of US policy and culture for over eight decades. Nearly all of its 1,300 staff of producers, journalists and assistants, including those working at the US Agency for Global Media, were placed on administrative leave. Kari Lake, President Donald Trump's appointment to lead the Voice, was unflattering about that 'giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer.' Last month, Lake confirmed that layoff notices had been sent to 639 employees. The motivations for attacking VOA were hardly budgetary. The White House cited a number of sources to back the claim that the organisation had become an outlet of 'radical propaganda.' VOA veteran Dan Robinson features, calling it 'a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting leftist bias aligned with partisan national media.' The Daily Caller moaningly remarks that VOA reporters had 'repeatedly posted anti-Trump comments on their professional Twitter accounts, despite a social media policy requiring employee impartiality on social media platforms.' The Voice, not aligned with MAGA, had to be silenced. The measure by Trump drew its inevitable disapproval. VOA director, Michael Abramowitz, stuck to the customary line that his organisation 'promotes freedom and democracy around the world by telling America's story and by providing objective and balanced news and information, especially for those living under tyranny.' Reporters Without Borders condemned the order 'as a departure from the US's historic role as a defender of free information and calls on the US government to restore VOA and urges Congress and the international community to take action against his unprecedented move.' As with much criticism of Trump's seemingly impulsive actions, these sentimental views proved misguided and disingenuous. Trump is on uncontentious ground to see the Voice as one dedicated to propaganda. However, he misunderstands most nuttily that the propaganda in question overwhelmingly favours US policies and programs. His quibble is that they are not favourable enough. Prohibited from broadcasting in the United States, VOA's propaganda role was always a full-fledged one, promoting the US as a spanking, virtuous brand of democratic good living in the face of garden variety tyrants, usually of the political left. Blemishes were left unmentioned, the role of the US imperium in intervening in the affairs of other countries considered cautiously. Loath to adequately fund domestic public service providers like National Public Radio (NPR), the US Congress was content to fork out for what was effectively an information arm of government sloganeering for Freedom's Land. The VOA Charter, drafted in 1960 and signed into law as Public Law 94-350 by President Gerald Ford on July 12, 1976, expressed the view that 'The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio. To be effective, the Voice of America must win the attention and respect of listeners.' It stipulated various aspirational and at times unattainable aims: be reliable on the news, have authoritative standing, pursue accuracy, objectivity and be comprehensive. America was to be represented in whole and not as any single segment of society, with the VOA representing 'a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.' US policies would be presented 'clearly and effectively' as would 'responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.' The aims of the charter were always subordinate to the original purpose of the radio outlet. The Voice was born in the propaganda maelstrom of World War II, keen to win over audiences in Nazi Germany and its occupied territories. Authorised to continue operating by the Smith-Mundt Act of 1946, it continued its work during the Cold War, its primary task that of fending off any appeal communism might have. Till October 1948, program content was governed under contract with the NBC and CBS radio networks. This troubled some members of Congress, notably regarding broadcasts to Latin America. The US State Department then assumed control, authority of which passed on to the newly created United States Information Agency (USIA). In such arrangements, the objective of fair dissemination of information was always subject to the dictates of US foreign policy. What mattered most, according to R. Peter Straus, who assumed the directorship of VOA in 1977, was to gather 'a highly professional group of people and trying to excite them about making the freest democracy in the world understandable to the rest of the world – not necessarily loved by, nor even necessarily liked by but understood by the rest of the world.' The State Department left an enduring legacy in that regard, with the amalgamation of its Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs with the USIA in 1978 during the Carter administration. Furthermore, prominent positions at the Voice tended to be filled by career members of the diplomatic corps. Given that role, it was rather rich to have the likes of Republican Congresswoman Young Kim of California question Trump's executive order, worried that closing the Voice would effectively silence a body dedicated to the selfless distribution of accurate information. Accuracy in that sense, alloyed by US interests, would always walk to the dictates of power. Kim errs in assuming that reporting via such outlets, emanating from a 'free' society, must therefore be more truthful than authoritarian rivals. 'For a long time now, our reporting has not been blocked by adversaries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea,' she claimed in March. 'Now, we are ourselves shutting off the ability to get the information into those oppressed regimes to the people that are dying for the real truth and information.' As such truth and information is curated by an adjunct of the State Department, such people would be advised to be a tad sceptical. The falling out of favour with Trump, not just of the Voice, but such anti-communist creations of the Cold War like Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, is a loss for the propagandists. Arguments that stress the value of their continued existence as organs of veracity in news and accuracy, correctives to the disinformation and misinformation of adversaries, are deludedly slanted. All forms of disinformation and misinformation should be battled and neither the Voice's critics, nor its fans, seem to understand what they are. VOA and its sister stations could never be relied upon to subject US foreign and domestic policy to rigorous critique. Empires are not in the business of truth but power and effect. Radio stations created in their name must always be viewed with that in mind.
Axios
07-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
Kari Lake says USAGM has brokered a content deal with OAN
United States Agency for Global Media special adviser Kari Lake on Wednesday announced that the organization, which oversees U.S. government-funded international broadcasters, reached a content deal with One America News Network. Why it matters: USAGM can't dictate what its outlets like Voice of America choose to cover by law, but Lake said the deal was brokered to "ensure our outlets have reliable and credible options as they work to craft their reporting and news programs." Zoom in: In a statement posted to X, Lake said the deal grants USAGM broadcasters access to an OAN newsfeed and video service free-of-charge. "This is an enormous benefit to the American taxpayer, who is the sole-source of funding for USAGM's news outlets, which broadcast only to international audiences," Lake said, noting the deal helps American taxpayers save money. Between the lines: The deal is structured as a memorandum of understanding between USAGM and OAN parent company Herring Networks, according to a source familiar with the terms. It essentially makes OAN's English language news content available to USAGM networks for potential dissemination across their properties via a non-exclusive, royalty-free broadcast license. State of play: The news is being met with skepticism from VOA leaders and press freedom advocates. "Congress mandated VOA to report reliable and authoritative news, not to outsource its journalism to outlets aligned with the president's agenda," said VOA's White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara and its press freedom editor Jessica Jerreat, who have launched their own lawsuit against the Trump administration alongside several VOA staffers. "VOA already has talented and professional journalists ready to tell America's story in line with the VOA Charter, but we are blocked from our own newsroom. That is why we will continue fighting for our rights in court." OAN is a conservative broadcaster that settled a defamation case last year over allegations of circulating disinformation on voting machines in the 2020 presidential election. Zoom out: Widakuswara and Jerreat's lawsuit is one of several being waged against the administration for trying to gut USAGM broadcasters. A district judge last month ruled in favor of Voice of America in one lawsuit, saying the administration could not unilaterally dismantle the broadcaster by systematically firing its staff. But just as VOA workers were preparing to go back to work, an appeals court said this weekend that the district judge didn't have the authority to block provisions of Trump's executive order to dismantle the agency. Amid the legal chaos, VOA and other government-funded broadcasters have struggled to survive. Radio Free Asia last week said it would lay off most of its staff amid a funding fight with the administration.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
MAGA outlet OAN to provide content for hollowed-out Voice of America, says Kari Lake
Voice of America is off the air for now, having been gutted by President Donald Trump, but it may soon return — partly as a vessel for one of his favorite MAGA propaganda outlets. One America News (OAN), the amateurish far-right TV outlet best known for promoting Trump's 2020 election lies, is going to provide 'newsfeed services' to VOA and other US-funded international broadcasters, according to Kari Lake, the MAGA loyalist Trump picked to run a hollowed-out VOA. In a late-night X post, Lake said the idea originated from the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which beams Radio Martí into Cuba. OAN will provide 'their newsfeed and video service free-of-charge,' she wrote, portraying it as a win for taxpayers. Lake noted that she doesn't currently have editorial control over VOA, so the immediate impact may be negligible. But having access to OAN content is a big step toward turning the Voice of America into the Voice of Trump — an outcome that journalists at the network have feared. VOA's networks and websites are currently offline, but a handful of employees were called back to work on Tuesday. Staffers told CNN they sense that Lake wants to reboot the network as a shell of its former self. The goal, they believe, is to terminate most of the employee base but keep enough of the network intact to satisfy the federal judges who are scrutinizing the shutdown. Repurposing OAN content would be in line with such a strategy. Patsy Widakuswara and Jessica Jerreat, two of the sidelined journalists who are suing over Trump's actions against VOA, told CNN in a statement, 'Congress mandated VOA to report reliable and authoritative news, not to outsource its journalism to outlets aligned with the president's agenda.' 'VOA already has talented and professional journalists ready to tell America's story in line with the VOA Charter, but we are blocked from our own newsroom,' they said. 'That is why we will continue fighting for our rights in court.' OAN launched in 2013 and, during the first Trump presidency, quickly morphed into a conspiracy-boosting outlet with a far fringier voice than right-leaning outlets like Newsmax and Fox News. Former congressman Matt Gaetz, a MAGA devotee, currently hosts a primetime show on the network. The little-watched cable channel was a leading proponent of Trump's 2020 election lies and has settled multiple defamation lawsuits resulting from its on-air claims. Last year, OAN settled a lawsuit from voting technology company Smartmatic alleging the channel spread lies about the election to 'increase viewership and revenue.' The network also settled a defamation suit from a Dominion Voting Systems executive, whose case revealed how OAN coordinated with Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and others to spread election lies. OAN currently still faces a defamation lawsuit from Dominion. The network's viewership and revenue have dwindled since DirecTV dropped it in 2022. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - The shuttering of Voice of America hurts our ability to explain ourselves
The Voice of America is off the air for the first time in 83 years. The Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE did it. I understand the impetus behind DOGE. The U.S. is in peril of financial collapse due to decades of deficit spending. Something radical needed to be done. Some indiscriminate damage was unavoidable. However, the Declaration of Independence, the first public diplomacy document of the U.S., was addressed out of 'a decent respect to the opinions of mankind' to the entire world. That decent respect is what VOA was designed to show. VOA is a creature born of war. It began in 1942 broadcasting in German, to explain to the German people what we were fighting for and against. It also gave Germans an accurate version of what was really happening in their totalitarian country. Having lived and worked overseas, I am familiar with the distorted views of the U.S. that many people have formed, not only from foreign propaganda and disinformation, but from some American popular entertainment and the almost constant self-criticism in which the American people are engaged. The latter is a sign of a healthy democracy and a source of our strength, but foreign audiences need to understand the broader framework within which this takes place. That is why the VOA Charter requires VOA to represent America in a balanced and comprehensive way. It is vitally important that VOA fosters an understanding of American institutions and the principles behind them. No less important is its essential charter obligation to 'present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively.' I firmly believe that VOA should not be an echo chamber for American domestic media, which is already largely available overseas on the internet. This is the fault into which the newsroom fell. It has a different job. It should have been offering to audiences what was otherwise unavailable to them. Not operating under the constraints of commercial media, VOA can afford to tell the truth. That is its advantage. The heart of VOA is not the newsroom, which has deserved the scathing criticism it has received from President Trump, but its 40 language services — the largest part of VOA that most people know nothing about. Let me provide a small example of its hidden treasures. Harun Maruf is a member of VOA's Somali service. He has more than 170,000 followers on Twitter in Somalia. He co-authored the popular and powerful book, 'Inside Al Shabaab, the Secret History of Al-Qaeda's Most Powerful Ally.' This is the kind of expertise the VOA language services employ — or rather employed. Harun was sent home. The Farsi service to Iran has also been shut, just as the nuclear crisis heats up and as media censorship in that country increases. Isn't now exactly when we most need to reach the Iranian people? My earliest stint as VOA director was in 2001-2002, a time when the agency was alive with a sense of purpose after the attacks of 9/11. Just as in 1942, we all knew how to support our country in a time of peril. It was an exciting place to work. It hummed. Does anyone suppose that that was the last war for the United States? How will we reach our Chinese adversaries and our Asian allies when conflict breaks out there, as it is almost certain to do? VOA's mission is to give voice to America, explain our purposes in the world and the justifications for our actions. 'VOA's job should be to advance the justice of the American cause, while simultaneously undermining our opponents',' I wrote in a 2017 Wall Street Journal essay. The difference now, I'm sorry to say, is a loss of a sense of mission by certain elements of the agency, who have been led to believe that VOA is solely a news organization. It's not, though news is an integral and essential part of it. It also has the obligation to disclose the character of the American people and their institutions in such a way as the underlying principles guiding American life are revealed. News is a means but not an end. Reliable news was always a part of U.S. broadcasting, but the mission has never been reduced to just that until recently. When the Dalai Lama called the VOA Tibet service 'the bread of the Tibetan people,' and when Aun San Suu Kyi called the Burmese service 'the hope of the Burmese people,' they were not just talking about the 'news.' Hope is a theological virtue; it is not engendered by news alone. The Declaration of Independence was not a news bulletin. VOA's foreign audiences must be puzzled as to why the VOA is no longer broadcasting to them. Some African listeners take national radio shutdowns as a telltale sign there has been a coup. Or perhaps, they might think, the U.S. no longer considers them worth reaching, or that it no longer has anything to say. Either answer is a self-inflicted public diplomacy disaster. What has happened to our 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind'? The U.S. has enduring interests in the world. We need to explain ourselves in the most persuasive way we can, and by the most effective means, particularly to those peoples and countries whose future is going to most affect ours. Destroying the Voice of America is not the way to do this. Robert R. Reilly served as Voice of America director from (2001 to 2002) and from (2020-2021). Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
05-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
The shuttering of Voice of America hurts our ability to explain ourselves
The Voice of America is off the air for the first time in 83 years. The Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE did it. I understand the impetus behind DOGE. The U.S. is in peril of financial collapse due to decades of deficit spending. Something radical needed to be done. Some indiscriminate damage was unavoidable. However, the Declaration of Independence, the first public diplomacy document of the U.S., was addressed out of ' a decent respect to the opinions of mankind ' to the entire world. That decent respect is what VOA was designed to show. VOA is a creature born of war. It began in 1942 broadcasting in German, to explain to the German people what we were fighting for and against. It also gave Germans an accurate version of what was really happening in their totalitarian country. Having lived and worked overseas, I am familiar with the distorted views of the U.S. that many people have formed, not only from foreign propaganda and disinformation, but from some American popular entertainment and the almost constant self-criticism in which the American people are engaged. The latter is a sign of a healthy democracy and a source of our strength, but foreign audiences need to understand the broader framework within which this takes place. That is why the VOA Charter requires VOA to represent America in a balanced and comprehensive way. It is vitally important that VOA fosters an understanding of American institutions and the principles behind them. No less important is its essential charter obligation to ' present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively.' I firmly believe that VOA should not be an echo chamber for American domestic media, which is already largely available overseas on the internet. This is the fault into which the newsroom fell. It has a different job. It should have been offering to audiences what was otherwise unavailable to them. Not operating under the constraints of commercial media, VOA can afford to tell the truth. That is its advantage. The heart of VOA is not the newsroom, which has deserved the scathing criticism it has received from President Trump, but its 40 language services — the largest part of VOA that most people know nothing about. Let me provide a small example of its hidden treasures. Harun Maruf is a member of VOA's Somali service. He has more than 170,000 followers on Twitter in Somalia. He co-authored the popular and powerful book, 'Inside Al Shabaab, the Secret History of Al-Qaeda's Most Powerful Ally.' This is the kind of expertise the VOA language services employ — or rather employed. Harun was sent home. The Farsi service to Iran has also been shut, just as the nuclear crisis heats up and as media censorship in that country increases. Isn't now exactly when we most need to reach the Iranian people? My earliest stint as VOA director was in 2001-2002, a time when the agency was alive with a sense of purpose after the attacks of 9/11. Just as in 1942, we all knew how to support our country in a time of peril. It was an exciting place to work. It hummed. Does anyone suppose that that was the last war for the United States? How will we reach our Chinese adversaries and our Asian allies when conflict breaks out there, as it is almost certain to do? VOA's mission is to give voice to America, explain our purposes in the world and the justifications for our actions. 'VOA's job should be to advance the justice of the American cause, while simultaneously undermining our opponents',' I wrote in a 2017 Wall Street Journal essay. The difference now, I'm sorry to say, is a loss of a sense of mission by certain elements of the agency, who have been led to believe that VOA is solely a news organization. It's not, though news is an integral and essential part of it. It also has the obligation to disclose the character of the American people and their institutions in such a way as the underlying principles guiding American life are revealed. News is a means but not an end. Reliable news was always a part of U.S. broadcasting, but the mission has never been reduced to just that until recently. When the Dalai Lama called the VOA Tibet service 'the bread of the Tibetan people,' and when Aun San Suu Kyi called the Burmese service 'the hope of the Burmese people,' they were not just talking about the 'news.' Hope is a theological virtue; it is not engendered by news alone. The Declaration of Independence was not a news bulletin. VOA's foreign audiences must be puzzled as to why the VOA is no longer broadcasting to them. Some African listeners take national radio shutdowns as a telltale sign there has been a coup. Or perhaps, they might think, the U.S. no longer considers them worth reaching, or that it no longer has anything to say. Either answer is a self-inflicted public diplomacy disaster. What has happened to our 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind'? The U.S. has enduring interests in the world. We need to explain ourselves in the most persuasive way we can, and by the most effective means, particularly to those peoples and countries whose future is going to most affect ours. Destroying the Voice of America is not the way to do this. Robert R. Reilly served as Voice of America director from (2001 to 2002) and from (2020-2021).
