The Voice of America is the nation’s largest publicly-funded international broadcaster, reaching 280,000,000 multimedia users in 47 languages each week, many of whom access it daily for honest, balanced and accurate world news.
To most senior VOA officials, past and present, including this writer, an unsigned White House blog on April 9, 1600 Daily, omitted or misstated vital information about the scale and original date of the coronavirus outbreak in mainland China. That blog asserts in a bold headline: “Voice of America spends your money to speak for authoritarian regimes.”
But that attack was just the beginning.
President Trump went even further at his daily news briefing on April 15, largely devoted to the coronavirus. “If you heard what’s coming out of the Voice of America, it’s disgusting”. The President then assailed Congress for failing to take up his nomination of conservative Michael Pack as chief executive of all five U.S. funded multimedia organizations, the U.S.Agency for Global Media, until recently known as the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors.
The USAGM is the oversight body of five overseas multimedia U.S.-funded networks: VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Network in Arabic, and Radio/TV Marti in Spanish to Cuba. Research in approximately 100 countries indicates that collectively, the five networks reach 350,000,000 people abroad every week.
In singling out VOA, however, Mr. Trump called on a largely absent Senate to formally adjourn so he could proceed to fill vacant positions as he chooses, including that of the USAGM’s CEO, capably led since last October 1 by Grant Turner, State Department careerist and previous chief financial officer of the USAGM.
In words directed at Congress, the President said at his April 15 news briefing: “The current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro-forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the American people cannot afford during this crisis.”
VOA: Communication &
Global Free-Press Issues
on November 4, 2019 featuring Amanda Bennett
Director, Voice of America
As VOA Director Amanda Bennett put it as early as April 9: “Unlike China, VOA has stuck to verifiable facts in Mandarin and English” and in its 45 other languages. She cited “China’s curtain of secrecy — keeping news of the PRC’s initial outbreak of coronavirus from a curious world for weeks after the deadly disease struck initially in China early last December.”
Ms. Bennett added: “VOA has thoroughly debunked much of the information coming from the Chinese government and government-controlled media. One of the differences between publicly-funded independent media, like VOA, and state-controlled media, is that we are free to show all sides of an issue and are actually mandated to do so by law as stated in the VOA Charter signed by President Gerald Ford in 1976.”
Minutes after President Trump’s formal condemnation of VOA April 15, Director Bennett was quoted by VOA White House correspondent Steve Herman as adding: “For more than 75 years, VOA has followed its mission of telling America’s story overseas and of bringing objective, fact-based information to places around the world that have no other access to it. As we have long said, we export the First Amendment.
“I believe in that mission,” Ms. Bennett added. “And judging from the way our audiences are surging to us seeking information they can rely on during this coronavirus crisis, the world believes in our mission. It’s hard work, and it’s important work, perhaps more than ever before.”
Impact of VOA and other Western International Broadcasts
Does carefully-sourced, objective news make a difference? The Washington Post’s Terrence McCoy reports on April 16: “Now, countries around the world are under growing pressure to act. China, whose insatiable demands for animal parts drive much of the world wildlife trade, has taken the extraordinary step of banning the consumption of wild animals and may do the same for dogs. Vietnam, another country with a large demand for animal products, may do the same.”
As the VOA Charter (Public Law 94-350) puts it: “VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive”. Or, as stated on the Voice’s first broadcast in 1942 during
World War II, “The news may be good for us… the news may be bad. But we shall tell you the truth.”
Other U.S. media organizations and VOA broadcasts have reacted to White House criticisms of VOA’s coverage of the pandemic and U.S. responses:
*National Public Radio (NPR) reporter David Folkenflik quotes Joel Simon, executive director of the U.S. Committee to Protect Journalists as saying: “It is outrageous that the White House is attacking Voice of America, which has a tradition of reporting stories that challenge the narratives of authoritarian regimes around the world.
“At this moment,” Mr. Simon continued, “citizens in some highly censored countries are depending for their health and safety on VOA news of the coronavirus, and President Trump should absolutely not undermine the news outlet’s efforts to do its job.”
*An in-depth article by Politico’s Caitlin Oprysko: Contacted by Politico after the unsigned White House statement, President Trump’s social media specialist Dan Scavino “took issue with one VOA tweet that showed a video of a light show in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus outbreak began and which is finally out from under a months-long lockdown. As Scavino put it: “American taxpayers — paying for China’s very own propaganda, via the U.S. government-funded Voice of America! Disgrace!”
VOA Director Bennett’s direct response: “We love FACTS. The fact is Wuhan has ended their lockdown and this video shows exactly that.” Politico concluded: “A former senior White House official in the George W. Bush administration couldn’t recall any instance when the White House ripped an executive agency as the White House did to VOA on April 10. According to Politico, “a public action like this was certainly uncommon, if not unprecedented.”
VOA Charter
A recollection of my time as Chief of News and Current Affairs at VOA rings true in this global coronavirus crisis. Just after I arrived at work at 7:30 a.m. one Monday in late 1975, the coffee was just warming up when I received a call from a policy officer at the Voice’s parent agency at the time, the U.S. Information Agency.
“Congratulations, Alan!” the officer said. “A few minutes after midnight yesterday, the U.S. Senate passed a House annual appropriations bill that included the VOA Charter, meaning that it is now the law of the land, likely for years to come.” (The Charter had been approved initially by the White House during the Eisenhower administration in the late 1950s but it was not a law). That was up to Congress, as well as the Executive Branch.
The Charter has been reaffirmed by Congress at least twice over the years since that historic surprise call from USIA’s general counsel’s office. Its text still remains the network’s steady guiding North Star to this day.
As a 36-year veteran of the Voice of America (VOA), Alan Heil traveled to more than 40 countries a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, and later as director of News and Current Affairs, deputy director of programs, and deputy director of the nation’s largest publicly-funded overseas multimedia network. Today, VOA reaches more than 275 million people around the world each week via radio, television and online media. Read More
I must respectfully disagree with my former VOA colleague Alan Heil that Trump’s criticism of the Voice of America is either unprecedented or unwarranted. Here is the text and link to an article in which I explain that the criticism is not unprecedented. I also wish it were unwarranted, but sadly it is.
Three U.S. Presidents Publicly Rebuked Voice of America for Promoting Foreign Propaganda
LINK: https://www.coldwarradiomuseum.com/three-us-presidents-publicly-rebuked-voice-of-america-for-promoting-foreign-propaganda/
Alan’s comments are both laudable and irrelevant. The fundamental issue here, which VOA Director Amanda Bennett either willfully ignores or has forgotten, and which other VOA defenders willfully ignore or don’t know, is the mission and purpose of VOA. Its role is to provide facts and information to audiences abroad that are suffer under disinformation or a lack of information about the US, their region, and their own lands. The question not asked here is the purpose of the coverage — in English — and whether this amounted to competition within the US by VOA. What was the newsworthiness of the AP story, which triggered the White House, to be provided in English? (And why, unlike other US private media who carried the same AP story, did VOA not update the story when the AP issued an update?)
As for the Charter, Alan, as important as those words are, they are enshrined as operating principles. They are not guardrails. PL 94-350 described these as “principles.” Now, the Charter is found in the USC code as 22 USC 6202 (c), “Standards and principles” where 22 USC 6202 (a) includes:
“(3) not duplicate the activities of private United States broadcasters;
(4) not duplicate the activities of government supported broadcasting entities of other democratic nations;”
This returns us to the fundamental question Director Bennett and others are not asking: was the English-language service here in violation of the Standards and Principles found in 22 USC 6202, that includes the Charter, and in violation of the specific direction, not a “standard” nor a “principle,” found in 22 USC 1462, which requires reducing the government activities whenever private distribution is found to be adequate. If VOA, and by extension USAGM, believes it English-language services are necessary for the US market because private distribution is found to be inadequate, then Director Bennett and the USAGM CEO should go to Congress inform them of this substantial change in mission.
Any suggestion that the short-wave radio program started and run by the Office of War Information being the equivalent to the operation run by the State Department, following Truman’s order transferring OWI’s international information programs to the department on August 31, 1945, and then later by USIA, is grossly inaccurate and sets up strawmen like those used by Ted Lipien in his story at the “Cold War Radio Museum” website. We should stop pretending VOA did not start as a propaganda station during WWII. It’s proper start was August 31, 1945, when the program went to the State Department and took on a mission resembling what we know today.
As for “exporting the first amendment,” that is a phrase I introduced to David Ensor and, later Amanda Bennett when I was interviewing her to be hired as the VOA Director. It was the original draft title for my book (before I realized the title was already taken). Director Bennett’s use of the phrase is another reminder that she is avoiding discussing the specifics of the issue here: VOA’s apparent competition with US media, which there is further evidence from RFE/RL with its Facebook advertising, which VOA may have also purchased. She is in a catch-22, of course, as addressing it admits fault. However, failing to address it by pretending VOA is another media agency more quickly raises the question of why the tax payer is funding a media agency that is competing with other US media?
As, Alan, you highlighted the Charter was “reaffirmed” by Congress twice, it is useful to note that Congress also reaffirmed 22 USC 1462, and 22 USC 1437 (relying on private media whenever possible, which VOA did here by using an AP feed), in the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, specifically Section 208(b): “…Such material may be made available
within the United States and disseminated, when appropriate, pursuant to sections 502 and 1005 of the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (22 U.S.C. 1462 and 1437)…” It should not be a surprise that I made sure that language was in the bill.
First, thanks to PDC for running comments in response to Alan Heil’s article. That is a change from the past when most PD organizations rejected comments from any readers that challenged USAGM/BBG and any entity under, such as VOA. It is healthy to air all viewpoints, not just those from the known strongest supporters of the agency.
It has been interesting to see The Washington Post, along with the New York Times, and NPR rush in yet again to defend VOA where scandals and mismanagement have played out for years, but at an accelerated level since 2016.
Where the Post is concerned, the “paper” (which I will call it for purposes of this comment) has a conflict when it comes to reporting fully and comprehensively about VOA. Amanda Bennett is married to Donald Graham. And the Post has a history of making no mention of this connection.
At one point in 2017, Graham himself utilized Facebook to open fire at Ted Lipien (whose comment can be seen above) who created the watchdog website (https://bbgwatch.com) responsible for breaking numerous stories about problems at VOA and other media under USAGM.
PDC members and readers may be interested to know that In 2018, USAGM sought to block BBG Watch from registering a domain to reflect the agency’s rebranding. The watchdog site accurately called that “an act of interference with domestic press…[and] an obvious attempt to stifle media inquires and public criticism.” That story didn’t appear in the pages of the Post or other media that have become a mutual admiration society for USAGM and VOA.
Another story will soon be published by BBG Watch about tactics used by USAGM (once described as a “perennial bottom feeder” by the Post itself) and VOA in attempting to silence external criticism.
VOA is now more enmeshed than ever with, and is a tool of, U.S. national security policy — an outcome of the realities of the government-run and funded war against foreign disinformation that includes the GEC (Global Engagement Center). That’s a main reason USAGM still exists, though taxpayers increasingly question the expense.
VOA is still held at arm’s length by most non-government media. This is a reason VOA still does not have full voting status in the Radio Television Correspondents Association that represents media covering Congress.
Yet, the Post and others leap to defend VOA and its parent agency on 1st Amendment grounds, but especially when an opportunity arises to blast Donald Trump.
Thankfully, in its story on the first White House criticism of VOA NPR’s David Folkenflik included a necessary disclosure about the fact that NPR has been headed since 2019 by the former CEO of the USAGM, John Lansing — an example of the decades-long revolving door that has provided comfortable landing spots for ex-agency managers at NPR, PBS, and CPB.
But that was the first time we have seen this done – it should be standard practice for for NPR, and the Post should routinely include a disclosure about Bennett’s connection with it in any reporting about VOA.
At the top of The Post web page are the words “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Activities of independent watchdog sites are an example of exactly the kind of reporting that media organizations portray themselves as defending.
But since 2016, the Post and others have been all too willing to ignore the record of incompetence and mismanagement at USAGM, and VOA in particular, when it serves their purpose to make a point about a president they don’t like. The same thing happened after the 2016 election, when major media ran stories warning of a Trump takeover of VOA – some of which were planted by VOA and USAGM officials themselves.