Voice of America, the federally funded broadcaster to the world, has long prided itself on serving as an accurate and fair source of news and on being independent of whichever president and party are in power in the United States, reported The New York Times.
Since the election of President Trump, that independence is
increasingly being tested.
In recent months, Voice of America’s parent organization,
the U.S. Agency for Global Media, has opened human-resources investigations
into Voice of America journalists for reporting on criticism of Mr. Trump or
for making comments that were perceived as critical of him, according to
several employees. Some journalists raised concerns about the investigations in
a meeting this week with the broadcaster’s director.
At least a couple of articles that included criticism of Mr.
Trump and his administration were not published or were watered down after
publication in recent months, said three Voice of America employees, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.
The Agency for Global Media informed one of
Voice of America’s highest-profile journalists, Steven Herman, that he was
being placed on an extended “excused absence” pending a human resources
investigation, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The New York
Times. Mr. Herman confirmed receiving the letter, which said the investigation
was into whether his “social media activity has undermined V.O.A.’s audiences’
perceptions of the objectivity and/or credibility of V.O.A. and its news
operations.”
Weeks earlier, Mr. Herman came under fire from the Trump
administration when he cited a
quote on social media from an anticorruption watchdog group
criticizing cutbacks at the United States Agency for International Development.
Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s envoy for
“special missions,” wrote
on X that Mr. Herman’s comments were “treasonous.”
“You don’t get to work against the official U.S. government
policies while being paid by US taxpayers,” Mr. Grenell continued. “You should
be immediately fired.”
Also on Friday, Voice of America officials informed Patsy
Widakuswara, the broadcaster’s longtime White House bureau chief, that she was
being involuntarily reassigned to another beat, employees said. Some Voice of
America journalists suspected the move was part of an effort to reduce friction
with the Trump administration, although an official at the broadcaster, who
wasn’t authorized to talk to the media, denied that.
The Agency for Global Media declined to comment.
The upheaval at Voice of America comes amid a series of
broadsides against the media by the Trump administration. The White House has
started selecting which
news outlets are part of the press pool that covers the president, and it
has barred The
Associated Press from events because it won’t reclassify the Gulf of Mexico as
the Gulf of America. The Federal Communications Commission has opened investigations into
whether broadcasters are acting in the public interest. And Mr. Trump has filed
or threatened lawsuits against
news outlets whose coverage he objected to.
Journalists at Voice of America have
been fretting about their future ever since Mr. Trump said he would
appoint Kari Lake, a former television news anchor and failed Republican Senate
candidate who has frequently spread lies and conspiracy theories, to lead the
broadcaster.
Ms. Lake has rebuffed calls from Elon
Musk and Mr. Grenell to abolish Voice of America altogether. But she
has said the broadcaster’s coverage will be free from what she described as
“Trump derangement syndrome,” or T.D.S.
“It won’t become Trump TV,” Ms. Lake said during a speech
this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an influential
gathering of conservatives. “But it sure as hell will not be T.D.S.”
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