OPINION:
As a former news correspondent for Voice of America, I retired in 2014 after 34 years with VOA and its parent, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, or USAGM. I have written many reports and commentaries about the agency.
VOA and other taxpayer-funded media did some good things over the decades, including during the Cold War. We’re in a new cold war now, threatening to turn hot with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
Does that mean USAGM and VOA, which in recent times have been labeled corrupt by some members of Congress and the “sickest federal agency” and are known to be in the bull’s-eye of incoming Trump administration spending cuts, should catch a break?
No. I have monitored the agency’s bureaucracy along with many of its reporters and concluded that it has essentially become a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media. It has sought to avoid accountability for violations of journalistic standards and mismanagement. The list includes:
• During President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, VOA allowed and often encouraged key correspondents to carry out opposition journalism against him. This included an uprising, growing out of VOA’s central newsroom, against Mr. Trump’s choice of chief USAGM executive in 2020.
• That newsroom and the agency have a known left-wing bias. Between 2016 and 2020, some VOA reporters did little to hide their disdain for Mr. Trump in their reports and social media posts.
• Since Amanda Bennett, VOA director from 2016 to mid-2020, returned as USAGM chief in 2022, managers and employees dissed Republicans in Congress who criticized VOA’s inexplicable refusal to refer to Hamas terrorists as terrorists. One agency official called lawmakers “silly.” VOA’s new director has equated congressional critics to troublemakers.
• After Republicans responded by slashing USAGM’s budget, Ms. Bennett doubled down on a claim that this had nothing to do with VOA’s sanitizing of Hamas terrorism. The cuts so far have led to the firing of contractors and could force wider layoffs.
• VOA staff and managers have shown a disregard for the organization’s own journalistic standards. Several reporters were forced to remove biased social media posts after citizen journalists exposed them. Two employees who posted anti-Israel/pro-Hamas images online are no longer with the agency, though VOA never formally confirmed the removals.
• USAGM is technically required to inform Congress when journalistic standards are violated. But agency media are basically permitted to police themselves. The chances of Congress or the public learning about violations are near zero.
• USAGM and VOA essentially weaponized themselves against critics, including working with three British authors on a book that amounts to an attack job on critics — including me.
• Even as the COVID-19 pandemic wound down, many managers drawing at, near or above $200,000 annual salaries spent weeks physically outside headquarters. A Public Buildings Reform Board report said “just 72 people actually [used the USAGM/VOA headquarters building] each day.” Yet VOA employees are pressing for an expansion of telework.
As I write this, USAGM is again weaponizing itself against the incoming president. Employees are leaking to major media about their “fears” and “anxiety.” This will be a replay of 2016 to 2020 when similar leaks fueled a wave of articles sounding alarms about VOA becoming a “Voice of Trump” — something that never occurred.
At the time, NPR became a vocal supporter of VOA’s anti-Trump uprising, though in 2023, a longtime NPR editor outed NPR and revealed the extent of its left-wing bias. The same expose could have been written about VOA.
Ms. Bennett has been busy Trump-proofing. At least eight top civil service division director positions were converted to senior executive service positions, making removal more difficult. The American Federation of Government Employees 1812 union said this “created an uproar at the agency where positions have been cut and more staff could lose their jobs.”
On Inauguration Day, Ms. Bennett will likely be gone from USAGM, if she does not resign earlier. She’s been on Capitol Hill urging lawmakers to persuade the new administration to leave USAGM alone. Recognizing the agency’s poor reputation with Republicans, VOA Director Michael Abramowitz hired a conservative PR person to assist in lobbying.
Democrats, who mostly failed to lift a finger in dealing with agency scandals and mismanagement, will certainly oblige. Republicans whom VOA managers and employees disrespected are another matter, or should be.
All of this comes at a delicate time for Ms. Bennett, who recently committed the agency to an expensive multiyear relocation. This process is likely to last through at least 2027, helped by more than $1.6 million in consulting contracts with the consulting and auditing firm Deloitte.
I worked for VOA for more than three decades, and I respect its past — but not its recent past. Mr. Trump and advisers risk being sucked in by entrenched bureaucrats who, with support from friends in media high places, argue that this notoriously mismanaged place be immunized from sharper cuts or elimination. Indeed, they assert that the budget should be increased.
The agency managed to skirt sharp reductions over the past decade, even during Mr. Trump’s first term. Ms. Bennett was close with the Biden administration and the State Department. It may be time to subsume the agency into State, although creating a new, 21st-century U.S. Information Agency is probably a bridge too far.
Taxpayers have certainly not gotten $950 million (the Biden administration’s fiscal 2025 budget request for USAGM) worth of accountability and transparency from USAGM and VOA in recent years. A few final points:
• The incoming administration needs to deal with the new International Broadcasting Advisory Board, which began operations in 2024 and holds approval authority for the heads of USAGM entities such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. The board basically removes a president’s power to make changes and appoint staff.
• USAGM and VOA’s assistance to Britain-based authors of a book attacking the previous Trump USAGM Chief Executive Officer Michael Pack and defaming noted critics of the agency need to be investigated.
• We should demand details of how yet another new federal entity, the Frontline Media Fund, was established by the current CEO, including communications with Congress and money diverted to it as USAGM managers were cutting funds available for reporting and other priorities.
• Dan Robinson spent 34 years with Voice of America as chief White House, congressional and foreign correspondent and head of its Myanmar Service.
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