SOUTHEAST ASIA MEDIA ACTIVITIES (AFP) Trump appointee shakes up US broadcasting, raising fears. (Deadline) Voice Of America Director, Deputy Director Resign After Donald Trump-Selected CEO Takes Over At Global Media Agency. (Huff Post) Voice Of America Denounces CDC For Blacklisting Reporters After White House Smear

 SOUTHEAST ASIA MEDIA ACTIVITIES

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Politics

Trump appointee shakes up US broadcasting, raising fears

June 18, 2020, 4:47 PM PDT

President Donald Trump, who has consistently railed against the news media, has appointed a new head of the agency overseeing government broadcasters, raising fears they could lose their editorial independence and be turned into poliitical tools (AFP Photo/POOL)

Washington (AFP) - The head of the US agency overseeing government-funded broadcasters including Voice of America and Radio Free Asia has begun a massive shakeup, raising fears the news outlets are being politicized.

The organizations' directors have either quit or been fired by the new head of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), Michael Pack, according to lawmakers.

The moves have raised concerns that the appointee of President Donald Trump will seek to end the editorial independence of the outlets which include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti.

Voice of America director Amanda Bennett and deputy director Sandy Sugawara, both veteran journalists, announced their resignations Monday as Pack was preparing to assume his duties.

On Wednesday, Pack dismissed the heads of the other outlets and dissolved the oversight boards of the organizations at the agency, which is government funded but structured to operate with editorial independence and serve countries lacking a free press.

Lawmakers and others voiced alarm that the outlets could become tools of Trump, who has long denounced mainstream media.

"Michael Pack has confirmed he is on a political mission to destroy the USAGM's independence and undermine its historic role," said Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat.

"The wholesale firing of the agency's network heads, and disbanding of corporate boards to install President Trump's political allies is an egregious breach of this organization's history and mission from which it may never recover."

Janet Steele, director of the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication at George Washington University, also expressed concern.

"The sacking of the heads of those three news outlets confirms the worst fears of those of us who believed that the appointment of Michael Pack was part of an effort to turn USAGM into the international propaganda arm of the Trump administration," Steele said.

The White House in April accused VOA of spreading Chinese "propaganda" about the coronavirus pandemic, and instructed US health officials to refuse interviews to the news organization, according to Bennett.

"This kind of blatant political interference has long been the norm in the developing countries with which I'm most familiar, but not in the US," Steele said.

"It is thus a very sad day for those of us who value the contribution of journalists at USAGM -- many of whom themselves escaped authoritarian regimes -- and credible, non-partisan reporting."

Responding to an AFP query, the agency said Pack intends to "steer the agency back toward its mission: 'to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.'"

In an email to employees, Pack said he was "fully committed to honoring VOA's charter," as well as the missions of the other news outlets.

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Politics

Voice Of America Director, Deputy Director Resign After Donald Trump-Selected CEO Takes Over At Global Media Agency

Ted Johnson

DeadlineJune 15, 2020, 9:33 AM PDT

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/voice-america-director-deputy-director-163336361.html

Click here to read the full article.

Voice of America Director Amanda Bennett and Deputy Director Sandy Sugawara resigned on Monday, after defending the government-backed media outlet from withering attacks from the White House and President Donald Trump.

Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Michael Pack, was confirmed by the Senate earlier this month. In a note to staff on Monday morning, Bennett said that Pack has the right to replace them with his own VOA leadership.

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Bennett also said that Pack “swore before Congress to respect and honor the firewall that guarantees VOA’s independence, which in turn plays the single most important role in the stunning trust VOA’s audiences around the world have in the organization,” a spokesperson for VOA said. “She remarked that she and Deputy Director Sugawara know that all VOA staff members will offer him all of their skills, their professionalism, their dedication to mission, their journalistic integrity and their personal hard work to guarantee that promise is fulfilled.”

Bennett had defended the agency after the White House attacked its coverage of the coronavirus crisis, claiming that it “amplified Beijing’s propaganda.”

“We are thoroughly covering China’s disinformation and misinformation in English and Mandarin and at the same time reporting factually –– as we always do in all 47 of our broadcast languages — on other events in China,” Bennett wrote in April.

But Trump’s attacks continued, as he called the outlet a “disgrace.”

Over the weekend, Bennett also weighed in after a report that the Centers for Disease Control had blacklisted VOA from interviews, including those coming from one of its on air personalities, Greta Van Susteren. The Knight First Amendment Institute published emails obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request, showing that CDC public affairs staff told public affairs staff to ignore VOA media requests.

Bennett said in a statement that “efforts such as those outlined in the CDC memo can result in the kind of chilling effect on our journalism that we regularly see in the markets we broadcast to that have no free press – including in China and Russia.”

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Politics

Voice Of America Denounces CDC For Blacklisting Reporters After White House Smear

Mary Papenfuss

HuffPost June 15, 2020, 4:50 AM PDT

 

 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was ordered in April not to cooperate with the Voice of America because the White House claimed the government-funded news service was disseminating Chinese “propaganda,” according to an email unearthed by a watchdog organization.
The bizarre White House attack on the federally funded VOA said “much of the U.S. media takes its lead from China.” The broadside was so odd that many initially thought hackers had posted it on the White House website, The New York Times reported.
The Voice of America’s director on Sunday angrily responded to the CDC, calling the freeze on its reporters “shocking” and “troubling” and comparing the action to authoritarian nations without a free press — like China.
In the April 30 CDC email, obtained by Just Security and released Friday, Michawn Rich informs the organization’s press staff: “As a rule, do not send up [press interview] requests from [VOA reporter] Greta von Susteren or anyone working for VOA because of this” — and links to the White House statement. Rich, communications director for Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, was assigned to the CDC in March to shape the CDC’s press response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The White House statement posted in early April accused the Voice of America of amplifying “Beijing’s propaganda.” As an example, the statement cited a comment in a VOA article that China’s strict lockdown at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak was successful in stemming the spread of the disease — a view widely held by scientists around the world.
The statement also accused the VOA of using “Communist government statistics” to compare China’s coronavirus death toll to America’s. In fact, the VOA used figures provided by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center in Baltimore, widely considered the gold standard of pandemic statistics.
At the time the statement was issued, the U.S. COVID-19 death toll had surpassed China, and President Donald Trump had begun to accuse the Chinese government of lying about its figures — and blaming China for the pandemic.
The VOA responded to the White House statement with a long list of its articles critical of China based on what it called “verifiable facts.” It also bitingly pointed out the difference between “state-controlled” media — compelled to follow the party line — and “publicly-funded independent media,” like the VOA, which “shows all sides of an issue.”
On Sunday, the VOA issued a scathing response to the CDC email.
“We were shocked to read the internal CDC documents instructing the agency’s media relations office to refuse media requests from ‘anyone associated with Voice of America,’ citing White House” accusations that the VOA was spreading “Chinese propaganda,” director Amanda Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, said in a statement. “VOA, a federally funded independent news organization, strongly rejects the accusations and calls on the CDC to immediately withdraw the instructions.”
For a “federal agency’s public affairs office to categorically deny in advance interview requests from VOA journalists ... based on a White House opinion statement ... is even more troubling,” Bennett continued.
The attack on the VOA is occurring as Trump is making a power play to control the organization and force it to spin positive coverage for his administration. The Senate early this month voted to make conservative filmmaker and Steve Bannon pal Michael Pack head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that oversees the VOA.
The New York Times reported that Trump intervened to nail down Pack’s confirmation quickly amid an investigation by the attorney general for the District of Columbia into whether Pack diverted at least $1.6 million in donations to his nonprofit organization to his for-profit film company. That investigation is continuing.